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Slow Solidworks Performance / Not utlilising 2nd CPU?

Hi All, I'm having some performance issues with solidworks whilst doing assembly drawings. PC spec seems more than adequate, in my opinion:

HP XW6200 Dual 3.2GHz Xeon

2GB DDR2 80GB SATA Win XP Pro HP FireGL 3100 Graphics

Whilst doing assembly drawings the general performance of solidworks seems very slow. For example I had a drawing with only 50 smallish parts (nothing too intensive) and when I tried to rotate the drawing Solidworks seemed to more or less die on me although it did eventually pick itself up after a minute or 2. When I checked the task manager the CPU seemed to be only at 50-60%. I would've thought 2 x 3.2GHz Xeons would've coped quite well under that scenario. As its only an educational license that I have I don't believe I am entitled to support so I'm hoping for some help here??

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions of things I could try it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Reply to
coconutpete
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SW does not take advantage (to an appreciable level) dual processors yet. ( I have benchmarked my dual Xeons and a single processor is faster). Your usage shows 50% because SW will only max out one processor, unless you are using Cosmos or other apps. Dual processors shine when you are using multiple applications at one time, until SW gets on the ball.

There are many techniques to make drawing creation faster, but little can be done by ignoring these and trying to muscle SW with hardware.

Techniques like configurations with components supressed, hiding views until needed, using shaded views, etc all seem to work well. ~Hope this helps!

Reply to
ADS

I don't think SWX will utilize the second processor. But, under "tools", "options", "performance" make sure that "use software open gl" is NOT checked. Make sure you are using the latest certified drivers for your graphics card, see SWX website.

Mike Eckstein

Reply to
Michael Eckstein

If you can wait for the educational version of 2006 which should happen about 6 months from now you can utilize both CPUs on drawings. If you have hung out on the newsgroup for any time you would know that dual CPUs do next to nothing for the current version of SW although PhotoWorks and Cosmos take advantage.

Reply to
TOP

Does SW2006 use dual processors for drawings?

Reply to
ADS

Solidworks clams high quality drawing views are generated from the draft quality in a background thread if dual processors are present.

Reply to
Keith Streich

Not only do they claim it, but another task becomes visible in the task manager.

Reply to
Dale Dunn

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