Large assembly very slow...is it the program or computer?

[Anonymous]

I'm working in a very large assembly (over 100k parts) and am wondering which side of the system is bogging.  Currently it takes several hours to open the model and at this point you cant really utilize it at all anyways.  We are being fed .stp files from the prime and have to assemble them into a large model before we can start removing what we dont need...so having a complete assembly is needed for now.  I found a PDF on this site "Large Assembly Performance" and matched the settings suggested within and I cant say that its helped much.

I've also tried to create derived components to see if we can make dummy files and even the subassemblies are just too big for that it seems.  Yesterday I let one subassembly of approximately 10k parts run and it either crashes or goes into a seemingly infinite loop of "processing".

Have i met the max capabilities of the program, or is my computer system not up to snuff?  I am running Inventor 2016 Professional.

[Fouad-l]

Hi.

From my point of view (Experience), In your case,  it is stronglly recommended to use Level of details inside your assembly to work only with files you really need.

When you create a level of detail from a group of parts or subassemblies, you are really suppressing the rest of parts (and theire associated files ( idw, dwg ...)) from memory. and this will improve your System performance in an exaggerated way.

For more information please visit this article:

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2014...

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Welcome to the community...

Well you have Inventor 2016 but we have no clue what your hardware is..   RAM, CPU, VIDEO CARD?  Have you applied any updates to Inventor 2016?  Are you using Vault?   Where are your files stored?  Are you using Express Mode?  These steps files, are they complex surfaces and etc?

[Anonymous]

-It appears my computer specs were removed when I added info in the initial post. (please see attached)

-I was told (correctly or not) that Inventor does not use the video card to process things.  Is this true?

-The assembly has a mix of everything from basic hardware, to pipes and tubes, to surfaces.  I understand it is a very large file but I have previously used similar type assemblies in Pro Engineer without issue which is why I wonder if it is the program or my computer. 

-Currently the files are on a server (no vault use yet).  I have tried a pack and go of the assembly to my desktop and while it did open slightly quicker, its hard to know if it will do so consistently as this same assembly varies greatly in how long it takes to open when pulling it from the server. 

[Anonymous]

And yes, this is being opened in express.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Well loading files over the network will always be your bottleneck.  Inventor was not designed for this.  Work local if possible.

[Anonymous]

When pulling the file from the server...once its opened does it not make a temporary file on your local so it can process more quickly to work on it? 

It seems thats what ProE and Solid Works would do...although we always used their file sharing system (Windchill, etc) so maybe thats a function of the vault also?

[Mark.Lancaster]

No..  Every time you are doing something loading, saving, and etc.. You are pushing data back and forth across your LAN becuase the files are on your server.   Inventor doesn't move or create temporary files.    Vault would copy the files to your machine just like Windchill would.

[Anonymous]

Ok, that is good to know. 

Also, does Inventor use the graphics card or not?  A coworker said it does not so an upgrade to it wouldnt help anything...but I was asked above which graphics card we are using which leads me to believe it may be something worth looking into also?

[Anonymous]

Also, if I have a top level made of 3 subassemblies for example...and open the 3 sub assemblies independently...they take say half an hour each for a total time of 1.5 hours.  If I open the master, which is the same file size of those 3 combined...it will take say 4 hours to load.  Why is this?  And why will it not open the master quicker if I have the 3 subassemblies already open vs opening it cold straight from the server?  

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

I can say yes or no to the graphics card question..

If just loading into memory no the graphics card is not really being used.   But the graphics card is being used to "paint" the information on the screen.  Having an outdated video driver will also impact performance so if you video card is not up to the latest you can run into performance problems.  But don't rely on Windows telling you its up-to-date.

[Mark.Lancaster]

@Anonymous

Its hard to say about your different load times but pulling over the network is your bottleneck..  I assume others are in your office/location and they are using the network as well.   Its like having a powerful race car and you are stuck in bumper to bumper rush-hour traffic.

[Anonymous]

Coincidentally the Vault should be up and running today or tomorrow so it will be interesting to see the performance gains from that alone.  Hopefully it makes these files manageable so we can start using them as needed.  

I shall report back once its loaded to the Vault and see how it goes.

Thanks.

[kgilham]

@Anonymous

Would you be able to share your assembly with the Inventor team?  We are currently working on improving the performance on large assemblies and it could help us identify issues that we could fix in upcoming releases.  

To answer your question about what is causing Inventor to be slow it could be many things.  With assemblies this large it can be very difficult to track down what is actually causing some of these issues.  If we have the assembly it may help us determine if there is anything wrong with the model that may be causing some of this slowness.  

When you open the assembly does it ask you if you want to update the assembly?  This can be part of the problem as it will load all of the parts that need to be updated.  If you select no it may open faster.  I would also echo Mark's comments about not opening over a network, that can slow opening down significantly.

Thanks,

[swalton]

I have not had a chance to try it out on production data yet, but Inventor 2018 is supposed to offer some large assembly performance benefits over previous releases. 

See: http://blogs.autodesk.com/inventor/2017/03/29/awakening-performance-in-inventor-2018/

and: https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/inventor-products/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2018...

Have you looked at the performance thread: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/how-fast-is-your-inventor-pc-really/m-p/5950908/highli...

Do you have plenty of free RAM after you open your big assembly?

How is the single threaded performance of your CPUs?

SSDs vs spinning rust?

[swalton]

You might look at changing your CPU/motherboard. 

Take a look at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html   I'm not sure how well the Passmark benchmark correlates with Inventor performance but it seems like there are lots of faster CPUs available.

[Anonymous]

@kgilham I will check with management but highly doubt they will be able to share the assembly.  I could try to answer data answers about it (part count, unique parts, size, etc) if that would help.  

It does not ask if I want to update when I open so that should be a non issue.

I just find it bizarre that I have the master which consists of say 5 subassemblies, and I can open those 5 up one after another in approximately 1/3 of the time it takes to open the master...which is just a collector of those 5 and no additional parts or information.  

[Anonymous]

@swalton I'm that guy who knows very little about computers, but is all about modeling and designing stuff.

That being said, I ran the benchmark application but have no idea what the results tell me.  Attached is a screen shot if it helps let us know if my computer is good or not.

[swalton]

My work machine hits about 4.29 on that benchmark. Last I looked, the fast machines were hitting 11-13 on that benchmark.  I'm not convinced that the benchmark is good at predicting large assembly performance, but it does indicate that there are faster machines available in the marketplace.

I don't like using my machine for assemblies much larger then 10k components.  I have vault, so I am working off my local disk, not the network.

[Anonymous]

@swalton as far as 2018 goes...while that would be awesome we just went from 2014 to 2016 a few weeks back so I dont think they will be going to 2018 any time soon unfortunately.