Practical large assembly size?

[jlcochran1]

This has probably been addressed before, but with search capabilities currently down maybe someone could help. What is the practical number of components that SolidWorks can handle efficiently on a P4 with 2Gb RAM. Looking for general range. For example SolidEdge claims their customers are routinely creating assemblies topping 100,000 parts. Yet it seems from other posts that Inventor and SolidWorks become very slow before exceeding 5,000 parts?

 

[SBaugh]

It will vary on your hardware and the type of HW you are using, how stable your drivers are, whether your system is Maintained (routine basic maintenance).

But if SE claims their customers are making 100,000 component assemblies, htne ask SE if you can speak to that customer. If they are going to flunt it, then take advantage of it. I have seen supported a user that built a 15,000 part assembly Top-down designed and it was controlled by 3 dimension to auto-update the entire assembly. And the whole time he never complained about performance. Other people I support have built 50 part assemblies and call all day long about slow performance. Their hW was completely different and one run good while another didn't. The 15,000 part assembly had a video card that I had never heard of at the time, and the other user had a top of the line machine.... try to figure those apples out.

There is no set number that will function better then another one. It will vary as I menitoned above. Some people here will say it will handle "X" amount and others will say it won't. So your best test is to test it yourself and see if SW is right for you.

Also look in the FAQ section for Hardware ideas. Also see my site -

http://www.scottjbaugh.com/Tips_Tricks/Hardware Recommendations.htm

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies

http://www.3dvisiontech.com

http://www.scottjbaugh.com

faq731-376
faq559-716 - SW Fora Users

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

I dont think it's the qty of parts, more the physical file size, which limits performance. Windows has a practical limit of approx 1.6GB RAM usage, after that major system instability occurs.