Most important hardware component for large models?

[morans]

What is the common hardware bottleneck when using large/complex models in UG? I'm trying to put together a 'test' machine at my company for future workstation upgrades. Most of our computers are running a 2.67Ghz Intel Xeon with 16GB of ram and a FirePRO V7800 (2GB). For the most part, the machines can handle smaller models and assemblies but really tend to choke once we get into larger assemblies.

I've never really seen any of our computers use anything over 8-9GB of Ram, so I assume that's not the issue. I have yet to check GPU load, but I have a feeling that it's not the problem either, but I could be wrong. I'm leaning towards the CPU bottlenecking the systems but again, I haven't run any tests to say for sure. I'm sure many people here have been in the same boat, so any feedback is welcome.

I should also note that we're using Windows 7 Enterprise and NX7.5 - NX9

Thanks in advance

 

[JohnRBaker]

When you say they "tend to choke once we get into larger assemblies" what do you mean exactly? Is it just slow to load or not being able to smoothly pan/zoom/rotate your model?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[morans]

A little of both. For example, going from drafting to modeling can sometimes take a pretty long time depending on the size of the model. Also, from within modeling, trying to unhide a component can sometimes take quite a while. So it seems that pretty much anything that requires UG to redraw the model after it's already been loaded tends to really make the machines lag.

One of our users said that he walks away from the machine when he needs to unhide something as it can take several minutes until it's ready for user input.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Are you using lightweight representations in your Assembly models and the then using Smart Lightweight views on your Assembly Drawings?

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[morans]

That's something we've never used before. What exactly does this function do? I assume just shows rough/less accurate approximation of the assembly geometry?

edit: So I tried loading an assembly with "use lightweight representations" checked in load options and didn't notice much of a difference. Is this something that has to be setup in the assembly components?

 

[JohnRBaker]

Has the parts for your assembly been refiled into the latest version of NX and if so, did you toggle on the option to create lightweight representations during the refile? Parts created new since NX 7.5 should have the lightweight representations already there, but older files will need to be refiled to get the maximum benefit.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[morans]

Hi John. So I played around with the lightweight representation function and I can verify that it's working visually, but it doesn't do much to help performance. I looked at a particularly demanding assembly, for example, and saw that just a single component part contained 2700 solid bodies and there are multiple parts like that in this assembly (and unfortunately our customers client sent them to us this way, so we can't change it much). There are times when we can load only certain sub-components to help speed things up, but there are also instances when we need to show everything.

I'm just wondering what kind of hardware would tend to help the most in these instances. Does NX tend to scale linearly with multiple CPUs and cores? Our RAM seems to be OK. Unless multiple sessions are opened, we almost never exceed 50% used.

 

[JohnRBaker]

With models like that, multiple solid bodies in a single part file, I suspect that there is little that you can do except buy the fastest CPU's (minimum of 4 cores), most memory possible, the best graphics cards and replace your conventional hard-drives with SSD units. The sort of software enhancements we we've been working on, some of which I've already mentioned, may not be much help with models like you're describing.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Along these lines, this document might help (please note however that this was written by a couple of hardware vendors so it's a bit biased but there is still some basic info that should be relevant for anyone):

http://unbouncepages.com/de-wp-dell-8-06-15/

DISCLOSURE: Neither I nor Siemens PLM has any business interests in this document nor any of the specific hardware recommendations made therein.

John R. Baker, P.E.
Product 'Evangelist'
Product Engineering Software
Siemens PLM Software Inc.
Digital Factory
Cypress, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

To an Engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.