Civil 3D 2018 | Slow Selection?

[BlackBox_]

Is anyone else seeing really slow selection times?

I'm in the early stages of a new +/- 900 lot residential subdivision, doing the typical swapping of this size lots for that size over there, etc in client fashion, and I literally timed it at +/- 3 seconds to select a single Parcel with Properties Pane open (before a Select Similar to get a resultant count).

Not sure if it's an issue with Civil 3D 2018.1 as this is the first time I've used Parcels in 2018 (this is my pilot project), or not - I have also just recently installed Windows Fall Creators Update, but nothing else seems (no other application) to be having an issue at all.

Cheers

[BlackBox_]

Yes, Sir!

That only provides the 385.90 driver for my 8 GB NVIDIA Quadro P4000; I'm running the 416.78 driver.

Driver version aside, neither install changes the default NVIDIA settings used, nor those exposed to AutoCAD (as overrides) - since AutoCAD's Hardware Acceleration doesn't use the best of what we have available inherently, we're left to tinker after-the-fact, to override what AutoCAD uses (where we can).

Cheers

[BlackBox_]

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@Simon_Blain wrote:

Can you share your settings Blackbox ?

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I'm not ignoring you or @Anonymous - I'm still working through the various settings that can be overrided, and seeing which ones give me the best performance (if different).

Since this isn't exactly my wheelhouse, please just give me a bit and I'll gladly share what I come up with.

Cheers

[Simon_Blain]

Perfect, thanks a lot 🙂

[TimYarris]

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@BlackBox_ wrote:

Yes, Sir!

That only provides the 385.90 driver for my 8 GB NVIDIA Quadro P4000; I'm running the 416.78 driver.

Driver version aside, neither install changes the default NVIDIA settings used, nor those exposed to AutoCAD (as overrides) - since AutoCAD's Hardware Acceleration doesn't use the best of what we have available inherently, we're left to tinker after-the-fact, to override what AutoCAD uses (where we can).

Cheers

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Hi @BlackBox_ 
The digging I've done into the recommendations shown on the page I linked to earlier seems to point to "your mileage may vary". With the near infinite hardware/software combinations available, it's nearly impossible to come up with solid recommendations for each case. 

I apologize I can't provide a definitive answer on settings you should be using.

[BlackBox_]

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@TimYarris wrote:

Hi @BlackBox_ 
The digging I've done into the recommendations shown on the page I linked to earlier seems to point to "your mileage may vary". With the near infinite hardware/software combinations available, it's nearly impossible to come up with solid recommendations for each case. 

I apologize I can't provide a definitive answer on settings you should be using.

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Thanks for trying, Tim. :beer:

Despite any frustration early on, I'm just thankful to have stumbled upon the improvements I have.

Cheers

[jrl5735]

I'm going to chime in here, as I've been trying to fix a similar issue. Lagging after selecting a large group of objects in MAP 3D or Vanilla AutoCAD.

Map3D 2018.1.2

AutoCAD 2018.1.2

Windows 10.0.16299 Build 16299

Currently my work around is to set QPMODE = 0. I know that doesn't address your issue Black Box, as it doesn't seem you're using the quick properties dialog. 

I provide this work around for anyone who may feel it's suitable for their use. As I mentioned, I feel this isn't a solution but a work around. 

[sergiumedrea]

My problem was (is) not only with pick / selection.

Besides those problems i had slow time response to window selecting multiple objects in civil 3D (i still have his lag but is better), no matter if they are civil 3D entity or simple cad ones, actualy even if i don't select anything just starting the command will give me a delay of 3-4 seconds.

The last problem in my case was the slow response when i hover over the ribbon tabs (it will take 3-4 sec until the buttons on the ribbon will highlight and be able to press them)

There are 3 things that solved my problems with slow pick / selection and partly the other problems:

1. QtextMode set to 1 and regen (but all text is gone and is replaced by a bounding box)
2. Switch from 2D wireframe to wirefmare (it resolves the pick / select problem but it is slow on zoom in / out and pan, and it has some display issues)
3. Go to Control Panel -> Advanced system settings -> Advanced -> Performance -> Settings -> Visual Effects -> Custom -> deselect at least Smooth edges of screen fonts -> Apply -> OK

Hope this helps!

[HQGL01]

For me, closing Properties window resolved the problem. So now selecting C3D objects and regular AutoCAD objects takes the same time. Thanks for Sblain's cue on that one!

[chriscowgill7373]

Just to keep this train rolling,  Problem still exists in 2020.1, completely closing the properties palette, does seem to make a positive impact on selection speeds (even though the palette is set to autohide).  @TimYarris  any thoughts or progress updates on this?

[TimYarris]

@chriscowgill7373 -- I'm afraid I don't have any updates on this one since my last response. We'll keep our eye on it, but this one seems very tough to isolate.

[jrl5735]

Tim,

Just wanted to chime in here and add that this is also an issue in Vanilla and Map3D as well and has been for at least as long as Black Box and others in this thread have been experiencing it in Civil.

J. Logan

AutoCAD 2018.1.2

[BlackBox_]

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@TimYarris wrote:

@chriscowgill7373 -- I'm afraid I don't have any updates on this one since my last response. We'll keep our eye on it, but this one seems very tough to isolate.

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Hi @TimYarris  - 

I don't have the ability to debug the source code; there is a distinct difference in selecting myriad Civil vs Non-Civil Objects.

This suggests (to me) two things:

1. The access time required to read a Civil Object's properties is significantly greater than that of Non-Civil Objects.
2. The additional code implemented by Civil 3D (if not a full replacement of vanilla AutoCAD's Properties palette code? Never could get a clear answer to this?) to cull the active selection and populate Properties palette is not very efficient. 

I speculate (as that's all I can do) that when the active selection (multiple COGO Points, as a painfully slow example) is being culled, there does not appear to be any consideration for more than one Property value (aka 'Varies'). That is, the moment there is more than one value, the selection is no longer consistent (aka 'Varies') and should no longer cull subsequent Objects for that Property at all. 

Instead, it appears (to me, and this is where being able to debug 'something' would help me help you) that the entire selection is being iterated & culled, with all respective Property values being stored to list, etc and only then is that list accounting for singular value or 'Varies' to populate the Properties Palette.

If I am completely wrong - and that's okay - then the issue is the time it takes to access Civil Objects (to get Station Offset Label's text, one must explode to memory, filtering for text, obtain text strings, etc), given that Civil Objects are derived by Inheritance of hierarchical Types (ultimately originating from AutoCAD API) that would seem to be unlikely. 

Here's hoping you and your team can identify the issue soon! :beer:

Cheers

[rkmcswain]

I hate to throw this out there, but I am not seeing this on any version of C3D (2017 thru 2020) at this point in time. I could make you another animated GIF but the results would be the same today as it was in post 67, in other words, no delays.

Windows 10 v1709

All C3D versions fully patched, my latest testing was in 2020. See below.

I can tell you that I recently solved a similar, but unrelated issue here with AutoCAD, and there were multiple, related factors. Correcting any ONE of them had no effect, it took correcting them ALL for the problem to be "fixed" in the eyes of the user.  

This could be a similar situation where there are multiple things that have to be just right.

@chriscowgill7373  @BlackBox_ 

[BlackBox_]

Hi @rkmcswain  -

Firstly, I'd be interested in reading your findings (here in forums, over at CAD Panacea, etc). I'm certain you've done something smart with your hardware & software configuration that many others haven't. :beer:

That said, the linked post shows single Object selection - I just checked that same drawing (I saved it) and still see the same performance today, on that drawing, doing that task - but this is very different than selecting hundreds/thousands of Objects, such as COGO Points in project drawings. 

Below, I've attached GIFs of the existing TOPO drawing for the smallest project on which I am working (25.5 AC, most are +/- 500 AC residential sites or +/- 6 MI long road/utility infrastructure projects). The 1st shows right click + selecting COGO Points. The 2nd shows Ctrl + A (select all) for the resultant drawing after exporting to AutoCAD. 

Impossible to have true apples to apples here (as COGO is being exploded), I know, the only point being the latter technically selects even MORE Objects and still takes less time. 'Something' is preventing Civil Objects from being culled en-mass as fast.

COGOCOGO Exploded

There also seems to be a part of 'this issue' that's related to editing Pipe Networks, COGO Points, etc via Panorama - even with the same performance verified today, earlier this week my workstation locked up for +/- 5 mins just selecting, changing Layer, changing Style, etc via panorama on a workstation Consistently hitting the +/- 10,000 MB/s (SeqQ32T1) mark now (yes, that's a big B) for the local drive that Civil 3D uses. 

I'm always interested in learning better ways of doing things; look forward to reading your thoughts on how to get the best Civil 3D performance; if not interested in posting, I'd love to compare notes offline sometime. :beer:

Cheers

[rkmcswain]

Do you think I'd see this problem if I were to open that same drawing of yours? Can you share it? @BlackBox_ 

[BlackBox_]

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@rkmcswain wrote:

Do you think I'd see this problem if I were to open that same drawing of yours? Can you share it? @BlackBox_ 

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No idea, but interested to find out; email sent. 

I get the same lag working on this from the network or locally, which suggests Civil 3D is the culprit. 

If you do NOT see the same lag - and I hope you don't, I'd rather be wrong & learn something here - good news is that there's something that can be done to rectify it and that's all I am after.

Cheers

[rkmcswain]

@BlackBox_  - I do get a ±6 second delay when selecting all of the points in this drawing. I also have an old 3900 point ASCII file that I imported into a new empty drawing, and I get a similar delay using this drawing. 

In both cases, the delay time is proportional to the number of points selected. Select one point and the properties are displayed almost instantly. Select 500 points and the delay is about 1 second. Select 2000 points and the delay is about 3 seconds, and so on.

To me this is different than what we started discussing here, and illustrated by your earlier GIF (below). In that case, an almost one second delay is present even in an empty, clean drawing with one AEC object.

[BlackBox_]

Hi @rkmcswain -

Thanks for the confirmation. 

As with anything, especially with CAD performance, there are various contributing factors... and as with any topic of discussion, it evolves as we go. 

Some aspects of CAD performance are within our (user's) purview, such as OS settings, workstation hardware configuration & CAD Profile (local vs network, project drawing complexity & organization, DREFs vs XREFs, etc), whereas others are not, such as how efficiently the code was written for the application we're wanting better performance from. 

The earlier GIF you cite and the fact that it was overcome later in this thread demonstrates the former being leveraged, whereas the latter is clearly being demonstrated in my more recent GIFs, as while selecting more and more COGO points results in more and more time to populate Properties pane, a commensurate lag in performance is not being demonstrated when performing the same test on more and more exploded COGO (which is actually even more objects being selected). 

This inherently suggests a code logic problem - either in how Civil 3D handles the culling of multiple properties (gathering them all, then where more than one == varies vs gathering them until more than one property value exists & no longer tests for that property) - or the Civil 3D API being used is measurably slower at opening, culling, closing COGO Points (and other Civil Objects) than AutoCAD is at doing same for non-Civil Objects, which is still a problem. 

There is always room for improvement. :beer_mug:

Cheers

[mpope]

Hi,

Is this issue resolved.  I read in this thread that is was resolved with 2019.2 update. We are still having it in W8.1 and W10 and C3D 2018, 2019 and 2020.  Specifically with selection of cogo pts and properties bar open.  We get the 3 second delay on any selection of C3D objects. Our workaround has been to select an autocad enity and then select the desire cogo pts and then use the pull down to select cogo pts as the desired enity then we can change any properties, such as label rotation.

This has been a very frustrating process since C3D 2018 through C3D 2020.

Any help or GPU settings would be great.

[chriscowgill7373]

I'm not aware of it being fixed, I still have to turn my property palette off when working on 2020.3