Performance with large complex assemblies

gchampoux · ‎Oct 26, 2012

How do you deal with performance issues in large complex assemblies?

A few of our engineers are complaining about slow performance with our large assemblies.
Specifically in the drawings for these assemblies. (15-30 E-size sheets)
We make jet engines, which contain 500-1000 parts, most of which are very complex.
Many parts have over 500 features, Some have over 1000.
Seemingly simple tasks such as switching from one sheet to another sheet in a drawing takes 2 minutes.
We estimate that these engineers will waste about 1 hour of their day waiting for things to happen.
Our PC's have 3.4 GHz Core i7 (quad-core) with16 GB RAM.
Our engineers are using simplified reps, but that doesn't seem to help enough.
And we know that they have enough RAM. They are never exceed the RAM.
(Not swapping into virtual memory)

Any advice from anyone that works with large complex assembly drawings?

Gerry Champoux
Williams International
Walled Lake, MI

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RandyJones · ‎Oct 26, 2012

On 10/26/12 07:32, Gerry Champoux wrote:
>
> How do you deal with performance issues in large complex assemblies?
>
> A few of our engineers are complaining about slow performance with our large assemblies.
> Specifically in the drawings for these assemblies. (15-30 E-size sheets)
> We make jet engines, which contain 500-1000 parts, most of which are very complex.
> Many parts have over 500 features, Some have over 1000.
> Seemingly simple tasks such as switching from one sheet to another sheet in a drawing takes 2 minutes.
> We estimate that these engineers will waste about 1 hour of their day waiting for things to happen.
> Our PC's have 3.4 GHz Core i7 (quad-core) with16 GB RAM.
> Our engineers are using simplified reps, but that doesn't seem to help enough.
> And we know that they have enough RAM. They are never exceed the RAM.
> (Not swapping into virtual memory)
>
> Any advice from anyone that works with large complex assembly drawings?
>

Check out the auto_regen_views config option. Setting this to no will make a big difference.

>
> Gerry Champoux
> Williams International
> Walled Lake, MI
>
>
> ----------

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Randy Jones
Systems Administrator
Great Plains Mfg., Inc.
1525 E North St
PO Box 5060
Salina, KS USA 67401
email: -
Phone: 785-823-3276
Fax: 785-667-2695
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notify Moderator · ‎Oct 26, 2012

Gerry,

Are the using Drawing Simp Reps or just assembly reps?

Also, Quilts, especially quilt HLR is horrendously slow in drawings,
consider turning it off until publishing.

Also, as Randy mentioned, auto regen views is critical.

StephenW · ‎Nov 03, 2012

Gerry,
In addition to the previous comments, I just had a user say that they went from 30 minutes to regen the views on a drawing to 4 minutes by changing the windows theme from WINDOWS 7 to WINDOWS CLASSIC.
I can't personally verify this because I am still on Windows XP (so I am windows classic) but I will be moving to Windows 7 in the next few weeks so I will try it then.
Since video has so much to do with pro/e performance, I can believe this might just be true, maybe someone else on the EXPLODER can testify to this.

DeanLong · ‎Nov 04, 2012

Gerry,

I have also hidddenall the viewsI am not interested in working with. True, I take the bullet upon opening the drawing and saving...but with views hidden the machine does not need to redraw every view everytimeI move the environment window or go sheet to sheet. I found a "before" pdf helps with remembering what view was what when they are hidden.

Dean

STEVEG · ‎Nov 05, 2012

We ordered three laptops (approved by PTC) recently and needed to send them to remote users. While configuring them I ran into a problem of it taking 2 or 3 times to run the batch file before Pro/E actually started. This happened on each of the three laptops.

I couldn't figure out why so I put in a call to PTC. They logged in and Pro/E started right away each time. Ok, so close the call. Went back to configuring and tried Pro/E and again it took 2 or 3 times running the batch file before Pro/E would start. Reopened the call to PTC. They logged in and Pro/E would start right away.

At first he suggested adding a switch to the start command in the shortcut.
"<proe install=" dir=">\bin\proe.exe" -g:win32_gdi

I asked him about this and he said the addition of this string to the command essentially bypasses the graphics card and runs the graphics capability of the main processor. If you have a graphics card installed, the Pro/E will first try to run using that and if there is some problem then it doesn't launch.

In the same email he said I can also try and put the theme to Basic. Tried starting Pro/E and it had no problem. I asked him how he knew to change the theme he said that when he logged in to the laptop using webex the theme gets changed to Basic.

Steve G

gchampoux · ‎Nov 05, 2012

Steve & Steve,

Although we are quickly moving to Window 7, the particular user with the performance issue is running Windows XP Pro x64.

We are also well aware of the -g option to disable OpenGL.
This can also be achieved by adding “graphics win32_dgi” to Config.pro.
We use that at times to diagnose various graphic issues for graphic cards and drivers.
And we have always noticed that graphics performace degrade, but that was expected.
We have never seen performance improve.

And it has always been my understanding the OpenGL is not used (or even needed) in drawing mode, and therefore the disabling OpenGL would have little or no impact.

Gerry Champoux
Williams International
Walled Lake, MI

In Reply to Stephen Galayda:

We ordered three laptops (approved by PTC) recently and needed to send them to remote users. While configuring them I ran into a problem of it taking 2 or 3 times to run the batch file before Pro/E actually started. This happened on each of the three laptops.

I couldn't figure out why so I put in a call to PTC. They logged in and Pro/E started right away each time. Ok, so close the call. Went back to configuring and tried Pro/E and again it took 2 or 3 times running the batch file before Pro/E would start. Reopened the call to PTC. They logged in and Pro/E would start right away.

At first he suggested adding a switch to the start command in the shortcut.
"<proe install=" dir=">\bin\proe.exe" -g:win32_gdi

I asked him about this and he said the addition of this string to the command essentially bypasses the graphics card and runs the graphics capability of the main processor. If you have a graphics card installed, the Pro/E will first try to run using that and if there is some problem then it doesn't launch.

In the same email he said I can also try and put the theme to Basic. Tried starting Pro/E and it had no problem. I asked him how he knew to change the theme he said that when he logged in to the laptop using webex the theme gets changed to Basic.

Steve G

TrainStopper · ‎Nov 05, 2012

Has anyone else evaluated the config.pro setting
graphics d3d

I have been running that way and it seems to be more responsive in Creo 2 on Win 7.

Regards,
Walt Weiss

dgallup · ‎Nov 05, 2012

In Windoze 7 start menu right click on Computer and select properties. That brings up the control panel. Pick Advanced System Settings. On the System Properties Advanced tab pick the Settings button in the performance area. There under Visual Effects is a magical button labeled Adjust for Best performance. Click it. Your computer will be much happier.

Getting to the exact same screen may take a slightly different path since no two installs of Windoze 7 seem to be the same. But keep looking, it's in there somewhere. Why this is not a a big red button when you first boot up and configure the computer is beyond me.

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