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AutoCAD Memory usage sky high


busseynova

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I'm hoping someone can help with this as I'm having a nightmare. My ACAD (2010) memory usage seems sky high. When starting up the memory ramps up until it plataues at 95%. The programme becomes very slow and switching viewports usually causes a crash. On the below screen capture, A is the previous crash. B Is without AutoCAD running, then where it ramps up is where ACAD is started. C is where our 'millerCAD' plug in initialises, after which it continues to ramp up to 95% and the programme becomes very slow, the 95% remains even though I'm not trying to do anything, running commands, anything like that.

 

I don't think it used to run at these kind of levels, my workmate's machine which is the same spec is running at about 40% memory usage with ACAD and 3DS running.

 

I've already reinstalled and then uninstalled and reinstalled to no effect.

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

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What are your computer's specs?

 

What OS are you running?

 

32-bit or 64-bit?

 

What else is running in the background?

 

Are you working off a network?

 

Just because your system runs slow doesn't automatically mean you should uninstall then reinstall a program.

 

When you did the uninstall did you follow the steps as outlined on the AutoDesk website?

 

Are you using any xrefs? How about layer filters? Got a bloated scale list?

 

Is the CommCenter enabled or disabled?

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I've got Windows 7, Firefox, Outlook, AutoCAD 2012 (with four drawings opened), Excel, Windows Explorer (two copies open) and AutoCAD 2013 (one drawing open) all running at the moment and I'm using approximately 33% of my available RAM.

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What are your computer's specs?

 

What OS are you running?

 

32-bit or 64-bit?

 

What else is running in the background?

 

Are you working off a network?

 

Just because your system runs slow doesn't automatically mean you should uninstall then reinstall a program.

 

When you did the uninstall did you follow the steps as outlined on the AutoDesk website?

 

Are you using any xrefs? How about layer filters? Got a bloated scale list?

 

Is the CommCenter enabled or disabled?

 

Hi sorry for the delay in replying

 

It's Windows 7 64bit

 

There was nothing running in the background at the time of that screen shot, just things like antivirus obviously, no heavy programmes like photoshop ior 3DS.

 

Yes it's run off a network, sorry that's not something I know ant details about.

 

There were a couple of Xrefs in the DWG.... 2 images and one DWG, copied a few times.

 

There are 9 layer filters in the DWG, all used by MillerCAD.

 

The scale list appears to have about 18 different scales, I think they're the default values. I've not changed these.

 

How do I turn the communication centre off?

 

Annoyingly (almost) it's behaving itself today and with the same DWG open and several other programmes it's levelling out at about 3.2GB memory usuage. I haven't even rebooted since yesterday!

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Sometimes all it takes is shutting down the system completely then rebooting.

 

What's with the "2 images and one drawing, copied a few times"? How many copies and why?

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From your RAM graph it seems there's a memory leak in either your millerCAD addon, or the interface between it and ACad. Was the addon made specifically for 2010? Or did it perform with less RAM on earlier versions? Perhaps something changed in 2010 and causes millerCAD to keep on addressing extra RAM.

 

Even so, the level at C (i.e. before millerCAD's loaded) seems high, was this with a DWG opened in ACad? If not there's something wrong as a blank ACad should not use more than about 500MB (at worst) - that seems like 1 to 2GB.

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Is adding RAM an option? Of your 8G, your CAD+miller = 3.2G is 'stable' + MSWindows will use 4-ish GB you are left with

 

What does your video card look like? Are you running out of video RAM and robbing from your system RAM?

 

How 'heavy' are the images? What file format?

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Is adding RAM an option? Of your 8G, your CAD+miller = 3.2G is 'stable' + MSWindows will use 4-ish GB you are left with

 

What does your video card look like? Are you running out of video RAM and robbing from your system RAM?

 

How 'heavy' are the images? What file format?

 

I believe that's hard disk space, not RAM. I have 5 drawings open and using 360MB with AutoCAD.

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I have a common issue on my PC which causes large RAM usage increases. It happens whenever I use the ORBIT command - I cant exactly explain why it happens, but whenever I ORBIT, i have to escape out of the first attempt, then re-execute the command.

 

Do you do any orbiting during your sessions?

 

Cheers.

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I have a common issue on my PC which causes large RAM usage increases. It happens whenever I use the ORBIT command - I cant exactly explain why it happens, but whenever I ORBIT, i have to escape out of the first attempt, then re-execute the command.

 

Do you do any orbiting during your sessions?

 

Cheers.

 

The ORBIT command will definitely tax your system, especially if you are in realistic or hidden visual style. If you can do it in 2D Wireframe visual style instead, much less so.

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Definately agree. Most of the work we do is in 3D model space, and we almost always use 2D Wireframe visual style (when orbiting and working). On the rare occasions we might use a shaded visual style, we know we could be in trouble.

 

Although, sometimes even when merely entering/beginning to ORBIT command (before even selecting a change in visual style), the RAM use can spike. It just seems like a lot of work for the system to even initiate ORBIT. Thinking back, we never had this issue on earlier versions of CAD.

 

Cheers.

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Thats right, visual style is set to 2D Wireframe as default/standard setting, then upon entering the ORBIT command - RAM spike (before changing visual style).

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...Thinking back, we never had this issue on earlier versions of CAD.
Depending how far back you're thinking ;) there might not have been an orbit command. In much older ACads each change in the direction of the view would require a regen - i.e. recalculating the model for display.

 

It's a situation of orbit "converting" the normal linework/solids/faces into OpenGL/Direct3D objects for direct input into the graphics card. This would take some CPU, but also some RAM to perform. Then if the model is complex, it would not be able to be loaded directly into the CG's own RAM (fully) - i.e. it's cached in the normal RAM. That's when you notice portions disappearing as you rotate the model, then reappearing after you've stopped rotating (i.e. the cache is reloaded to the GC as only those portions visible at present).

 

It's an old problem, I even remember models in the 90's where ACad would open them fine (though very slowly), but opening the same model in 3DS would simply crash with an "out of RAM error". Similar problem to what you're experiencing. Those OpenGL/Direct3D objects take up many times more RAM than the original DWG file does. The rule of thumb is 8GB (on 64bit W7 with ACad2010+) as an absolute minimum, i.e. close all other programs when working in 3D - or get yourself 12/16/more GB of RAM so you can run other proggies at the same time. Typically W7 uses 2GB on its own, then Outlook could use anything from 100MB to 2GB depending on the size of your mailboxes - so already you could have halved the available RAM for ACad.

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Wow, certainly something to consider - thanks irneb.

 

The best ORBIT performance I have seen in autoCAD was on 2002 - you could select objects to ORBIT, and autoCAD would quickly shade and ORBIT only the selected objects. In 2009, 2010 and 2011. When pre-selecting objects for the ORBIT command... it seems autoCAD wants to prep the entire model (guessing) rather than just the selection.

 

We do have dangerously underpowered machines at work, and the result is numerous crashes throughout the day, and hours of lost work each and every week.

 

We (the employees) have tried to convince our boss to upgrade our machines and systems, but for some reason he is refusing to do it. I guess he is not hands-on and only really does managerial tasks these days (though he used to be a draftsman), its hard to get him to appreciate how hard it is to work on these slow/weak computers.

 

Thanks for the tips regarding RAM and computer power though, it does highlight and explain reasons we are having so many issues. Using XP 32-bit, 4GB RAM, AutoCAD 2010 and ProSteel - most of our work is 3D modelling, though we try to 'shade' as seldom as possible.

 

Cheers.

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Sorry to hear, we had similar problems last year (i.e. convincing the powers that be that 5+ year old PC's simply didn't cut it anymore). We're working on 2 Revit models of hotels around 150MB per RVT file, and this used the entire 2GB/3GB on WinXP 32bit, everything else was swapped out to disc as soon as you opened the file. And then the PC's started to crash as you started working on the model. Now with some of the PC's upgraded to 16GB, we've not seen any crashes - though the model now consumes 4-6GB.

 

Generally we don't use ACad for 3D anymore, in our line it's simply too inefficient to draw using Solid Modeling / Face Modeling - i.e. Revit's BIM takes away a lot of extra work on our part. It's just when we do 2D details where ACad outperforms Revit no-end!

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Wow, certainly something to consider - thanks irneb.

 

The best ORBIT performance I have seen in autoCAD was on 2002 - you could select objects to ORBIT, and autoCAD would quickly shade and ORBIT only the selected objects. In 2009, 2010 and 2011. When pre-selecting objects for the ORBIT command... it seems autoCAD wants to prep the entire model (guessing) rather than just the selection.

 

We do have dangerously underpowered machines at work, and the result is numerous crashes throughout the day, and hours of lost work each and every week.

 

We (the employees) have tried to convince our boss to upgrade our machines and systems, but for some reason he is refusing to do it. I guess he is not hands-on and only really does managerial tasks these days (though he used to be a draftsman), its hard to get him to appreciate how hard it is to work on these slow/weak computers.

 

Thanks for the tips regarding RAM and computer power though, it does highlight and explain reasons we are having so many issues. Using XP 32-bit, 4GB RAM, AutoCAD 2010 and ProSteel - most of our work is 3D modelling, though we try to 'shade' as seldom as possible.

 

Cheers.

 

Are you aware that if you select items before you start the 3D ORBIT command that it acts differently?

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Since you mentioned there is 4GB of RAM installed and you are running WinXP I have to ask. Is the boot.ini configured for the 3GB switch? Have you done any tweaking of your virtual memory settings?

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