hourglass monitoring

[50ph]

If you are migrating to 3D from a 2D system on the same pc's you are in for some serious hourglass watching.
We found a program that helped us take advantage of that for both resource management and evaluating hardware upgrades before rolling out the upgrades to all the CAD stations. It's called wait-watcher pro.

http://www.wait-watcher.com

 

[MadMango]

Generally, the computer you have used in the past for 2d work will not be sufficient to run 3d software in a manner that will be productive.

MadMango
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
Have you read faq731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[50ph]

We learned that the hard way!
To compound the problems, solidworks was installed onto a variety of pc's that had been running AutoCad 14 or LT, some were NT4 (sp6) and some windows 98 platforms. There was a mixture of 128Mb and 256Mb RAM and a variety of graphics cards. Ideally we could have started off with completely new machines but the finance wouldn't allow it.
Everything got upgraded eventually but knowing what to upgrade on each machine to make the most difference was where this benchmark of using the hourglass came in.

 

[SBaugh]

When upgrading a computer you don 't want to spend a lot of money in one place you need to spend it throughout the machine. It's like builiding a High performance engine. You don't want to spend all your money on just the Cam or forged Dome pistons and not every where else. You have to spend the money through out the engine to get the best performance from it. Same goes for computers.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

 

[JNR]

Hate to say this, but me-thinks your VAR should have taken a bit more interest in your existing hardware and in giving some advice when they sold you the software. You might consider approaching him about some help and support on this subject (try to avoid punchng him out right away though ;-)

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

 

[ctopher]

From my experience using SW, you are better off purchasing the most power ful PC you can find for SW vs upgrading. You will save money vs having the pc crash or running very slow.

 

[rocheey]

My work box is an old ( < 1 Ghz) box, still running NT4.
Both my home boxes are new boxes, running Win2k/WinXP, and my work box has *no problem* keeping up with them: apparently both the quality of the components, and the selection of the components with SW in mind, makes this 'old' SW box as efficient as a new, off-the-shelf speedster.

 

[SBaugh]

I have a new machine that will be here on Monday, but since I have been working for 3DVision Technologies, I have been using an old but powerful workstation. This box only has a 870 Mhz Intel CPU, with 512RAM PC800 ECC, I just installed a Quadro 500 FX card, Running on Windows 2000 SP3 and runs really well. But the cost of memory for this hoss is as expensive as a new computer. So we bought a new computer instead (Without monitor). I'll have 3 good machines once I get this new one, that can run SW well. If your curious, I got them hooked to a Switch box and I only have to use one Monitor, one Mouse, and one keyboard.

I see slowdowns when I open large!! assembly drawings, but that's about it. I run pretty stable considering all the bugs that come through me here from all our customers.

Purchasing the most powerful PC well work and will last longer than these older machines will, but the price will hurt when you buy the best. It's better to take the step or two down. Still follow my post above on the hardware that should be consider when buying

Rocheey,

I hope your aware of SW customer bulletin about Windows NT4. SW cannot guarntee the compatibilty of SP' in SW03 after MS stops support of WinNT4. Even though SW still supports Win NT4. Which MS stopped support in June of this year.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
When in doubt, always check the help