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Slow, slow and slower still


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I've followed the discussion on slow performance in Mac OSX - I'm also suffering since upgrading to 10.3.

Re-draw is painfully slow, the flyover and translate view tools (I use these more frequently than almost any others) are almost impossible to use, rendering times are glacial.

I've got a G4/533 with 1.25gb ram

VW 10.5.1 + Renderworks

Mac OS 10.3.4

I've run Disk Utility and Norton Speed Disk - Norton Anti Virus hasn't detected anything unpleasant.

Any ideas? I'm desparate to get on with some work!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Some OS X maintenance items that might help:

repair permissions;

rebuild prebindings;

clean the Virtual Memory swapfiles;

run the cron daily, weekly, and monthly scripts.

If you don't want to muck around in Unix in Terminal, you can download a program like Panther Cache Cleaner (shareware) or OnyX (freeware).

In VW itself, I noticed a marked improvement in screen redraw and rendering speed when I set "Retain Rendering Model" to "Never" in VW preferences (File > Preferences > VectorWorks Preferences > 3D > Retain Rendering Model). [NB: I'm running VW Architect 10.5.1 and OS X 1.3.5 on a 2 GHz G5 Dual, so YMMV.]

You might also try purging unused objects (Edit > Purge unused objects) in the problem file(s).

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VW is almost impossible to use in Mac OS 10.3 when files get anything like large.

It beats me why the guys at Nemetschek did not spot this when testing the beta version of OS 10.3 from Apple !

It would be useful for Nemetschek to inform anyone buying VW or upgrading Mac hardware that VW does not work in OS 10.3

I have had to go back to using an old iMac with OS 9.2.2 while my new Mac with OS 10.3.5 (only delivered with OS10.3) sits idle .... what a waste of money

lets hope that Nemetschek get Apple to fix the problem for the release of OS 10.4 (at least 8 months away)

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I think you should check your system. I had an imac 500 g3 machins running with only 256mb on panther a it works fine. I use it now on an imac g4 an it performs really well.

The only problem i found it's when i use itunes at the same time, i have to restart to use vectorwork. I always have the retain rendering model option as never. The 3d and 2d conversion resolution on medium.

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Thanks for the suggestions.

mclaugh - I tried your ideas with little, if any, improvement. Panther Cache Cleaner looks like a useful piece of software.

klaus - thanks, I thought I was alone! File sizes are typically 20-30mb, I'm going to install VW on a G3 OS9.2.2 today to see if there's any improvement.

RHF - I replaced the hard disk (160gb) and re-installed everything this week - no change. itunes is not open when I use VW.

leonard - I'd also like to hear if there is any improvement in VW11 before investing.

Thanks again - must get back to the drawing board!

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i am running vectorworks 11.0.1, mac osx 10.3.5, on a brand new G5 (dual 1.8ghz, 1.25gb ram) with nothing installed except for vectorworks and office.

the redraw seems very slow and the interactive zoom doesnt work because its so slow to update the screen.

i'm only working on 2d drawings, the biggest is 10mb most of the others are 2 or 3mb.

im not running itunes or anything else while running vectorworks.

is it something i'm doing wrong?

i would have thought that a new G5 and the latest sofware would blow me away performance wise but the reality is somewhat disapointing and frustrating.

is vectorworks simply not capable of handling large files?

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I am using VW 10.5.1 and the problems realy start when there are more than 15000 objects .... when I select all I get the spinning colour wheel for a while but when I have 100000 object I can be waiting for over 10 mins .... and deselecting takes just as long

also redraws take ages on files with lots of objects, and there is no way of stopping a redraw as in VW8 by pressing command + .

another thing that annoys me is the class tab on the oject info pallet is very slow compared with OS9 .... for example if I have lots of classes and I need to change the class of an object, if its at the bottom of the list it takes ages to scroll to there .... not good for productivity

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The slow OIP happens when you make an edit and then move the mouse. If you you wait to move the mouse until after the OIP has updated it will take far less time. NNA is aware of the details of the slow OIP problem and I expect a fix soon.

As for the other issues of slow screen redraws. Here's the scoop. OS9 uses the processor to calculate the position of pixels on the screen. This rasterization of the file is not a simple task. Plotter software is slow for the same reasons, it is not a simple task. OSX asks the video card to perform this task. Most video cards processors are not as fast as the main CPU so the switch will affect the performance. What it boils down to is if you are running large files with new software on an old video card then you will have issues. I recommend using class or layer visibility to filter down the number of objects your trying to display and get a fast video card.

As for the G5 not performing: the 1.8Mhz G5 is only 28% faster than my 1.4Ghz G4. That is not a perceivable difference. VW is not a 64 bit app or written for DP. So I am not sure why you would expect to be blown away. Once VW is compiled specifically for the G5, becomes multi-threaded and then you test it on a fast G5 like the 2.5Ghz you will notice an improvement.

HTH

Patrick

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i expected to be blown away because i moved from a g4 450 mhz with 384 ram to a new G5. i expected the screen to be responsive and significantly faster. i would say the performance increase is marginal.

i think it has more to do with the vectorworks display engine than the hardware.

it just cant seem to cope with large files.

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quote:

Originally posted by patman:

...As for the G5 not performing: the 1.8Mhz G5 is only 28% faster than my 1.4Ghz G4. That is not a perceivable difference. VW is not a 64 bit app or written for DP. So I am not sure why you would expect to be blown away. Once VW is compiled specifically for the G5, becomes multi-threaded and then you test it on a fast G5 like the 2.5Ghz you will notice an improvement.

HTH

Patrick

Patrick: I think that Apple's marketing department would take issue with this comment. They have worked very hard to tell us that a G5 is a big improvement in speed over a G4.

Your other comments sound knowledgable. However, I see that you are not part of NNA. What is the source of this information.?

It would be nice to have a member of NNA provide the same detailed information.

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Patrick:

Thanks for the info. The OIP is a huge issue for me. Now that the Door and Window OIPs have become more complex, the need for instant response is even more important.

I have a 466/G4. It worked fine for me for years. But now that I am using OS10.3 and VWA11.0, the speed of VW has really slowed down.

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Hi Kevin, dara,

I have been working hard with their quality assurance dept. to provide them with useful info. As a long time user, I helped them isolate the slow OIP bug. NNA is now aware and able to reproduce the problem. Given that I expect they will work to fix it. Most bug complaints are not filed with enough data to accurately diagnose or reproduce the problem which is essential to locating the real problem.

Of course apple wants you to believe the G5 is all that. But the reality is simple. It is a 64bit processor running 32bit apps. So the speed gains you'd expect from the increased buss bandwidth will not be realized until the apps are updated. So the majority of the gains your gonna see is found in the ratio of clock speeds.

A friend moved from a G4/400 to a G5/1.8DP and has seen a ~5x increase in rendering speed and other heavy processor related tasks. That to me is great. But we are, after all, human. That perceived speed improvement seams to ware off within a week or so...

I settled for a processor upgrade and will hold out for the 3Ghz DP. And wait for everything else to catch up.

Patrick

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All this makes me realise that Apple Macs are now a complete and utter waste of time and money .... VW, Artlantis and Photoshop are so much quicker on PC's and seem to be far more stable .... even three year old PC's I use in some clients offices make mincemeat out of new Mac's .... guess what I'm buying soon

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