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Vectorworks 2018 really laggy.


gman19

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Hello,

 

My team and I work for a large corporation. We have used Vectorworks 2012, 15, 16, 17 and now 18. In the Versions 12 through 17 we used HP Laptops with i5-6300 CPU @ 2.40 GHz, 8GB of Ram on a 64 bit OS. Win 7.

 

We now use 2018 on a HP laptop i7 6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 16 GB of Ram 64-bit OS x64 based Processor and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M seperate Graphics card. 

 

In Vectorworks Preferences we have changed the Navigation Graphics to  Good performance and Compatibility. 

Unchecked Anti-aliasing

 

We do not use 3D or do anything complex we have our own symbols and our Drawings/CADs sizes are 38000 KBs and lower. 

 

The issue is that no matter the size of the CAD its very Laggy. We switched to the new Laptops with separate graphics card and 16 GB of RAM. We switched cause 17 and 18 made the smaller HP crash consistently. We no longer crash but the performance is laggy and terrible. 

 

Can someone fix this or has had the same problem. Could our network be throttled although they say they are not throttling us? No one in out IT departments knows how to fix it but its not used by anyone accept 5 of us. 

 

At the point of going back to 2016. 

 

Thanks,   

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9 hours ago, gman19 said:

We do not use 3D or do anything complex we have our own symbols and our Drawings/CADs sizes are 38000 KBs and lower. 

38 MB files are not that big from a VW perspective given all the information that gets stored. Are you perhaps using files that got created in VW 2016 or older? Do you experience the same or less lag with files started in VW2017/2018?

 

In my experience the lag is worse in files created in versions before VW2017 than with files started in VW2017/2018. In my case VW2016 is way more responsive with certain things where VW2017/2018 are quite laggy.

 

Are you using imported DWG files?

 

Jim, just for your info, all my working files are on the desktop so no network slowdown here.

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15 hours ago, gman19 said:

In Vectorworks Preferences we have changed the Navigation Graphics to  Good performance and Compatibility. 

 

Why ?

As far as I know this deactivates 2D View acceleration by GPU.

We switched that down in earlier versions only when we had visibility problems

of objects not showing. Which meanwhile seems to be solved.

 

Also it is important to assign VW to the stronger NVidia Card in Windows

(Energy Saving ?) Settings and use a suitable current GPU driver from the GPU

vendor, not only the one delivered from Windows update.

Edited by zoomer
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Do you see the same lag when working on a file that is saved to the local desktop? (This is just to remove any networking concerns as a test).

Hi Jim. I tried our largest file from the desktop and that seemed to work fine. Today I'm working on the second largest file we have and it is extremely laggy and annoying. The response time for selecting and moving objects is a few seconds. 

 

38 MB files are not that big from a VW perspective given all the information that gets stored. Are you perhaps using files that got created in VW 2016 or older? Do you experience the same or less lag with files started in VW2017/2018?

 

In my experience the lag is worse in files created in versions before VW2017 than with files started in VW2017/2018. In my case VW2016 is way more responsive with certain things where VW2017/2018 are quite laggy.

 

Are you using imported DWG files?

On 6/1/2018 at 12:34 AM, Art V said:

 

38 MB files are not that big from a VW perspective given all the information that gets stored. Are you perhaps using files that got created in VW 2016 or older? Do you experience the same or less lag with files started in VW2017/2018?

 

In my experience the lag is worse in files created in versions before VW2017 than with files started in VW2017/2018. In my case VW2016 is way more responsive with certain things where VW2017/2018 are quite laggy.

 

Are you using imported DWG files?

 

Jim, just for your info, all my working files are on the desktop so no network slowdown here.

 

On 5/31/2018 at 3:03 PM, JimW said:

Do you see the same lag when working on a file that is saved to the local desktop? (This is just to remove any networking concerns as a test)

Hello Art. YES. some of our files were created with VW 2012 , 2016 , 2017, up to 18. And yes we will import files as well. We had no issue till we switched to 18. we needed new computers cause 18 would crash every time.

On 6/1/2018 at 6:44 AM, zoomer said:

 

Why ?

As far as I know this deactivates 2D View acceleration by GPU.

We switched that down in earlier versions only when we had visibility problems

of objects not showing. Which meanwhile seems to be solved.

 

Also it is important to assign VW to the stronger NVidia Card in Windows

(Energy Saving ?) Settings and use a suitable current GPU driver from the GPU

vendor, not only the one delivered from Windows update.

  GPU? From NVidia? We were told buy our VW support person to try the Navigation Graphics mode. We use VW an hour a day sometimes more or less. 

 

THank you all for your help. 

 

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Does the problem persist with every file?  Some items will seriously bog down a file: imported sketchup, meshes, dwgs, etc.  I used to go back through my files and delete things systematically until the file seemed to "perk up" and then see what the culprit was.

With regard to laptops and their discrete graphics cards, I recommend running VW as an administrator, and if you can, adding VW to the list of programs that are forced to use the dedicated graphics card.  I find that the O.S. or the motherboard or whatever is making that switch is usually not inclined to do so.  

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I, too, have only experienced extreme lag and frustration while using VW 2018.

 

I learned Vectorworks on 2017 while working for a firm that used iMacs.  Now I am on my own and purchased two years ago a license of VW 2018 to use on my 2018 MacBook Pro.  I can assure you it has been nothing but painful.

 

The SP3 update helped alleviate some issues – mainly the freezing software whenever I would edit a text box.  However, there is still a very noticeable lag between any command, which includes panning!  I'll get a spinning beach ball when I want to adjust the dimensions of a rectangle, which lasts as long as 30 seconds.  I wish there was a cure-all fix, but nothing has happened in the past two years.  Can someone confirm whether 2019 or 2020 have solved these issues?  The last thing I want to do is give up on the program and let my knowledge of VW go by the wayside.

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Vectorworks 2018 is no longer getting updates, when 2019 came out there may be one more SP for bug fixing and then support for 2018 stopped. This is common with a lot of commercial software.

 

The only option you have is to upgrade to a more recent version of Vectorworks if you can afford that. I'd go for at least VW2020 but would run a trial version first before buying to find out if it solves your issue.

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On Vectorworks 2021 and it still bogs. I've deleted all the layers with pdfs on them and it seemed to improve the performance somewhat, but I'm just doing a simple command like copying lines using the offset tool and I'm still getting a beachball. The file is all of 28mb. So no, 2021 still hasn't fixed lagging issues. I'm on a MacBook Pro that's compatible with the requirements for mid-level profile projects per vectorworks requirements, so I should have enough computing power.

Edited by Sue C.
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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
8 hours ago, helloarchitect said:

Sue: it seems we're on a sinking ship.  Perhaps the best move is to finally jump to ArchiCAD.

Actually, if you and/or Sue are still having this issue you should probably contact technical support directly. It sounds like there may be something imported into your file(s) that is causing the issue.

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I also have issues with VW bogging down, and have searched for info on ways to keep files lean - but no luck.

 

Is there a list of certain types of things that will slow it down, so that we know where to start looking when it happens?

(ie I see pdf's and dwg's mentioned in this thread - do these make a big difference even for smaller files?)

 

thanks

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The easiest thing is to keep file size down is to regularly use the Purge command to get rid of unused resources that have accumulated in the file. I do this a lot as not only does it keep the Resource Manager in line but you can immediately see the impact on file size once you resave the document afterwards.

 

Next, converting 3D objects to Generic Solids where possible to do so (i.e. where you don't mind losing the object history + editability) is meant to keep file size down although I don't know by how much as it's harder to tell. I do do this a lot as well as it feels like a good thing to be in the habit of doing.

 

Then there's the 3D Conversion Resolution setting in VW Preferences: lowering this will reduce the impact of complex 3D geometry on file size. As far as I understand it some objects can have their complexity reduced after the fact (e.g. spheres, cones) whilst others are only affected at the time of creation (e.g. sweeps), although there are other ways of reducing complexity by raising the segment value or reducing the number of vertices... I tend to completely forget about this + am certainly not organised enough to think of adjusting the setting before creating a sweep for example.

 

Lastly (according to my notes on the matter) you can disable Save Viewport Cache in Doc Prefs but never do this either, as it will require all rendered VPs to be updated when the file is reopened which I don't think I could bear.

 

There are also of course various ways of using referencing to split a project up between different files rather than concentrating everything all in one place. I do reference building models into my site model file but I have never, as I've seen suggested, created a separate file just for sheet layers, which seems like an intelligent thing to do given how much file space VPs can take up.

 

Be interested to hear what others say.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
7 hours ago, niagara designer said:

Is there a list of certain types of things that will slow it down, so that we know where to start looking when it happens?

These Knowledgebase articles should help:

Some of the points mentioned may be dated though most will still apply.

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On 2/8/2021 at 6:03 PM, Sue C. said:

On Vectorworks 2021 and it still bogs. I've deleted all the layers with pdfs on them and it seemed to improve the performance somewhat, but I'm just doing a simple command like copying lines using the offset tool and I'm still getting a beachball. The file is all of 28mb. So no, 2021 still hasn't fixed lagging issues. I'm on a MacBook Pro that's compatible with the requirements for mid-level profile projects per vectorworks requirements, so I should have enough computing power.

Hi, if you can attach a file or subset of the file causing the slowdown along with a screen recording of what you are doing we could investigate more specifically.

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Something you could try to check for is polylines with lots of vertices, especially with imported (dwg) files with (spline) curves this may happen. E.g. When importing contour lines, maps etc. But other things can contain such lines as well. I've had to deal with such polylines after imports and those can have a serious impact on performance if you have a bunch of them.

 

Using the simplify polys (Modify>Drafting Aids>Simplify polys) to reduce the number of vertices without changing the shape of the lines too much may considerably improve performance if you have a lot of such polylines. Different polylines may require different settings so it may require some trial and error to get the best results with simplifying the polys.

 

Another thing to try is to check for overlapping duplicates, use coincident objects in the purge tool to get rid of them. Do keep in mind that VW can create multiple overlapping views/viewports in some cases. I'd have to look up the topic but in the past someone had a drawing with issues after importing/exporting a DWG file and it turned out that VW had created overlapping duplicates, in most cases three copies of parts of the drawing which caused quite a bit of overhead in the file.

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