CADit

AutoCAD Performance

What can you do to AutoCAD, to improve performance?

Don’t open any drawings!

Let’s face it, as soon as you open a drawing AutoCAD runs slightly slower… the more drawings you open the slower the performance…

OK, not a good solution.

Here’s some suggestions, you will find these on a number of web sites, I’ll repeat them here, but have to say, I rarely utilise any of the following for improving the performance of AutoCAD, but for the record…

Reduce the amount of information you are working with. If you can simplify the drawing you are working with you may be able to avoid those annoying “out of memory” errors. For example, if you are hatching large areas, try breaking it down into smaller sections. If you have images and/or xrefs in the drawing, try unloading the ones you do not need at the moment. If there is a lot of TrueType® based text on the screen, try replacing it with a SHX font instead. If there are multiple drawings loaded, try closing the ones you are not working with. There are many other methods you can use within the program to reduce the amount of memory being used.

Commands and System Variables that Improve Performance

Following is a list of the commands and system variables in AutoCAD/AutoCAD LT that you can use to improve drawing performance:

• PURGE command. This command clears unused layers, blocks, linetypes, dimension styles, text styles, and multiline definitions from the drawing.
• CONVERT command. This command converts any old-style polylines and hatches to the optimized format, and can possibly reduce drawing size and memory usage.
• INDEXCTL system variable. INDEXCTL controls whether layer and spatial indexes are created and saved in drawing files. Set it to 1, 2, or 3 for improved performance when doing an xref demand load of the current drawing. However, setting INDEXCTL to any value other than 0 increases the amount of time required to save the drawing and increases its size. Note: By default, INDEXCTL is set to 0 when you create a new drawing.
• FILLMODE system variable. FILLMODE specifies whether multilines, traces, solids, all hatches (including solid-fill) and wide polylines are filled in. Setting this system variable to Off decreases regeneration time.
• Unload xrefs and images. Unload xrefs and images that are not needed in a drawing session to decrease memory usage and regeneration times.
• Quick Text Mode (QTEXT). When Quick Text mode is on, only a frame defining the text is displayed, which can improve drawing performance. Note that when Quick Text is on, the text frame, but not the text, is plotted.
• Layer control. Freezing or hiding layers that are not needed in a drawing session speeds the selection process, regenerations, zooming, and panning.
• Partial load (not available in AutoCAD LT). Using the partial load feature allows you to load only parts of the drawing you want instead of the entire drawing.

So, does anyone use any of the above?… besides PURGE of course, which we all run regularly (don’t we?) and the occasional AUDIT… so what about…

Dynamic Input

You could disable this, even on a high spec computer you will see a significant hit on the CPU with Dynamic Input enabled, but still a useful facility… and let’s face it – if the CPU is not taking a significant hit, then you are obviously not working hard enough!

Please also note: The above proves that I do in fact have the ability to draw a line in AutoCAD… and not just any line I might add… it is a 45 degree line at 313.4935 units long!

Visual Effect Settings

This is one to look at, just to disable the annoying Selection Preview all together, particularly if you work with large external reference files…

My preference is to disable it all together, but their are selection options if you prefer…

Select “Advanced Options”…

 

Summary

So what do we learn from all of that…

Well, if you are unfortunate enough to be restricted to an under-specified computer that is struggling with running AutoCAD, then some of the above may help. However, in the majority of cases, if you are in the business of driving CAD, then you most likely have the luxury of a machine that is more than up to the task.

The bottom line is, we don’t just drive CAD. We run multiple applications, all of the time and the hardware that we use needs to be up to the task of driving these multiple applications.

My suggestions:

1. Know exactly what you have running on your machine.
2. Know the processes/services that are running on your machine.
3. Armed with that information… you can now disable those applications/processes/services that you don’t need all of the time… you know the one’s… the Instant Messengers, background apps for snagging images and videos, etc. etc.
4. You obviously need these disabled applications at some time, so setup some simple scripts to switch them back on when you need them. I’ll follow up with some examples later.

System Performance

What can you do to improve your system performance?

If you are experiencing slow system performance, and would like to know what you can do to improve things, if adding more RAM will help or perhaps Increasing the page file size or setup, or how about increasing the amount of free hard drive space.

So what do you need to do?
Your machine is running embarrassingly slowly, the project manager is breathing down your neck, you need to deliver… before you complain to IT you need to better understand the reasons behind the poor performance. Whilst your IT staff may be able to assist with problems occurring due to Network Infrastructure and server issues, it is rare that they have a CAD expert amongst them and it is invariably more common that you need to provide that element of CAD support to IT, as well as your CAD Team.
Depending on your operating system, you can use the System or Performance Monitor to track system performance. These programs allow you to track information such as processor, physical memory, and paging file usage. Using these tools can assist you in determining whether you will see performance improvements by adding RAM, increasing page file size or configuration, or increasing the amount of free hard drive space.

Of course it is also worth looking at what else you have running on your PC. We all typically run a number of “base” programs that we just can’t live without… Email, Web Browser’s, Office Applications, Instant Messaging etc. etc.
We generally may not be able to live without these applications, but when it comes to working with CAD Applications, and we have a particularly large dataset or reference files and images etc. we can temporarily disable some of these memory hungry background applications.

We have probably all come across an “out of memory” error at some point. These errors occur because your computer runs out of usable memory before it is able to complete an operation.

“Out of memory” errors can typically occur during operations involving a large number of objects or files, or working with files that contain large reference files and/or images, or if you have several other programs running while you work.

Here are a few ideas on how to maximise the amount of available memory, as mentioned in the previous preamble article, you can find these suggestions on various web sites, I have added some additional notes for reference…

• Install more RAM. The great cure all, let’s face it, whatever your system can manage, throwing as much RAM at a system generally won’t hurt performance. If you can get more RAM into your computer, Windows dependence on the swap file is reduced, and the performance increases.
  
  In addition: If you are restricted by a 32 Bit Operating System and can only get 4GB of RAM, you have the option of using the /3GB boot switch

  To clarify, a 32-bit processor uses 32 bits to refer to the location of each byte of memory. 2^32 = 4.2 billion, which means a memory address that's limited to 32 bits can only refer to 4.2 billion unique locations (i.e. 4 GB).

  If you have 3GB of RAM installed in your PC, then 1GB will be dedicated for kernel usage, and the remaining 2GB is left for application usage.

  If you then upgrade to 4GB of RAM, then 2GB will be dedicated for kernel usage, and the remaining 2GB is left for application usage. This setup may be useful for a 32 bit server, but does nothing for the performance of your applications on your desktop machine.

  In order for your applications to take advantage of this extra 1GB you need to make use of the /3GB boot.ini switch. This switch configures 3GB of memory for applications, leaving 1GB for the kernel.
  

• Close unnecessary programs. Identify all those programs you are running and then shut down the ones that you don’t really need. You can use the Windows Task Manager, or similar applications to identify the applications and processes that are running and use the “End Task” capability to shut down any unnecessary applications. You can also review the Performance tab to try and determine which applications are using your systems resources.
  
  In addition: As you review the applications that you can actually live without temporarily while you work on that huge dataset, why not identify those applications once, then compile a batch file or script to unload all of those applications prior to starting up your CAD applications.
  
  I will follow up with a separate article on unloading and loading of applications using a simple batch file…
   
• Check the space available on the hard disk drive. Not only is space needed for various temporary files, but it is also needed for the Windows swap file. If your swap file is dynamic (grows and shrinks in size as needed) then freeing up space by deleting files or removing programs you no longer need will give the swap file more room to grow. If the swap file size is static (does not change), then freeing up more space on the hard drive will allow you to adjust the size of the swap file.
• Check and adjust system swap file settings. When Windows runs out of available RAM, it writes some of the information in RAM to the swap file so it can clear that area of RAM and reuse it. If your swap file is set to let the operating system manage your swap file settings, you may not need to make any changes; performance may suffer, however. If you prefer a static swap file, you may need to increase the maximum size of your swap file to avoid the out of memory errors.
  
  In addition: My preference is to run systems with a static swap file. This of course requires the hard drive to be of sufficient size to maintain a large amount of free space.
  In addition to maintaining a sufficiently large static swap file, you can further improve performance by ensuring that this file is maintained in an un-fragmented state.
  
  I will follow up with a separate article on setting up a static swap file and a tool to monitor and defragment your swap file…

System & (CAD) Application Performance

You can improve the performance of your system and your applications in a number of ways…
You can look at options for making changes on your system, i.e. the operating system and the applications that you are running.
Specifically with AutoCAD, and verticals, you can take advantage of specific commands and system variables that can help reduce the size of your drawing files and improve the performance with some of the display-intensive features.

Preamble

Before I get into too much detail, you are likely already aware that their is a huge amount of reference material out their on various CAD web sites, knowledge and discussion forums etc. So rather than repeat this already available information, I’ll give you my take on it, and my approach to managing systems when it comes to getting the best performance out of a CAD workstation.

I appreciate all the questions that readers of this blog have sent me over the years, and hope that some of the advice has helped. Some of your questions have been related to specific applications I have used for system monitoring and optimisation and I will endeavour to shed some more light on those in this next series of articles.

I have written a number of articles and guides related to system performance over the years, some for specific company publications as well as others for training and consulting activities. With the continual release of new operating system versions, and CAD application versions, it is sometimes difficult to keep up, particularly when busy in other areas.

So I am going to adopt my typical approach to this… I am going to break it up into smaller more manageable “chunks”, an approach adopted for much of what I do (the “how do you eat an elephant?” approach).

In addition, please also note…
I don’t write these articles because I have way too much time on my hands! If something appears on this blog it has generally been driven by a need from day-to-day activities. At the same time, as I continue to work in the area of CAD, GIS and IT resource management, I provide ongoing guidance on some facet of this business and I tend to record much (more likely all) of what I do, and the advice I give, in written form, so that I can refer to it later, and at some point share it further.

…and that is exactly what is happening here, I am reviewing previous articles, publications, training notes etc. to provide an updated article on the performance issues faced with the latest versions of Autodesk applications and the systems that we use to run them.

…in addition, I will shed some light on the approach I have adopted for managing this information, in fact all information that I need to refer to, so here goes…

Which Version of AutoCAD 2010 are you running?

So how do you know if you have Update 1 installed for AutoCAD 2010?
(Or should we call that Service Pack 1?, Or perhaps AutoCAD 2010 Version 2?)

You can confirm all this from the “About” dialog…

You can access the “About” dialog from the “Help” pull down menu

Now you know where the “Help” pull down menu is don’t you (or is it a “drop down” menu… it’s all very confusing isn’t it)

OK, let’s access the About dialog from the “big red A” button (that’s what it’s called isn’t it?) in the top left corner of your AutoCAD interface…

…and because we can’t remember how to access the pull down menus, or drop down menus, or whatever they were called… we’ll use the friendly help system…

Click on “About” in the results area, and success, you are presented with the “About” dialog box…

Confirming that you have AutoCAD 2010 – English Version 2 installed

Clear as mud!

PS… if you do want to get to your pull down menus, or even your drop down menus for that matter… try this…