2001PLUS VS 2004

Gianluca,

I haven't used 2001 Plus in a long time and can't answer your comparison test. However I can tell you that contrary to some users experience my large assembly mode experience with 2004 sp0 was good.

My machine was a Dell 360 w/ 2.4 GHz P4, 3.00 GB RAM, XP PRO SP1, and (QUADRO NVS W/AGP8X W/64 MEG RAM) game card.

My large assembly is:

TOTAL COMPONENTS: 15285

PARTS 12439

ASSEMBLIES 2846

It loaded in the following times:

Lightweight 56 SEC

Resolving from the LW load 88 SEC

To load fully resolved 3:13 MINUTES

I hope this helps.

Tom

Approximately: 250 original parts & 90 original assemblies

Tom

Tom,

Getting apples to apples comparisions isn't necessarily easy; however, how many users do you think have your system's resources or better?

I think if a survey were conducted, your hardware would leave a large percentage of computers running SolidWorks in the dust...

Unfortunately, programmers may assume that most users have the latest & fastest, but the reality is far different.

Paul,

I no longer have convenient access to that assembly, but have the following:

Assembly: Total components 13801 total parts 11382 unique parts 120 sub-assy 2419 unique subs 86 resolved 0 suppressed comp 172 Lightweight comp 13629 top level mates 24 top level comp 8 max depth 6

AMD 1.8 Ghz processor w/ 512 meg ram, Quadro4 750 xgl

To load lightweight = 58 seconds to fully resolve after lightweight load 92 seconds

The assembly has NO errors. The assembly has many in context parts, features, and component arrays. Most parts are fully mated. Nothing is fixed. There are no mirrored parts in the assembly anywhere. There are still a few mates with invalid faces in the assembly. These occur when I've changed something and not caught up the mates. I delete them whenever I find them and remate to component in the lowest assembly possible. There are no over defined mates in the assembly. (However, there are ten mates that I feel should show as over defined and they do not. they are intentional. I added a point-line coincident mate to assist SW in being able to solve an already fully defined mate. SW needed the assistance.)

There are still some underdefined mates. I'm fixing most of them as I get to it. This is a different assembly from the previously mentioned assembly and I'm running it on a different computer. The assembly size is 6.4 meg after ecosqueeze (I do not remove the display list or the preview image). The assembly includes structural steel, fasteners, motors, gearboxes, cotterpins, chain, etc., etc.

Tom

Per,

That's why I'm trying to send as much info as possible. Some people are finding that SW 2004 is a real DOG on large assemblies. I've found that it outperforms any other version I've used. Maybe I'm just getting better at it?? I pay a lot more attention to how I set them up than I did before.

I wouldn't say that I'm as good or better at large assemblies than anyone else, so there must be some differences in how we set them up, parts design, or something. I would like to find out what it is, because I don't see assembly sizes decreasing in the near future.

Tom

Paul,

My assembly now is:

Total components: 14547 total parts: 11964 unique parts: 120 Sub-Assy: 2583 Unique Subs: 86 Resolved 0 Suppressed 172 Lt Wt Comp 14375 Top level mates 24 Top level comp 8 Max Depth 6 \ Time to load Lt Wt 37 sec Time to resolve 100 sec Time to load resolved 174 sec

I changed a couple of features and added some more assemblies

Tom

It appears that changing a couple of features (it affected 282 parts) has reduced the Load LW time.

I really don't understand all of the variables. But, I can change the assembly width by 1 foot and its height by 6 inches and the width change will add over 550 parts to the assembly (required by new width) and the height change will adjust the dimension and change length on over 50 parts.

The assembly still handles (O.K.)

I have sheet metal parts with six flanges and numerous slots and cutouts.

There must be something that I'm doing or not doing that greatly affects the assembly resolve times. If we can figure out some of these variables, maybe SW can fix the ones that are really slowing down the process.

Tom

It's been along time since I too have ran 2001+ but I know that when I switched form 01+ to 03 I did't notice any slow downs. I wasn't doing large assemblies then, just advanced injection molded parts, but was often working w/ 15+Mb parts. Now I am working in 04 and have noticed a slight drop in speed, but it is more than made up for w/ the stability it has brought alone. I have two other guys here working on

04 one of which is happy w/ it other than some minor bugs (and it cut his crashes from about 10/day down to 1-2/day) and one guy who hates it w/ a passion. I believe most of his problems are w/ currupt parts though, but I ain't about to argue that point w/ him cause it's a waste of my time. Just my $.02 but I know that if I were trying to accomplish the things I am now w/ '01+ that I would be having a much more difficult time doing it. It's all a judgement call though.

Any toolbox stuff?

Any flexible sub-assemblies?

The unique parts count seems quite low for an assembly that size.

Tom Chasteen wrote:

I had 2000+ fasteners this includes bolts, washers , nuts, and cap screws. All fasteners were copies of the toolbox part and all unnecessary configurations were deleted. Nuts are drilled out to prevent interference with the bolts. I have sheetmetal self drilling self tapping (SDST screws), they were down loaded from McMaster-Carr. I also have square beveled washers. One of the down loaded parts came in as a 2 meg file. I remade the part and it shrank by 6+ times.

There are no flexible sub-assemblies

When you say the parts count seems quite low for assembly that size, I take it that you are complimenting my design skills!

Tom