Speed up autocad

Hello,

I get very frustrated by the slowness of the pc when zooming in and out when the Xref or inserted file is to large (a image or a drawing).

When zoomed in it goes "normal", but when you zoom out or try to pan it goes way to slow for my comfort.

Are there settings that i can change to speed up this process ? I work with lots of image files as an xref, and 1 is do-able, but if you got a few of them in a drawing it gets kinda annoying.

The PC is an Q6600 @ stock with a Quadro FX1700, but i am not impressed by its performance.

VTENABLE set to 0 perhaps will help

IMAGEQUALITY = draft......however you have to remember to set it back to High before you plot in order to get a high quality image plot....

Have you tinkered with Performance Tuning at all?

How much physical RAM is installed?

What OS are you running and what version?

What other programs are currently running in the background?

How fast is your hard drive?

There are many factors that can affect the performance of your computer.

Have you purged your drawing?

Have you checked for the presence of a large amount of unregistered applications in your drawing (a.k.a. - regapps)?

- Windows XP PRO SP3 32Bit

- 3gb of DDR2

- SATA2 Hardrive (dunno what type/cache)

- No background apps that take up space, performance is the same on the other computers (They are HP Workstations)

- I haven't "tweaked" anything, and even if i have to i dunno what options te set off and still have enough functionality.

- Drawings are loaded from a netwerk drive, and that connection is pretty slow. But i do not see how the drive speed can have anything to do with it since if i pull the network cable its still as slow (so it doesn't write/read from the drive when i work in the drawing) (like in a case of network failure).

- The drawings are clean where i work in, so no special apps. The only thing that is loaded when opening an new drawing file is a layer style with our most used layers. Purging doesn't help.

"IMAGEQUALITY = draft" i tried, and it helped a bit when i try it at home (with an by specs i would say a way more worse computer than i use at work (E2140 @ 2.4gh with 2gb ram and a ATI 3850 with 5 high resolution pictures for testing).

"VTENABLE set to 0 perhaps will help" Doesn't give me any performance boost at home, no noticeable improvement anyway (we use 2009 at work, i use 2008 at home).

Maybe its the number of image files you work with. Anyway to isolate the ones that aren't immediately important to what you are doing?

Thats not an option although it are several standalone images in some cases, and otherwise its only 1 but very large (merged some images together from google map ) image.

I also installed the latest Quadro drivers and the autocad "performance" driver, but it doesn't give any boost at all (on the image scale as far as i can see).

What is the max physical RAM limitation on your computer? 4GB?

I'm having considerable speed issues as well with AutoCAD 2007. It takes a long time to open up AutoCAD, and every time I access a menu option to do anything, even if there is nothing in model space, it pauses for 8-10 seconds before I can do anything. This makes using the program a chore. I had an older PC which used the same program and had no issues of this sort.

My computer is a brand new PC laptop with the following specs:

CPU: Duo T9400

Display: 15.4" WSXGA+

ODD: DVD Sup MTI

HD: 500 GB

Memory: 4 GB

OS Windows XP

Any suggestions? Would an AutoCAD reinstall be helpful? Or is there a more insidious cause, or a setting that I can turn off?

Welcome to CADTutor J&S.

For future reference. It is always adviseable to start a new thread as opposed to tacking a question onto the thread someone else has started. This avoids hijacking the thread even though the problems may appear to be similar. It also makes it easier for people to follow the conversation as it progresses. I may elect to continue answering the original question while someone else elects to help you. All the responses get mixed though. See what I'm getting at? It is just a friendly suggestion. We welcome you to CT and encourage your continued involvement.

Now regarding your question. The first thing that comes to mind is the fact you are using XP (which version by the way?) and you have 4GB RAM installed. I think you might benefit from a change to your boot.ini file. But before we go there, have you installed all the service packs for 2007?

I always set up any computer I work on for best performance in the System Properties (right-click My Computer > Properties > Advanced tab > Performance > Visual Effects tab > Adjust for best performance). I doubt this would help very much with your situation since you are working with multiple attachments, but it may.

It is just a friendly suggestion. We welcome you to CT and encourage your continued involvement.

Good point, I will start a new thread with the same question and responses to ReMark's questions in that.

Speed AutoCAD up, a few things to try, I am sure there are others.

Options> Open and Save > Turn off display digital signature information

Check in layer manager to make sure you don't have 100's of layer filters, if so delete them.

Check the scale list to make sure you don't have 100's of scale lists.

Don't use true type fonts (TTF) and see if that helps, lots of those will slow things down.

Go through the file paths in Options>Files and make sure every single path listed

actually exists, be meticulous.

Dock the command line in the lower or upper portion of the autocad screen.

Close the new layer manager in 2009. Use LAYERDLGMODE set to 0.

Use -purge, Regapps, purge all.

Clean empty groups and unnamed groups out of drawing.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=50895

Various tips from an AutoCAD expert.

http://blog.jtbworld.com/2008/09/autocad-2009-slow-performance-tips.html

Disable the communication center.

http://otb.manusoft.com/2007/09/autocad-2008-slow-startup-fix.htm

rkent:

That is an excellent list of suggestions you've put together. Thank you.

rkent:

 

That is an excellent list of suggestions you've put together. Thank you.

Thanks, I have updated it based on other things I have remembered and or have read since this thread started.

Speed AutoCAD up, a few things to try, I am sure there are others.

Options> Open and Save > Turn off display digital signature information

Check in layer manager to make sure you don't have 100's of layer filters, if

so delete them.

Check the scale list to make sure you don't have 100's of scale lists.

Don't use true type fonts (TTF) and see if that helps, lots of those will slow things down.

Go through the file paths in Options>Files and make sure every single path listed

actually exists, be meticulous.

Dock the command line in the lower or upper portion of the autocad screen.

Close the new layer manager in 2009. Use LAYERDLGMODE set to 0.

Use -purge, Regapps, purge all.

Does your computer have Blue tooth? A user reported a blue tooth phone placed

near the computer slowed the computer to a crawl, they moved the phone away and

it sped back up.

Manual Tune video driver - Options, System, Performance Settings, Manual Tune,

Driver Name pulldown. Which one is showing? For vista Direct3D might be better.

For XP pick the driver for your card, mine is from nVidia so I have nvd3d9.hdi

picked. Pick the Enable hardware acceleration to see if that helps. Further

down move the sliders over to the left.

Viewres still affects the speed of the computer, contrary to what you may have

been told. Autodesk has confirmed this to me personally, especially so with

MEP. Set it to 500 instead of the maximum setting.

Set ltscale to the proper value, a large drawing with linetypes will slow down

when in MS with ltscale set to 1 or a small value.

Set the virtual memory paging file to a larger size with a min and max rather

than letting windose handle it for you. XP - Control Panel, System

Properties, Advanced, Performance Settings, Advanced, Virtual Memory Change,

Custom Size, Initial size = 3X ram (3GB ram = 9GB paging file size), maximum

size = 4X ram. Go larger if you have the hard drive space.

In the same area as immediately listed above, instead of Advanced tab pick V

isual Effects tab, pick adjust for best performance, then if you must go to

custom and pick the few settings you can't do without.

Lower hardware acceleration setting, in Control panel, Display, settings, advanced,

troubleshoot, move the hardware acceleration slider to the left one click

and try it out, keep moving it right and watching for a change in performance

and also fewer crashes. Find a setting you can live with.

Antivirus software - disable and see if there is a difference in performance.

Go to autodesk.com web site, pick Services and Support, use the Knowledge Base

and search on "slow", "delay", etc.

Clean empty groups and unnamed groups out of drawing.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=50895

Various tips from an AutoCAD expert.

http://blog.jtbworld.com/2008/09/autocad-2009-slow-performance-tips.html

Disable the communication center.

http://otb.manusoft.com/2007/09/autocad-2008-slow-startup-fix.htm

One more I remembered.

TREEDEPTH at -2520 and SORTENTS at 20, or turn SORTENTS to 0 if a large file

and using draworder.

That is impressive. I am going to print it out and tape it to the wall next to my workstation. Great work!

What is the max physical RAM limitation on your computer? 4GB?

32bit OS, so 3gb is kinda the max.

I found that changing the 'Layout Region Option' to 'Regen when switching layouts' (found in options, system) helped. Before changing this my machine would hang for ages. Hope it helps.

A setting that was allready enabled, so no effect.