VW S L O W S D O W N !

[Vitanaut]

Hello all,

I am running VW 9.5.2 on Windows XP Pro and up everything has been great with the exception of a few crashes (one per three hours of Up time) a lot by most standards but livable.

My machine is a Dual Pentium 4 2.2 Ghz with 2Gigs of Ram and a 4gig page file. It renders like the wind but lately the program slows to a crawl after about 20 minutes of use.

I have undos set to 30 (reasonable I think --and used often). Everything points to a bug. Any suggestionis?

There seems to be a problem in specific .mcd files?

--Greg

[Guest]

Is this drawing primarily an architectural drawing or that of many complex objects such as solid addition/subtraction or nurbs or nurb fillets?

How large is the file?

When you notice the slow downs, do you try to shurt down the computer, then start it back up?

Do you have any other programs running or do you have any updates going on in the background?

Also, check the systems tray -- series of icons in the lower right hand corner by the clock. How many do you have? Are any of them Real Player or any other audio player program?

Do you have any downloads going on in the background?

[urimevs]

I also experience slowdowns witch are fixed with a Vworks restart but I'am on a Quicksilver G4 1.2Gig Ram with OS X 10.1.5 and 40 undos.

(I didn't realize I needed so many levels of undos until one time I did need it)

if RAM is not a problem, what is? Has anyone seen this behavior on VWorks 10?

[Vitanaut]

Katie,

Thanks for the message. This problem occurs when my processor usage is below 25%. i.e. nothing running in the background. The file size can be very small (less than a meg) and it still happens. The only way to speed things up is to restart VW.

I am not using any Nurbs and no solids. Just very bacsic 3D objects and walls. Any other ideas?

[ 10-14-2002, 12:05 PM: Message edited by: Vitanaut ]

[Guest]

Try changing your undo's to a smaller number. I haven't met anyone yet that has needed more than 20 undo's.

Have you tried restarting your computer?

[Guest]

40 undo's is alot to keep stored, especially if you are doing 3d and complex opearations. That all gets stored in memory causing VW to slow down significantly in some cases.

I would suggest lowering to 20 undos (the standard setting) to maximize VW speed. If you need to keep it at 40, you will need to accept the slow down associated with 40 undo's.

[ 10-15-2002, 09:17 AM: Message edited by: Katie ]

[urimevs]

Hello katie

The information I gave you was false. I had 40 undos at a time but I did a clean reinstall of my OS X system a few weeks ago and the vectorworks settings for undoes had reverted to 20. So I had the slowdowns with the standard 20's.

It can get slow to the point that even clicking on a n object can take 2 to 3 seconds before having it selected (with the spinning beachball)

urimevs

[Carl Burns]

Here also. VWA 9.5.2 / Win XP. Perceptible slowing usually in the afternoons; I believe it's always fixed by restart.

- Carl

[Guest]

Urimevs - What type of computer do you have - G3, G4. Titanium ... etc. If it's a g3, what color is it?

[Guest]

Carl how many other programs are you running?

What speed processor do you have?

How much built in memory do you have?

What do you have Virtual Memory set to?

[urimevs]

Hello Katie

I use a quicksilver PowerMac G4 733 with 1.2GB RAM.

Mac OS X 10.1.5, VWorks 9.5.2.

[Skidee]

I had similar problems with horrible slowdown. Reinstalled VW, even Windows, to no avail. Still too slow. Through trial and error, I discovered that a driver I had recently installed seemed to be the culprit. If I remember correctly, it was the Wacom Graphire tablet driver that screwed things up (or it could have been the Matrox Millenium driver). Reloaded an earlier version, and problem disappeared.

Have you updated any drivers lately, or added new hardware?

And Katie, for what it's worth, saying that 40 undo's is excessive seems relatively insensitive to users. This is a supposed "feature" of VW, and implying that the way I use the program is the reason for the problem is weak. If the "feature" is not robust enough (or at least limited in some way), to handle user preference, it should not be extolled as a feature, or it should work as expected. This is not the user's fault.

I'll get off the soapbox now.

As always, your prompt replies and involvement in the forum is appreciated.

[Vitanaut]

I really appreciate all of the thoughtful responses.

After several experiments I discovered that the problem is diectly related to certain files. (Due to corrupt vector objects????)

If anyone else is experiencing this I would like to confirm my hypothesis by having them open an old file that was OK. See if it happens.

I now have a new set of issues to deal with in VW10.

[ 10-27-2002, 11:15 PM: Message edited by: Vitanaut ]

[Guest]

I didn't say 40 undo's is excessive. I just said that it's alot and most people don't need that many.

THe more undo's you have, the more memory is used to store those changes. That will cause the program to slow down. That's the fact.

As well with anything that stores information, complext information, the longer and more it has to store, the less memory the application has for speed and completing other tasks when it needs to keep track of the changes.

That's all I was trying to get across.

The default is set to 20 as that is a recommended/suggested setting for optimal use without throwing out the feature all together.