Catia V5 running very slow 1

[solfert]

This is my first post so my apologies in advance if this topic has already been covered.

I am running Catia V5 on 64-bit win 7 with 8GB RAM and an intel core 2 duo processor E4600 @ 2.4GHz and my Catia runs very slow. Here is the back story

My company reciently upgraded me from a 32-bit XP box. When I first got the my new tube I was excited because I figured everything would run faster. That was short lived. I was informed that I only had 2GB of RAM due to a shipping error and couldn't keep my old tube till the new RAM arrived because it needed to be upgraded for the next guy to get a 64-bit tube. Obviously it ran VERY slow; much slower than my old tube.

This has not changed, even with my upgrade to 8GB RAM. When ever I mouse over a part/product in the tree catia, one at a time, highlights all the edges then unhighlights them. This might sound harmless but I regularly work with fairly complex shapes that have many edges and it is not uncommon for me to wait 20-40 seconds each time I mouse over the tree; which is often and kills my productivity.

I have attempted the following fixes with no improvement:
- In Windows Task Manager I have tried to set the priority of catia to very high.
- In Tools-Options-Product Structure-Cache Management-Cache Activation: I have selected Work with the cache system .
- In Tools-Options-Display-Preformance-3D Accuracy: I have scaled down the fixed accuracy from .1 to .05.

Unfortunately I cannot spend all day tring to fix the problem because I have frequent deadlines and limping progress is better than none at all.

Has anybody encountered this problem? I appreciate any help/feedback on my problem.

Thanks

solfert

 

[MarkAF]

I have two suggestions for you. The behavior of highlighting all the geometry is actually a "feature" that thankfully you can switch off.
Go to Tools > Options > General > Display > Navigation and uncheck the box "Preselect in geometry view."

For the display, you actually went backwards from what you intended. The accuracy number can be better understood as the fineness of the display. The smaller the number, the finer the display; the shorter each straight-line segment used to approximate a curve. So to get faster performance, set the numbers higher. To get smoother display curves, set the numbers lower.

This sort of behavior also applies to 2D Accuracy, Level of detail, and Pixel Culling settings. I find that setting the Level of detail and Pixel culling to higher values for the 'While Moving' setting really helps when dealing with large models.

Hope that helps

Cheers,
Mark

 

[Azrael]

Sounds strange 8Gb should be enough in most cases, I have also experienced the behaviour you describe in two cases, the first when I have a enormous large model so my ram runs out and the systems start to swap or when I tried to work on a computer with gaming graphics, cheap gaming graphics (even CAD graphics needs to be set for catia application, don't use default setting).

What kind of graphics did you have before and now? what kind of discs did you have before and now?

 

[solfert]

Mark,

Thanks for the input, that sped things up quite a bit. Sadly it is still falling short of my old 32-bit but at least I can work quickly again.

Azrael

Before the switch I actually had better graphics. I had left my Tools > Options settings for the Preselect in geometry view, and display for 3D at their default setting and had no trouble with the same models that were bogging down my new machine. I could mouse over/click on anything in the tree and it would preselect/select without any lag, even when I wasn't working in the cache system.

Now with my new machine and changing the Tools > Options settings that Mark suggested it runs much faster but there is still a tiny bit of lag ( < 1sec) when I select something from the tree. Other than that the only problem is me getting used to not having edges preselect when I mouse over them.

To my knowledge my old and new tube were identical prior to any upgrades. I belive that the only things that were upgraded were the RAM (3-8GB) and the OS (32-bit XP to 64-bit 7); with the precessor (core 2 duo E4600) and graphics card (NIVDIA Quadro NVS 290) remaining the same respectively.

How would I go about changing the settings on the graphics card?

Thanks

 

[Azrael]

Access the Nvidia control panel (usually right click on empty desktop)

 

[dougsnell]

I would verify you have the 3DS Certified graphics driver installed on that workstation. The progressive highlighting of the edges is typically a cue for this. I would imagine you get rather "choppy" behavior when rotating any assembly larger than a few parts as well.

http://www.3ds.com/support/certified-hardware/overview/

Generally this should help resolve a lot of the behavior you have described. Also as mentioned above the nVidia driver software will also come with a preset for Dassault Systemes compatibility.

--Doug

 

[Albigger]

Definitely try Doug's suggestion, as this sounds like a graphics card driver issue to me. I'm unfamiliar with the link Doug posted, but you may want to check NVIDIA's site. Choose driver and fill in your specs, and under download type make sure to select partner certified driver, then on the next page select Dassault, and it should give you a list of drivers to choose from, starting with the most recent.

 

[solfert]

Doug

I brought up the possibility of a driver issue with our IT guy. He just looked into it and tried intalling the a new driver (I'm not sure which one) and now my Catia runs like I thought it should on a 64-bit with 8GB or ram. Apparently there are other designers here that have had the same problem as me and he will be updating their drivers also. You just helped us fix a big problem. Thank you, I appreciate you help.

solfert