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ever-decreasing performance of Vectorworks


MelanieR

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I have been using Vectorworks for a decade now, and it always struck me as an efficient, easy to use CAD tool. But within the last 2 years I experienced countless performance issues working on sheet layers with viewports, annotations and dimensions. This even with relatively simple 2d geometry and no heavy files. I am a freelance 3d designer, and worked with VWX on windows and Mac on a variety of machines with a variety of versions. 

Version 2018 and 2019 are so painfully slow working on sheet layers, that work takes me multiple times longer. I was looking at this with regret and stomach ache, since in a business where time is so precious, nobody can afford a painfully ineffective workflow like this. Whats wrong with Vectorworks?

 

Today I installed VWX 2019 on my four months old MacBook Pro I7 with 16MB Ram. I was unable to work on sheet layers of a 2d file,  every command was delayed massively. Even accurate scrolling was impossible on a sheet layer.

Having to work like this is a thoroughly nerve-wrecking experience. And it is costing me jobs. I didn't hit my deadline today and I have to explain my clients why the work doesn't get done in a reasonable time. Should I tell them, Vectorworks isn't able to produce a program that does what it did 10 years ago? A Program that runs miserably on a state of the art laptop? The answer is yes, but my clients wouldn't be interested in hearing this answer. 

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

This slowness only happened after installing it on the newer machine, or it was happening before and the newer machine was an attempt to speed things up? The files were fine in 2017 and only slow in 2018/2019? Could you please attach a screenshot of an entire normal sheet layer for one of your files?

Reply back with the following as well, please: 

 

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As stated in my post, sheet layer performance issues occur on a variety of files, machines and versions. With every new VWX version this negative performance trend is more noticeable. Version 2018 and 2019 were just examples I mentioned. Why have you closed this topic for open discussion? Why do I even ask this?

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Melanie, if you are reading this, the topic is not closed.

I sympathize with your problem, and don't have much to offer since I am sticking with v2017, despite owning three v2018 licenses and two v2019 licenses.

Jim, VW needs to deal head on with these speed and efficiency perceptions / reality (?) by instituting performance testing and releasing the data.  When I buy a processor I look at all the available data, and it is both voluminous and convincing.  CAD programs need to do the same thing - if for no other reason than to let their engineers know whether they are doing a good job.  When I make the time-consuming commitment to convert my files and resources to a new version, I want to know if my performance is going to be at least equal to the previous version.  That's just a simple business decision, and I don't base those on sales department press releases.

Processing is ever more heavy, and Melanie I would be interested to know about your video card and it's RAM cache.  16 GB RAM on your computer is not as big as I would target for a new computer - I'd be looking at 32 or 64, minimum.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
37 minutes ago, MelanieR said:

As stated in my post, sheet layer performance issues occur on a variety of files, machines and versions. With every new VWX version this negative performance trend is more noticeable. Version 2018 and 2019 were just examples I mentioned. Why have you closed this topic for open discussion? Why do I even ask this?

Please reply back with the system profile I requested as well as the requested screenshot.
 

37 minutes ago, MelanieR said:

Why have you closed this topic for open discussion? Why do I even ask this?

I did not, what made you think this? If theres a UI element on the forum that confused you, please let me know and I can try to clean it up.

 

 

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