Architecture 2011 is SLLOOOOWWWW

[Anonymous]

I may not have a blistering fast PC, but Architecture 2011 is slow, slow, and slow.  I NEVER had these problems with 2010.  My PC is over the requirements for 2011 and I don't see why 2011 would take THAT much more than 2010 to run it.

If I have more than one drawing open and switch between the open drawings, it take a good 15-30 seconds before I get "control" back.  In most cases the window says "Not Responding" that entire time and finally comes back.

And it's not just between drawings.  Just going from one layout to the next within the same file takes forever.  And then there's printing.  The drawing is halfway out of the plotter before the plot dialog goes away on my screen.

Obviously, 15-30 seconds doesn't sound like much....but that adds up over the days and weeks.  It adds up to hours of non-productive, lost time.

I swear, for the amount of money we pay for subscription, I wish Autodesk would just concentrate on putting out one, good product that stuck around for a few years instead of rushing these buggy, pathetic, yearly versions out the door.  I mean, there were minor bugs in 2010 that could have been addressed instead of pushing out 2011 which is a huge backslide in my opinion.  I love some of the new options and tools they added, but I'd gladly trade them all to get my speed back.

I would just go back to 2010, but that opens another whole can of worms.  The upgrading process for Architecture is awful.  I've never seen software that is so difficult to install and migrate all your settings.  But, that's another topic.  Oh, and backwards compatibility is laughable.

Anyone else seeing this huge slow down?  Found any solutions?

[Anonymous]

Try disabling the communication center and notifications.

[David_W_Koch]

There have been a number of previous threads on this topic.  You may want to search for them to get more suggestions on how to improve ACA's performance.

Two items that I have found to slow things down over the years are discussed in this blog article.

[Anonymous]

I looked through the first 9 pages of search results for "slow" and only found 3 or 4 pertaining to 2011 that were at all relevant.  None of which had a resolution.  Only one person seemed to get things running better and that was by setting savefidelity to 0.  Mine already was. <shrugs>

I checked my files list and it all seems normal.  We store all of our files on our server, so, with the exception of a few files, it mostly points there and resolves just fine.  I am currently the only one running 2011 (the guinea pig) and I am the only one experiencing the slow-down.

As you can imagine, it's incredibly frustrating.  I hate waiting on the little blue circle to spin before I can get back to work.

I disabled the automatic updating of the communication center.  Not sure how to completely disable it.  It may be my imagination, but it seems to have sped things up SLIGHTLY.  Instead of 15-30 seconds to switch between drawings, it more like 10-20.

[Anonymous]

Glad to hear things have sped up a little.  When I mentioned notifications earlier, I was talking about the tooltip notifications.  When you first install and run ACA 2011, it seems to pop up a tooltip notification after almost every command (even the simple ones that you've used for years), and turning those off made the most difference for me, especially when switching between layout tabs or between model and paper space.  

Also, if you may want to have your CAD manager and IT administrator go over some of the items David Koch listed on the blog.  From the user end of things, though, you'll definitely want to turn off the tooltip notifications.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Heh heh...I AM the CAD Manager AND IT Admin! 😄

(That's why I'm the guinea pig running 2011) 😉

[Anonymous]

I feel your pain, brother.

[pendean]

What are your system details? The posted requirements are so unbelievably low your GF/wife's hairdresser's cash register machine probably is better suited for ACA than that.

From many posts about all things AutoCAD 2011, how to help along a machine that chokes (in addition to the advice given above already):

- Turn off the modeless layer palette. 

- Turn off any palette transparency.

- Turn off SelectionCycling, SC button at bottom of screen

- Turn off Hardware Acceleration within AutoCAD, icon on the lower right near workspace and toolbar lock.

- Set hpdlgmode to 1  and/ or hpquickpreview to off.

- Are you using two monitors?  Use monitor 1 as your graphics monitor.

- Update your video card drivers here (if any, otherwise try your PC vendor or video card vendor's websites):
http://www.autodesk.com/autocad-graphicscard

- Autodesk recommended uninstall and reinstall procedures as a last resort:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/dl/item?siteID=123112&id=10243968&linkID=9240617

- Check the total character length of your path statements.  Type the following on your command line.
(strlen (getenv "ACAD"))
The length should be under 800 and well under 800 to be on the safe side.

- In Windows, set your anti-virus  to stop scanning AutoCAD and all of it's files.

- In Windows, turn off all running background apps you truly do not need. Your PC is low on resources, help it out. Don't know how? grab a freeware called CCLEANER and use it's startup feature to kill all those running apps.

- Grab that freeware noted above, CCLEANER, and clean up any PC of issues: the program has at it's startup a CLEANER function, click on the analyze then run cleaner buttons. Then click on the Registry button, and without changing anything, click on the SCAN FOR ISSUES button then then FIX SELECTED ISSUES button, answer yes to create a restore point.

[Anonymous]

I am running a Core 2 Duo 2.13Ghz with 4GB of RAM and 70 of 250GB left on the HD.  The OS is Vista 32.  The video card is an ATI Radeon X1500 which I believe has 256MB of RAM (Yes, a little flimsy by today's standards).

Bear in mind on the same computer I had none of these issues with ACA 2010.

Modeless layer palette:  Not really sure what this is.  I know what the layers palette is, but not sure what modeless is.

No palette transparency

Selection cycling off

I turned hardware acceleration off...no change

Set hpdlgmode to 1  and hpquickpreview to off...no change

Monitor 1 is graphics monitor...tools and palettes are on monitor 2

Will look to see if there are updated video drivers.

Total character length is 547

Antivirus set to ignore Autodesk folders under Program Files, Program Data and AppData (Roaming and Local)

Haven't run CCleaner yet.  But I am familiar with it and have used it before.

I'll remove any extraneous programs and see what happens.  So far, no change with the things I have tried.

Thanks so much for your help!

Matt

[pendean]

Core2 Duo 6600, 2.40GHZ, 3Gig RAM, Vista 32bit, ATI X1300 video with (5) DWG files open right now on our SBS2003 Server and I see no delay over 4-5 seconds switching between these 5MB-8MB files (Upgrading soon I hope).

I do see switching slow downs in files in the 15MB+ size range, about 15-20 seconds regardless of whether I have 2 or 4 DWG files open. Little to no delays in files under 2MB in size.

Except for a few tweaks and profile additions for our needs, ACA is running OOTB for the most part.

LAYER pallete is modeless: on all the time and sucking resources. Turn it off when not in use (do not minimize) or switch to the clasic Layer command (the old pop-up). I have mine minimize though, so go figure.

See anything we have in common?

[Anonymous]

Looks like we have quite a bit in common.

Oh, and yes, I would only have 3GB of RAM since Vista32 can only use 3 of the 4GB I have installed.  So, apart from the processor, our setups are quite similar.

We're also on a SBS2003 server over a gigabit network.

We've also used 2011 pretty much OOTB apart from storing custom palettes for blocks, etc. on our server where they can be shared.

I'm seeing the slow downs amongst files that are less than 1MB and have no walls, doors, and window type AEC components.  So, something is definitely wrong.  I'm trying some of the things you suggested.  Hopefully I can get something to change.

Thanks!

Matt

[Anonymous]

"Monitor 1 is graphics monitor...tools and palettes are on monitor 2"

Probably grasping at straws here, but is the command line one of those tools?

[Anonymous]

No...command line is below the workspace.

Don't worry, I have two big ol' handfuls of straw right now!!! 😄

[Anonymous]

I am assuming you have installed 2011 then applied your existing customisation. Does it suffer the same slowdowns with the default profile?

We had to recreate our profiles from scratch (the arg file) after upgrading from 2008 to 2010 to stop it from throwing fatal errors every 5 minutes.

Another thing you could look at are the CUI's. When you type 'CUI' does it give you any errors when it opens? Do all of the 'partial customisation files' actually exist? If you type CUILOAD and 'unload' everything, I bet autocad becomes snappy again (albiet useless).

Other than that, Im all out of straws...

Mat.

[Anonymous]

When I installed 2011, I recreated all customization from scratch to be sure I wasn't throwing out a great tool that came out by just replacing it with an old 2010/2009 carry-over.

So, my whole setup is built from the ground up off of nothing but 2011 "stuff."

We had done the same thing when 2010 came out.  But, I did it once more to make sure I had it as streamlined and clean as possible.  The whole process of installing a new seat or upgrading a seat is so cumbersome.  Copying profiles, palettes, cui files....blah blah blah.  That's why I tried my best to use stock ACA wherever possible.

Beyond that, I do have tool palettes that are carry-overs from older versions.  But, they mostly contain standard 2D blocks.  There are some older AEC tools in there for walls, doors, and windows, but they all seem to work just fine.

I will try your suggestions and see what happens.  Thing is, if it does end up more snappy, what do I do then?! 😄

[Anonymous]

Could one of these settings I changed keep me from snapping to lines within an AEC wall?

I used to be able to snap to things like drywall, stud, block, etc. within a wall.  Not just the wall's baseline.  But now, I can only snap to baseline.

Any ideas???

Thanks!

Matt

[Anonymous]

Nevermind.  I didn't realize there was a toggle for snapping to wall justification lines.  Since I didn't even know about it, I'm not sure how it got turned on either.  Weird.

[sam.chan]

Hi,

Thank you for your report, and the issue is currently under investigation. Hopefully this can be addressed in a near future.

Sam

AutoCAD Architecture team

Autodesk Inc.