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

[mpope]

Thanks Chris...How frustrating has this been!

[Anonymous]

We too have had to close our properties to improve selection time. 

I do recall, a while back, changing UCSDETECT  to zero, which greatly improved the selection responsiveness. However, what you're experiencing, especially with COGO still happens to us, and is only improved by closing the properties. I unload/freeze the file/layer with my COGO points when I don't need them.

This same issue causes a great delay in our layout switching times.

[chriscowgill7373]

I did notice a huge performance gain by changing our cogo point label styles to utilize simplex.shx instead of Arial.ttf, but properties being closed still seems to help best with cogo points in a drawing.

[TimYarris]

Thanks for following up on this, everyone. As was mentioned earlier, we had a fix for a portion of this in 2019.2, but clearly the points issue is still there. (I tested it on both 2020.3 and 2021.) We'll take another pass at fixing this one.

[Anonymous]

Hi guys, We have similar issue with slow selection of any simple object, not just Civ3D objects.  AutoCAD seems lugs, sometimes substantial amount of time.

Some years ago I traced this issue with inability of AutoDesk to resolve Network Path Referencing any of the AutoCAD support file folders.

-If you have substantial CTB file collection for plotting -make sure its on your C: drive - copy any folder containig CTB on the network to yout local folder on C drive - rerout string in CONFIG dialog to this location.

-Any other reference of support system going to a network file - Copy this file to your C: drive and re-reference these strings in CONGIG dialog back to your C drive - you will see immediate huge relief with any selection and command performance on the screen.

[rkmcswain]

@Anonymous wrote:

Some years ago I traced this issue with inability of AutoDesk to resolve Network Path Referencing any of the AutoCAD support file folders.

-If you have substantial CTB file collection for plotting -make sure its on your C: drive - copy any folder containig CTB on the network to yout local folder on C drive - rerout string in CONFIG dialog to this location.

-Any other reference of support system going to a network file - Copy this file to your C: drive and re-reference these strings in CONGIG dialog back to your C drive - you will see immediate huge relief with any selection and command performance on the screen.

It's not as simple as that. There must be more to it on your end, such as a inadequate network bandwidth, slow servers, etc. I've have plot styles, lisp files, fonts, basically all support files on a network share for hundreds of users, for 15+ years without any problems attributed to just this.

[Anonymous]

- not that simple indeed - my option is not a solution - just a workaround to try for potential improvement.  It worked in our office, and yes specific servers may have specific issues.  However when your IT does not know how to help - you try what you can.  We have new servers in the office with latest gigabit network.  I have all the stuff you described on server as well for many years for all the users, but with multiple CAD version installs on every station (required by different clients) some thing always go wrong.  Heavy users of Civil3D in my office feel the difference immediately - this why I think it's worth to try if someone struggles with Civ3D performance. Trying will not kill your CAD!  But Civ3D and CAD in general have serious issue with server communication specifically when it comes to data referencing Civ3D objects, this why AutoDesk tried to patch those problems since year 2014 claiming it will be fixed in next edition, so far I have 2020 on my workstation and they still issued new Hotfix for the same old problem.. that is not a Hotfix in my opinion, its "beating a dead horse" in my opinion.  Seems to me AutoCAD gets consistently poor performance throughout the years, specifically when AutoDesk does not pays to persisting issues.

.  

[Kempostudent3]

So I finally bothered to read through all 6 pages of this entire post.  This is pathetic.  I'm loosing so much time on my work having to wait for the program to catch up. 

1. Between the eternally long selection times for every Civil 3D object/lable,

2. not being able to keep up with command inputs anywhere near the speed it could back in 2008 when I started using CAD,

3. or the random freezes where I have to click out of the program and then back in all day long,

I can hardly get any work done.  I'm constantly trying to work around everything to be efficient enough to get something done.  It's pathetic that this particular problem has lasted for years and still isn't fixed.

I wish they would listen and strip off all the new features that bloat the program to the point of being nearly a complete waste of time and just focus on creating a robust, reliable, quick response program.  Features are worthless if the computer cannot keep up with my basic command input.  Hardware these days should be able to keep up with any user input I can throw at it and not break a sweat.  Civil 3D is way too inefficiently programmed, so if feels like I'm wading waste deep in concrete all day long.  I can't draft at a third of the speed I am capable of because I'm always waiting on the program or it is doing the wrong command because it's a few second behind my typing. 

I'm so fed up that I was just looking for a way to turn off all contextual tabs.  It turns out there used to be a way prior to 2015, but from 2015 and on they "improved" the program by removing the ability to turn off the contextual tabs globally, so if I want to see if it will improve my time, I can waste hours wading through the CUI turning them off one by one to see if it helps, then more time if I decide I want to turn them back on.

I would continue my rant, but I have to get some work done given that your program has been killing my efficiency.

[Anonymous]

Hi, I had issues similar to yours, did not find straight forward solutions, but a couple of workarounds:

1. When you do such a massive point (or any other entities in multiple numbers for that matter) - keep your PROPERTIES dialog closed. This will help speed up the selection and the next command process.  By selecting massive amount of objects at once and having PROPERTIES dialog open, CAD is trying to determine all the common or various properties of all of them and to display appropriate answer in the PROPERTIES dialog cells.  So keep PROPERTIES closed, until you really need it, use CTRL+1 shortcut to open Dialog when you need it and the same shortcut to close it.

2. Also if you are working with pipe networks and experiencing delays in command input or commands executions - you need to install the AutoDESK Hotfix for Civ3d 18-20

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/civil-3d/downloads/caas/downloads/content/autodesk-civil-3d-2...

This will tremendously help to speed up Civil3D operations as well as simple commands execution. It emproved my system performance to about 50%, including tremendous speed-up of global Sheetset plotting process.  Somehow AutoDES quietly issues these Hotfixes and not advertizing real issue that they let to get in such a huge BUG in the new rerleases.  The same issue persisted in versions 2014-2017, AutoDESK promised these Hotfixes to be incorporated into all the new versions - never happenned.. and had similar HotFix for the 2014-2017 in here: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-result/caas/simplecontent/content/autodesk-autocad-civil-3d-pe...

3. As well I recommend to copy and keep all the network related AutoCAD configuration files to your local C: drive (Plot setting files, Fonts, Line types and any other commonly shared configuration files e.t.c.)  Re-rout all these reference path to the new location on your C drive in your PREFERENCES or CONFIG interface in your CAD - you will see tremendous improvement in performance.

These fixes helped us (in my office with about 10 CAD Stations, and a company-wide of 10 times more!) to speed up Civ3D and save agony of slow command performance.  This is just a workaround for the persistent issue of Degrading, Slowing down of Civil3D performance we in our office experienced for years!  Real solution for all this stuff must come from AutoDESK who must compile all these (and many-many more) hot fixes and to make sure they smoothly transition into future versions.

[Anonymous]

see my message #109 - it may help a bit.

[vandenoosterkamp]

" CAD is trying to determine all the..."

all we need is a 'maxtrypropdetermine' sys variable, like the ones with max objects in properties and like max grips. This topic is only 5 years old so about time to fix it.

I have huge hatches that need to be worked on. After clicking one I have a 10 minute coffee break. By the end of a working day I pie coffee and have work done that should take 10 minutes.

Or make the selectsimilar command transparantly so when being in a command already that properties monster keeps quit.

Autodesk: do you ever use your own product yourself??? These problems are so obvious that it is beyond believe you just keep pouring out new stuff we don't need instead of fixing URGENT problems. Lol, that are known for decades by now

[albionpjl]

Or some way to manually abort the selection process when it's obviously struggling. 'Escape' doesn't work. It's like it has to fully finish trying and failing before it notices the escape command.

[vandenoosterkamp]

Manually abort is in most cases first checking save date and after that ctrl-shift-escape and abort the process.