Ok – Hey Group:
Sorry it took so long to get the summary posted for this. I received several replies ( below). It took a while to look into it but IT has now determined that setting the 3 GB switch would not help my particular situation. I don’t understand their explanation. I think it can down to an issue within pro/E. Basically ((“Pro/Engineer wasn't requesting to use more RAM memory...(more than 2 GB.... I assume) so, it would not do any good to set the switch and make more available, because it wasn'tusing everything that was available to it to begin with.)) That is how it wasexplained to me & then suggested (as someof you did) that we move to a 64 bit machine. So - We set up a 64 bit machine Dell T5400 - Windows 7 - NVIDIA Quadro FX3700 loaded - WF4.0 m100 – and had the 8GB of ram installed. That should have been a great machine, but the machine ran worse than my 32 bit machine did. The only thing out of the ordinary was that Windows 7 isn’t in PTC’s platform support matrix for the Dell T5400. Once they set me up I noticed immediately that is was slower even on simple tasks. Spin, Pan & zoom were lagging, minor drawing updates were slower, it was terrible compared to my 32 bit machine. Then we installedan Nvidia Quadro "performance driver" which was better suited for CAD,that was a big improvement and it now seems to be running at least as well as my old 32bit. It seems pretty stable so far, but I can't say that it's any faster than it was. I'll be testing that out in the coming weeks.
Thank you for you help
T. Willis
(replies)
Don’t know about the 3GB switch. We don’t use that option. Although I have found over the years that models that have even one or two features that have very complex sketches (20 or more “use edge” references or lot’s of splines with tangency) or things like selecting too many edges (more than 20 for example) while creating a single round feature set (for example) will bring Pro/E to its knees.Helpful, maybe? – Probably not for your particular situation, huh?
Several ideas come to mind.
1. Obviously, do consider updating to i7. Its represents a significant boost in terms of processing power.
2. Updating to win 64. But this only help if you have very large assemblies and take more than 4gb of memory. If you find that your hardisk activities is always high, then win64 will help. Once you have upgrded to win 64, add memory until about 6-8gb will be great.
3. You can set your accuracy to lower (i typically use 0.01mm abs), but scale up your model 10x or more. eg 1mm becomes 100mm. etc Using mm instead of inch also helps. ie instead of 1 inch (proe only sees it as 1
unit) use 25.4mm instead (proe sees 25.4 units now)
4. Other strategies are : try subdividing the model into several parts, where the complex parts are in 1 part, and the features where you need to change always in another part, then merging them in assembly.
3 gig will not help, 64 bit will help regeneration time,
What you may want to try is to recreate the part with surfacing then at the end of the part create a solid from the surface
What about Geom Checks? Are there any of those? (Look under the Info Menu..)
If there are Geom Checks, I’d suggest working those issue out before looking into hardware changes.
Adding more memory can help in some cases, but I suspect accuracy / Geom Check issues first, in this case.
The 3GB switch only expands the size of the models you can open in Pro/e on 32-Bit Windows.
It’s doesn’t do anything for performance.
From what you have said it sounds like you’re able to open and work with the model. Therefore,
If you are running 32-Bit Windows the 3GB switch wouldn’t help performance.
If you are running 64-Bit windows & your model+OS is bigger than your physical memory then adding
Memory would improve performance.
You need to check your virtual space usage to determine If your system is using temp/swap.
If it is than more memory will help. The 3GB switch is not applicable on 64-Bit Windows.
You don't say which OS you're using. I know that the 3GB switch is useful when using XP 32bit on assemblies & parts which use more than 2GB of memory.
I don’t think the 3gig switch will save you. You only have 4 gig of ram. You are probably getting the most out of that as you can. Switching to 64 bit and adding 4 or more gig of ram will help some but not all. You stated the processor goes to 50 % but also look at how much ram is being used. That may shed some light on things.
So really look at your part. I assume that you have many patterns in your part to make it so complex? If so do this. Use insert mode to back up to the first pattern. Redefine it and change the pattern OPTION to identical from general assuming your patterns do not intersect each other. Then drag the insert arrow to the next pattern and do the same thing. Identical patterns calculate quicker that the other 2 forms.
Changing the accuracy of the model may help too. However that will just be a hunt and peck guess which you have to wait for each complete regen to see if it works. For similar situations I've just gone with a datum curve representation.
It looks the same and plots the same. To make it even faster, export it as an iges and then re-import it as a datum curve from file - voila, no regen time.
It worked well enough to represent a diamond pierced expanded metal part- plots great, looks great. Simulates a few hundred openings and opens too fast to notice the time it takes.
It may also help to change from a circular section to square or octagonal. Try making a short segment and patterning it. Or make a small segment and assemble them to get the full part.
Best of Luck and Happy New Year!
In Reply to Tracy Willis:
Hey all –
I have a few models that are a real nightmare to work on because of really, really long regeneration time. It’s not a large assembly. It is just a single part, but its complex. I have dumbed the model down as much a possible but I can’t simplify the features anymore. I’m at the minimum. There is no file corruption or anything like that going on. I’ve modeled this several time in many different ways with the same results. When I get to the later stages of the design that’s when things go bad. When that happens - as soon as I make a change & and begin regeneration the CPU usage ramps to 50% and just holds there for several minutes and the application in task manages says “not responding” after several minutes it comes around.
I’m running WF 4.0 M100 on a certified system: It’s a Dell 690 with 4GB RAM and a Quadro FX 4600 graphics adapter. I’ve set my graphics card to best performance rather than best quality but things are still dragging. Can the 3GB switch help me? Can it eben be set on my individual machine to speed up Pro/E or is that something that can only be set on a server and not on my user account or on my local machine? Please help – is there anything i can do?
Thanks Everyone – Hope everyone has a Happy and SAFE New Year’s Eve.
Cheers
tw
2. Updating to win 64. But this only help if you have very large assemblies and take more than 4gb of memory.If you find that your hardisk activities is always high, then win64 will help.Once you have upgrded to win 64, add memory until about 6-8gb will be great. unit) use 25.4mm instead (proe sees 25.4 units now)
