CATI Tech Notes

Big Files = Big Problems

Think your part is way bigger than it should be? Maybe it is... Little known facts from 2011 SP2 there was an error that caused file size to balloon.

The problem was in the creation of multiple redundant display states that are all expendable. In 2011 SP3 the issue was corrected, however files with this issue will continue to have the issue. 2011 SP3 and later added a right mouse click menu to the display states called "purge redundant display states".

This will clean your file, and in some cases a lot. We saw a 200MB+ file go down to around 17MB. Big savings there.

Please make sure to back up your files before attempting this to make sure nothing undesirable happens to any wanted display states.

Happy Purging!!
John Van Engen
CATI Tech Support

Solidworks crash or system slow down

If you are a win7 user then this applies to you.  It doesn't matter if you clean your system regularly, uninstall solidworks and start with a clean slate.  Over time your computer will start to run out of memory regardless of all those things.  This can happen quicker if you uninstall and reinstall programs often.  There is a folder (C:\windows\winsxs) in the windows structure that keeps track of all the programs that were installed and nothing gets deleted from it.  I have looked through many blogs that tell you how to reduce the file size safely.  Microsoft doesn't recommend it, meaning they can't guarantee the application will work correctly. However many people have found them to work.  There are several ways so just do a google search for "winsxs".

The best recommendation to make is to reinstall windows.  Perhaps create an image of your drive and that way its quicker to get your machine back to its orignal state.

Ketul

Mates and Flexible Sub-Assemblies (MSWP #10)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

Many SolidWorks users have never been shown the importance of mating methodology when working with large assemblies.  An Assemblies structure can make a significant difference in the performance of an assembly large or small.  These difference in performance is generally much more pronounced in a large assembly due to its shear size. 

The models that we used for our base line had a large number of top level mates and flexible sub-assemblies.  When SolidWorks brings up an assembly it has to solve all the mates that are at the top level.  This includes any mates at the sub-assembly level that are part of a flexible assembly at the top level.  The results of structuring the assembly to reduce the top level mates by creating more sub assemblies and turning off the flexible sub assemblies is impressive.

  
Results: 

• Opens 11% faster saving ~4 1/2 mins
• Rotations 34% faster saving ~ 10 1/2 mins
• Modeling 52% faster saving ~37 1/2 mins
• Closes 18% faster saving ~ 10 mins

As we continue through this series of articles I think you will find that modeling methodology and best practises far out strips hardware improvement for potential performance increases.  Having the best hardware possible does nothing for you if you don't use strong modeling techniques and use them consistently.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

Hard drive storage options (MSWP #9)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

When working with large assemblies especially; user try to tweak out every bit pf performance that they can from their hardware.  A significant amount of discussion has been circulating around the use of Solid State Hard Drives and has always be circulated around RAID options.

In our testing we looked at both Solid State and standard drives as well as Single, RAID 0 with 2 hard drives, and RAID 1 with 2 hard drives.  Unfortunately, we did not see the level of improvement that we were expecting or hoping for.  We believe that the lack luster results from the Solid State drive can be attributed to driver issues with the Patriot warp drives that we were using.  The version of the drives that we have had no ability to upgrade firmware (unfortunately we had the only version of their hard drive that could not be upgraded for WIN7) .

 
Results:

• No significant benefit found in either Opens or Saves (unexpected)
• Closes and Modeling showed best on RAID 0 SolidState
• We expected more significant differences

Best Option -- 2 solid state drives at RAID 0:

• Opens 9% faster saving ~4mins
• Rotations 29% faster saving ~ 9mins
• Modeling 44% faster saving ~32mins
• Closes 19% faster saving ~ 10 1/2 mins

Total -- Best Option -- 2 solid state drive at RAID 0:

• 12% faster saving 58 1/2 mins

 12% faster is nothing to be too dejected by but we were expecting something more significant.  We believe with some effort and some better Solid State drives we will be able to show much better results for the solid state RAID 0 option the next time we attempt this experiment.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

Files saved in the old version (MSWP#8)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

For many of our customers it is a yearly question.  "Should we upgrade all of our 20XX files to the new version?"  I am not going to answer that question for you.  I am, however, hoping to give you more information to make this decision appropriately for your situation.

In our test we ran our baseline with all files stored in the current version (SolidWorks 2011).  For this specific test we had a file set that was still in SW2010 and we ran the benchmark in SW2011. 

 
Results:

• Opens 9% slower costing ~4mins
• Saves 15% slower costing ~10mins

 Total:

• 3% slower costing ~14mins

There are several legitimate reasons that a company would need to leave their old files alone.  Mostly these revolve around a data management tool like Enterprise PDM.  However, if the ability to use the  SolidWorks Task scheduler to update your data it can save you a little time and every little bit can help.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

SWAP File (MSWP#7)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

We've all heard how important SWAP space is to high end CAD software.  This stuff pushes RAM hard thus Swap space is essential to the performance and stability of the system.  The rule of thumb I always heard "Growing up" was that your SWAP space (page file) should always be 1.5 times your RAM.  This is somewhat antiquated because that rule was put intoplace in a time when RAM and hard drive space were both fairly expensive and the limitations of the 32bit architecture were stifling.

In the 64bit world Swap space can still be very important but how do we determine what we need and what difference does it make?

The answer to the first question can be found in the Microsoft Knowledge base article "How to determine the appropriate page file size for 64-bit versions of Windows".  There are some very interesting parts of this article and I do suggest that anyone who has wondered about sizing a page file to give it a read.

A few interesting points:

• "as more RAM is added to a computer, the need for a page file decreases. If you have enough RAM installed in your computer, you may not require a page file at all"
• There are three methods for determining required page file size.
• "If the page I/O (real disk I/O) rate is more than 10 pages per second, we recommend that you do not put the page file where the I/O activity occurs on the system disk. When the page I/O rate is 10 pages per second or more, we recommend that you dedicate a separate hard disk for paging."
• "If the page I/O rate to a particular disk that is used for paging is more than 60 disk I/O operations per second, use more than one dedicated page hard disk to obtain better performance. To do this, use multiple non-striped disks for paging, or use raid 0 striped disks for paging. Dedicate approximately one I/O hard disk to paging for every 60 pages per second of I/O activity."
• My favorite point of interest here is that nowhere in this article does it say anything like "Set your Virtual Memory settings to allow the OS to Automatically manage page file size.", which is the default.

To get to the Swap file settings:

Right Click My Computer and select Properties

 
Select Advanced system settings

 
Then select Settings from the Performance frame of the System properties window   

 
Select the Advanced tab and press the Change button in the Virtual memory frame:

 

The window that appears is the Virtual memory window and this is where all the changes to page files can be made.

 

For our tests I did not use any of the methods listed above to size the page file.  I took the lazy man's way out.  I set our page file to double the installed RAM to compare it to our baseline that was set to the default of letting the OS make the decision.

What we have done with this test is reinforce the Windows golden rule:

Never, ever let Microsoft make a decision for you!! 
 

Here's why.

 
Results:

• Rotations 18% faster saving ~6mins
• Modeling 23% faster saving ~16mins
• Saves 15% faster saving ~10mins
• Closes 29% faster saving ~16mins

 Total:

• 12% faster saving ~57mins

A few things come to mind:

• You need to give Swap space another look with the introduction of the 64bit OSs.
• More Swap space than you need won't slow you down (It'll cost you hard drive space)
• Apparently your can buy your way out of using a page file but why wouldn't you just have at least a  little one just in-case.
• When it's needed a page file can make a significant difference in performance for SolidWorks even in the 64bit environment.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

OS Users Settings to Optimal (MSWP#6)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

To be honest; the Microsoft Operating Systems have always been pretty.  Well they have once they got past MSDOS.  The most current OS, WIN7, takes this eye pleasing initiative to another level yet again.  Showing shadows under the mouse, smoothing screen fonts, Animating Controls in Windows, and many other "cool" visual effects can make your Windows experience more interesting.  Unfortunately, these options do nothing for performance.

To be honest again; we are designers and engineers.  We shouldn't care if our OS environment is pretty.  We care that we can get our job done.  Anything that gets in the way of that is a negative.  The Windows operating systems have always given us opportunities to improve performance over the defaults.  The users Visual effects, found in the Performance options window, are an excellent example of this.

To get to these settings:

Right Click My Computer and select Properties

 
Select Advanced system settings

 
Then select Settings from the Performance frame of the System properties window   

 
What you will normally find after doing this is a screen that looks like this:

 
This is the state of these settings by default.  Generally, users don't mess with them.  Notice, however, that the selection at the top of the window is set at "let Windows choose what's best for my computer".  This begs the question; "How does Windows know what's best for my computer?"  The simple answer is that they don't.  What Windows chooses is the settings that make the system pretty (minus one).  Checkout what the settings look like when we select Adjust for best appearance.

 
Almost identical!  I have been looking for a situation that will cause the setting in "Let Windows choose" be different than what we have seen here and have not been successful.  I'm sure there is a circumstance that will do that and if someone knows it, I would appreciate some feedback.

Now, since we are engineers and designers, lets select "Adjust for best performance".

 
Startling isn't it.  What we have found here is that, if given the opportunity, Windows will ignore performance for the sake of pretty.  They don't seem to know what's best for a designer or engineer.  Or, they don't care.  That's a individual determination.

What we have learned is the Windows golden rule:

Never, ever let Microsoft make a decision for you!! 
 

Here's why.

 
Results:

• Opens 10% faster saving ~4mins
• Rebuilds 34% faster saving ~10 ½ mins
• Modeling 37% faster saving ~27mins
• Saves 9% slower costing ~6mins
•  Closes 13% faster saving ~7mins

 

 Total:

• 11% faster saving ~51 ½ mins

 I can't really explain the Saves being faster in this scenario but they were.  I suspect an anomaly of some sort in the testing but I have not been able to track it down.  Any way you slice it though; an 11% improvement in performance is nothing to disappointed in.  This entire performance was realized simply by sacrificing the aesthetics of the OS.  We simply made it less pretty.

You need to decide what's important to you and make adjustments accordingly.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

 

Assembly Stored on the Network (MSWP#5)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

We have all seen that it takes longer to copy files from a network location to your local hard drive than it does to copy files from one place on your hard drive to another place on the same hard drive.  There is a more significant difference when we look at opening files from the local machine vs a network location.  In our test comparing operation of SolidWorks with files stored locally (baseline) vs files stored on the network we saw these differences vividly.

 
The chart shows that Opens and Saves take significantly longer when files are stored on the network.  Closes also take longer but the difference is a little less prominent.  Every other category shows flat meaning that once the data is in RAM it doesn't matter where it came from.

Results:

• Opens 51% slower costing ~20 ½ mins
• Saves 29% slower costing ~19mins
• Closes 13% slower costing ~7mins

Total:

• 10% slower costing ~47 mins

It all depends on how often you save and how big your assemblies are when you save.  In our case we only opened, saved, and closed twice each.  They were, however, significant operations due to the size of the assembly.  This sort of cost in time makes it very difficult to adhere to the old adage "Save Often".  The message of this test is "Use a Data Management System".  Enterprise PDM would be the best choice but you need to use something that at the very least lets you check your files out and work locally until checking them back in.

While being 10% slower overall is fairly significant; I believe the real issue in this case lies in the specifics.  When users have to wait too long for their files to save they will begin to save less frequently to avoid the time drain.  Crashes become even more costly.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Turning Off Add-ins (MSWP#4)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

Everything running on your computer takes some amount of resources.  I mean everything.  Right down to the insignificant little app that tell you when the Adobe Acrobat Reader has an ungrade available.  It is recommended to reduced the amount of applications, programs, apps, widgets, and add-ins running on your computer to increase performance as much as possible. 

In our case we ran our baseline with several Add-ins for SolidWorks activated.  Each of these add-ins take a little bit of RAM leaving a little less for the operations that we are actually using in the benchmark.  The add-ins that we had turned on in our baseline were:

• Photoview 360
• SolidWorks Simulation
• SolidWorks Toolbox
• SolidWorks Toolbox Browser
• SolidWorks Utilities

In this test we turned off all Add-ins and got the following results::

 
The chart above shows that freeing up even a relatively small amount of resources can have a noticeable difference in performance and in our specific case it sped up SolidWorks in every category we measured.

Results:

• Rotations 13% faster saving ~4mins
• Modeling 31% faster saving ~22 ½ mins
• Closing 17% faster saving ~9 ½ mins

Total:

• 9% faster saving ~44 mins

Other ways of freeing up resources include:

• Removing non-essential applets (weather bug, chat tools, external email notifiers, etc...)
• Trade listening to music on your computer for buying a dock for your iPOD
• use Autoruns to find and deactivate unnecessary services that run automatically (for advanced users)
• Turn off all non-essential programs that may be running on the desktop

All of these helpful little programs pull resources that otherwise SolidWorks may use.  The best rule of thumb would be to "focus your computers power on what is most important to you".

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.

Reference File Locations (MSWP#3)

This article continues our Maximizing SolidWorks Performance series.  If you would like a little background information please refer to the first article in the series Maximizing SolidWorks Performance (Results).

This article is describing one of our "side tests".  Some of our tests, including this one, while being run with the same methodology as all of the others did not fit the general flow of the over all testing.  This test was run to show the negative impact of a seldom used system option (reference file locations) that can have dire consequences.

The good new about reference file locations is that most people are not using them and those who are using them are generally using them correctly.  This was a much more prolific problem a few years ago.  Reference file locations is a way to help ensure that SolidWorks is going to find the files that it needs for a particular assembly that might be stored other locations in an environment usually a network location.  When an assembly opens and the Search file locations for external references option is checked, SolidWorks searches all of the folder in the reference documents list as set in System options|File locations.

 
 
 
While in our specific environment the detrimental affect on performance was not huge, I have seen this situation affect customers to the point of paralysis. 

 
Results:

• Opens 22% slower costing ~3 ½mins
• Rebuilds 14% slower costing ~21mins
• Switching sheets 20% slower costing ~11mins
• Saves 13% slower costing ~8mins
• Modeling 23% faster saving ~16 ½ mins

 Total:

• 6% slower costing ~29mins

The most important thing to notice about these results is that the modeling sections ran 23% faster than the baseline.  If you think about this you will probably come up with the same conclusion I did.  There is no reason to believe that that is real.  There is no reason that the modeling sections should have been affected in the least by these system option.  I believe that this must have been some kind of fluke in our testing.  All of the other results are just as we would have expected; or at least, within a reasonable margin of error.

The key here is to remember that the reference file locations options should be used in very special circumstances and your VAR should be contacted to discuss all of your options. If there are alternatives that allow you to avoid this course they can assist you in finding them.

Adrian Fanjoy

Technical Services Director

Computer Aided Technology, Inc.