Inventor 2015 Stress Analysis Extremely Slow

[ValleyToolMfg]

I recently made the switch to Inventor 2015 and since the switch my Inventor experience overall has been a bit slower than before.  However, the Stress Analysis Environment has become so slow as to be a serious imposition.  My issue is less so the amount of time it takes to run the analysis, these things take time, but rather with the time it takes to do anything in the environment.  If I try to make a manual contact, I have to wait a good five minutes for it to apply, in 2014 that command took seconds.  Activating the Probe tool takes minutes, waiting for the probe result to appear, another few minutes.  If I want to switch between results (like switching from Von Mises to Safety Factor), I might as well be re-running the entire analysis, it can take half an hour just to switch between results.  Once the results load I can rotate the model just fine, but trying to do anything else takes a ridiculous amount of time.

My initial thought was inadequate RAM, but my system hasn't changed and Inventor 2014 ran the Stress Analysis Environment just fine.  My next guess would be my AntiVirus' Real Time component (Trend Micro), but the task manager doesn't show it as using up any CPU and my IT guys will want a little more than just my hunch to make an exception in the Real Time rules.  Anyone have any thoughts?

[blair · Accepted solution]

Add the Inventor files, IPT and IAM to the "White-List" in your anti-virus software. Or try disabling the A-V software while you are running a FEA. Try logging in as a different user, try one with Admin Privileges.

[innovatenate]

I think that is a good hunch. A quick diagnostic test would be to temporarily disable the anti-virus software and re-test.

Stress Analysis writes a temporary file in an AFEA{...} folder to your %temp% directory before saving to the AIP folder in the workspace. If your real time scanner is interfering, it may be causing a bottleneck.

I hope that helps. Please keep us updated on your progress.

Thanks,

[ValleyToolMfg]

IT hasn't been out to change the AV settings yet, but running the program as an administrator has yielded noticeable results and made working within the stress analysis environment much more tolerable.  What previously would take half an hour to load now loads within a few minutes, which while it doesn't compare with my previous speed is a vast improvement compared to the speed with which I have been dealing.  As a side note, I tried this for one of our employees using 3dsMax to do renderings and he is now rendering 5x faster, literally.

When IT finally makes it out to play with the AV settings I'll update the post further.

[MarkDooley]

Hi ValleyToolMFG,

Have you set Inventor to run using multiple processes??  If not, click on Start Menu | All Programs | Autodesk | Inventor 2015 | Tools | Task Scheduler.  When the TS opens, click on the settings pull down menu and select multiple processes.  Set the Max Processess to equal the number of processors available on your machine.  This should speed up your analysis too (and opening/closing, saving, sheet metal flat patterns, lofting, unfold/refold, drawing view creation, edits, etc.).

[ValleyToolMfg]

Increasing the max processes helped quite a bit as well.  I have also added Inventor to the AV exception list and I am essentially running as fast as I was with Inventor 2014.  Thanks everyone for your help.

[blair]

You can also set the number of CPU cores that a program uses with the Affinity Function within Windows: Start the Windows Task Manager, open the Processes tab, right-click on the process required, and from the context menu select Set Affinity.