Prime 3.0 - Time required to save and to close files is too long

[drieke]

Dear community members,

we use Prime 3.0 for a couple of time.

The majority of our calculation files are not that large (1 to 4 MB). But a file size larger than that

requires a very long period of time to save and to close these files (up to 4 or 5 min).

What is your experience?

Now we discuss to change to Prime 3.1 to save time. Or is this also a problem in Prime 3.1?

Thank you in advance!

Best regards

David

[LucMeekes · Accepted solution]

I should expect little to no improvement on this aspect with Prime 3.1. I find Prime (I use 3.1 Express) extremely slow in all aspects: Launch and close of application, entering and editing equations, accessing help, opening and closing .mcdx files.

You should be able to try it out for yourself by installing Prime Express on another computer and doing the exercise.

{You install Prime Express on another computer, one that does not need to have Prime. You cannot have Prime 3.0 and Prime 3.1 Express on the same computer, so installing Prime 3.1 Express on a computer with a licensed Prime 3.0 would render Prime 3.0 lost}

What makes your Prime files so big? Do you embed pictures?

Success!
Luc

[drieke]

Thank you for your helpful response.

Yes we embed pictures. Maybe the type of picture like png, jpeg, bmp is the problem?

We normally use png files.

Thank you!

Regards

[Raiko]

Hello David,

this isn't meant to be cynical, but I don't think it is worth the effort.

Prime 3.1 isn't in my experience any faster than prime 3.0. You have also the problem that prime 3.1 isn't downwards compatible and therefore any changes you have in the file can't be stored as 3.0 files which in turn means added effort. So reuse of your files is somehow hampered.

I suggest to use the old MathCad 15. MC15 has an old fashioned GUI but it does the job, is reliable, and unlike Prime, fast. A new version of MC15 is supposed to come out soon.

Perhaps Prime 4.0 will be faster but again this has been promoted by PTC since Prime 1.0 so...

Regards

Raiko

[DJF]

I've used both 3.0 and 3.1 and don't think there was any noticeable difference in speed (or anything else really).  However, I'm not sure your problem is MathCAD alone.  The largest file I have is 5 MB but it saves in about 10 seconds.  Sluggish, but it's certainly not 4-5 minutes.  That tells me there is another problem, maybe an operating system incompatibility issue or something. 

4.0 is supposed to come out shortly (due last month actually.....).  It might be worth waiting for that before you upgrade.