File Lag Time

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am my company's default "BIM manager" as we don't have anyone in that position and I've had the most Revit experience... a year or so working on single family custom residential projects. We are doing our first full project in Revit, a mixed use multifamily structure on top of a parking garage which is already built. I did a lot of research and decided to try splitting the building into a few files so we can load/unload at will. We also built the apartments and condos as separate files and linked those in. So we have:

Central Model - Building X - Unit X structure of nested links.

We have also recently workshared the model as two of us have been working in the same file.

Everything was going swimmingly until very recently, when the lag time suddenly got so bad that it's virtually impossible to do anything at all, even zoom in and out on a floorplan, when the external building files are loaded in the central model. I did a google search and ran through all the recommended file maintenance strategies (resolve warnings, purge, compact, audit, etc) which seemed, if anything, to make things worse rather than better.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do next! I have permission to upload the model if that helps... I'm just not even sure at this point what the problem is likely to be. Any thoughts?

[barthbradley]

Sounds like you've touch all the bases, and you are doing all the right things. Someone didn't by chance go and explode some CAD in the Project?  That's like shrapnel.  

[Anonymous]

We did have some CAD files linked in at one point when we were setting up the site plan, but they were safely detached some time ago. 😕

My next ideas are to change the file set up so there aren't nested links, or to try to copy the whole project into a new file, or to try and figure out if it could be my computer/os rather than a Revit issue, but the first two are pretty drastic and I have no idea where to start on the third.

[barthbradley]

What Version of Revit and what OS?  

[Anonymous]

Revit 2020

Windows 10 pro for workstations version 1903

Computer specs shouldn't be the issue, we both have fairly new machines built to Revit operating specs.

[barthbradley]

https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/revit-products/troubleshooting/caas/sfdcarticles/sfdcarticles...

Emphasis on Add-ins.  

[Anonymous]

Disabling add-ins provided an incrementally better response time, barely noticeable - my entire window still blanked out when I tried to scroll in while viewing the floorplan. 

I tried nosing around in the other areas on the list (I'm definitely not an IT professional) and it LOOKS like they should all be ok, plus we haven't made changes to anything recently other than updating to 2020 and that was a few weeks ago.

[ToanDN]

Does it respond better if you unload the links? Did you constrain anything to the linked geometry? Is it slow when you open the links directly?

[Anonymous]

The linked files work well as long as the units are not loaded into them. If we add all the units, they slow down quite a bit (not like this, they only make it obnoxious to pan around in a realistic 3D view) so that could be part of the problem. I've been wishing there was a way to unload the nested links in the central model, since unloading them in the linked building file doesn't seem to affect their presence in the central... is there a chance they would cause less trouble linked directly into the central model? It would be a headache, but definitely do-able.

I don't believe there is anything constrained to the linked geometry.

[ToanDN · Accepted solution]

3D Realistic is attractive but definitely a major hit to the performance. Use Hidden, Shaded, or Consistent colors for working view and reserve Realistic for presentation views.

If you want to unload the nested links (tier 1) in the working model (tier 3), open the tier 2 model, create a workset(s) and move the links to the workset(s). Back to the tier 3 model, open the views or view templates where you don't need to see tier 3 links, VG > Revit Links tab > Display Settings > Custom; then in the same RVT Link Display Settings window > Worksets tab > Custom > Uncheck the worksets.

If you don't want to see the nested links at all (for example, your scope is exterior and the links are interior), you can close the linked worksets altogether instead of unload them per views.

[Anonymous]

Yeah typically I look at the 3D model primarily in hidden line view - unfortunately, the model is bad enough that it doesn't help at all to do that at this point. I can't even scroll in to a floor plan without having massive lag time.

Thanks for the tip on the nested links, I've been trying to figure out a way to do this and coming up short. I'll give it a try on Monday and see how it goes!

[Anonymous]

Ok well that helped a ton! At least in the views where I don't need to see the nested links. 😉 That'll at least get us through the end of this project, I hope. Thanks!