Survey -Who is using 64 bit SW?

[gwubs]

At our company we are running into memory limitations under Windows XP Pro (32 bit). We have tried the 3 Gig memory switch. My questions are, have you switched to SW on 64 bit XP, and would you recommend making the change?
Thanks
Gerald

 

[Theophilus]

I am not, but I have a friend who performs extensive analysis and they use XP 64. I don't know to what degree they use SW 64 with it, since the decision was for use of crazy amounts of processors and memory for analysis crunching.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

Sorry, I don't have any experience with XPx64, but how much physical RAM do you have and what is the VM set at in the x32 system?

Have you tried dual-core or core-duo CPUs?


SW07-SP3.1
SW06-SP5.1

 

[gwubs]

Thanks for the quick response guys. The highest amount of installed RAM we have tried is 3 Gigs. The mother board has only three slots... (P4 HT machine) We have also tried loading the files on my AMD 4600 dual core with 2 Gigs of RAM with similar results ie., total RAM usage exceeds 2GB, and file swapping begins. Have not tried adding extra memory to my system. Our IT guy has started thinking along the 64 bit lines, and I was hoping to get an idea of whether this is a good or bad idea.

 

[Theophilus]

I'd say your biggest concern is probably not performance of SW itself in that environment, but in the limitations of XP 64 for whatever else you may intend to do with that machine. I'd figure using the XP 64 machine as a dedicated CAD station (that you may have difficulty printing from, or other similar things where drivers could be a hindrance). Check to make sure you can get hardware to build the system that would have applicable drivers, too--such as graphics cards.



Jeff Mowry

http://www.industrialdesignhaus.com

Reason trumps all. And awe transcends reason.

 

[gwubs]

CBL - I missed answering all your questions. The memory switch on the P4 was set to 3 Gb, with 3 gigs installed. I have not tried Core Duo machine. I have a Dell M90 Core 2 Duo laptop, but have not tried that yet - it is not on the network, so copying the files could be a bit of a chore.

 

[CorBlimeyLimey]

And the Virtual Memory (Paging File) setting?




SW07-SP3.1
SW06-SP5.1

 

[gwubs]

I'll find out. Our IT guy has left for the day.

 

[rfus]

I use x64 pretty much soley on the home machine (have a win32 partition in case) with 4 GB of ram. I love it because whenver I run into memory issues I go home. I won't even bother to calculate large toolpaths on my office machine. I can then continue my work with a home with a cold one in the left hand and the mouse on the right. I rarely crash, never run out of mem, and find work arounds for apps that have issues with x64.

I would recommend setting up an x64 box with 4 GB of ram and keeping this on hand for memory intensive projects.

RFUS

 

[rockguy]

We have a user group member that is running XP 64 and SW 64 bit version. He says he's had very little issue with the 64 bit set up. He was actually reccomending switching to someone when I joined the conversation.

I wish I had more info.

Rob Rodriguez CSWP

http://www.axiscadsolutions.com

http://www.robrodriguez.com

http://designsmarter.typepad.com/rob_rodriguez/

Eastern Region SWUGN Representative

http://www.swugn.org

http://www.nvtswug.com

SW 2007 SP 2.0

 

[Luca83]

Just switched over to X64 not too long ago, so far its been a good performer, the 4GB RAM ceiling is definately a nice thing to have.

The only real drawback we had was lack of XP64 driver support for some of the printers in the office.

-L@P.I.D.

Work: Dell PW690-Intel Xeon E5345 2.33GHz-PNY QUADRO FX3450 Drivers 77.56-4GB DDR2 FB-DIMM 667MHz ECC-80GB 10K-250GB 7.2K-Win XPx64-SW2007 SP2.2-RHINO 4.0 SP0
Play: Intel X6800 Core 2 Extreme - Asus P5W64 WS Pro i975X -2GB Corsair XMS-EVGA NV7900GTO(Mod. GTX Bios , FW93.71)-74GB Raptor-250GB WD Caviar

 

[Nwaune]

There are ~5 of us using SW 2007 x64 on Windows x64. We have the same issues with drivers although our IT guy is starting to find more. We have identified some quirks with the x64 version of SW, but not more than with the typical yearly update.

There are two issues that we have which are quite annoying:
1. The first session of SW x64 always locks up in the morning. Once SW is restarted, things run relatively smooth.
2. The x64 users seem lose the ability to save DWG files with certian files. SW goes through the motions, but no file is generated. At the same time, a user with an "inferior" x32 system easily generates the same DWG.

By the way, we did try SW x64 with Microsoft Vista x64, but quickly reverted back to Windows XP x64. There were stability issues.

 

[Simon205]

I've got the same issues as you Nwaune, in addition to lots of crashes and lots of problems with 'shaded with edges' views.

AntiVirus was stopped on install, I've now got the SW certified driver for my graphics card (ATI Fire GL V7300), and I've tried a repair installation but this hasn't alleviated things. I'm at a bit of a loss as it's a new machine too.

Also, 'Draw Compare' is always running as an application whenever SW is running - anyone else get this?

 

[SincoTC]

We have been running SW 64 bit for about a year on one seat, running XP Pro x64 SP1, Starting with SW06 and then upgrading to SW07 SP3.0

SW06 seemed slow when first installed, but the O7 version seems better in this respect and loads itself and files about 25% faster than our 32 bit seat.

I had a lot of crashes at at first with 07 and these seemed to be graphics card related. For example, when switching between two loaded assemblies (each about 3Mb and less than 100 components), the Title Bar and Tree pane would change, but not the main window which remaind showing the first assembly. Moving the mouse over the Tree would cause pink lines to appear over this assembly, showing the outlines of parts of the model it should be displaying. Closing this model would leave the desktop showing in the main display pane, Sometimes re loading the model would recover the display but it would be unstable and lock up big time or SW would just exit.

Similar to Simon, I have an ATI FireGL Card, a V7100. I was using the SW certified driver 8.163.1. Switching to Software OpenGL cured the problem and indicated driver problems. My VAR suggested uninstalling all card drivers before reinstalling the certified driver, but this did no good at all. I then tried the driver cleaning tool i found recomended on this forum, before reinstalling, but it still didn't work. Finally, I downloaded the latest uncertified ATI driver for the card 8.323.0.0 (6/12/2006)from the ATI site and this has worked very well. Testing it (and deliberately pushing my luck), I have had as many as seven assemblies (including our biggest), several parts and a couple of drawings all open at once, I can switch between these with no troubles and even open an eDrawings viewer and load a large assembly at the same time.

However, I have found a method of killing it. Open the eDrawing viewer FIRST with a model over about 3.5Mb in size and SW will load with a hole to the desktop where the Main display pane should be and the system locks solid. Smaller than 3.5Mb, or opened AFTER SW, then all is fine.

One related anomaly that I have reported to my VAR, but they have not yet come back with an explanation, is that whilst Windows Device Manager correctly reports the installed ATI Driver Version and date, the RX Diagnostic report always shows an incorrect driver and date, so I guess it's looking in the wrong place!

Simon, I too find that DrawCompare is always running and I hadn't noticed it before!

Also on the 64 bit seat, but that may not be relevant, I have had a few spontaneous changes of Toolbox Fastener sizes when converting to 07 from 06. The assemblies involved have previously succesfully migrated through 04 and 05 without problems. SW and my VAR have not been able to find the cause of this and I wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences?

Trevor Clarke, UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram
SW2007x32 SP3.1 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram

 

[Standing]

I am using SW on 64 bit XP with 4 gig. I am so that I have do so. I can open very large assy’s lightweight of course. Another engineer here would crash every time he closed SolidWorks. He upgraded to 6 gig and never crashes now.

Bradley
SolidWorks Professional x64 2007 SP3.1
Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU
3.00 GHz, 3.93 GB of RAM
Virtual memory 12577 MB
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3400

 

[Solidjnke]

I just started at a new job about a month ago and a designated Workstation was bought solely for SolidWorks.

SolidWorks 2007 x64 SP 3.1
Windows XP pro x64 SP 2
Dual intel 6600 @2.4 Ghz
4 gig Ram
ATI Fire GL V7100 Video Card
Driver: 8.323.0.0
Dual Dell 2707WFP monitors

Like SincoTC, my feature tree frags out erraticly during assembly openings. I thought it was the driver for the card, but after re-booting the machine, it will open 4 large assemblies (15 to 20 meg each)without a problem. I haven't tried to run open GL yet.

All this week, "fail to open document", "unable to find file", etc., have been SW's replies when it becomes irritated at my work habits.
Today, the machine has totally crashed, twice- both times it was the instant I would hit "Enter" during a save function.

I run Windows XP pro x32 SP 2, with SW 2007 x32 SP 3.0 at home on a Dell 690 w dual 3.0 Ghz., 3 gig ram, ATI Fire Gl V3400. I loaded the same assembly, and put it through the same "work-out", without a hitch.


I have found "Draw Compare" running on this machine also.

Footnote:
This last crash, I left Internet-Explorer closed, and the machine hasn't given any trouble. Coincidence?

 

[SincoTC]

Regarding why DrawCompare is always running with SolidWorks 64 bit and not on 32 bit.

I have compared the 64 bit setup to our 32 bit seat and I find that the 32 bit version uses a "dll" application extension for this Add-in. This runs "on the fly" when DrawCompare is selected from a menu or toolbar and it seems to have little impact on system processes or memory usage. Whereas, for whatever reason, the 64 bit version uses a separate executable, launched by the SWVBAServer as SW loads and as such, it appears in the Task Manager applications window, using just under 6Mb of memory after loading and if not used.

If Task Manager is used to stop it, then it will not start again when called from within SW.

In conclusion, I think that this is most likely a quick way to enable DrawCompare in the 64 bit version, until such time that a 64 bit dll is written. I'm not going to worry too much over the memory usage, as this shouldn't really be an issue with 64 bit. Hopefully, it should work like the 32 bit version in a future release.

Trevor Clarke, UK

SW2007x64 SP3.0 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 4Gb Ram ATI FireGL V7100 Driver: 8.323.0.0
SW2007x32 SP3.1 Pentium P4 3.6Ghz, 2Gb Ram NVIDIA Quadro FX 500 Driver: 6.14.10.7756

 

[Mindnumb]

I am running 32 and 64 bit sw07 on xp64.

Set up the pc mainly for FloWorks.

Spec: cpu: core2duo 6600 @ 3468
ram: 8 Gig
Gfx: Geforce 7900GT (non professional card)

Experiense so far is that its both fast and stable with regard to modeling and drawing. I have experienced crashes when doing FloWvorks calculations. FW seems more satble when running on 32bit in some cases.

No crashes during modeling so far, but as this pc is mainly used for the calculations, the time spent modeling is limited.

 

[10Bender]

I have just started using a new system w/ XP x64. Too early to tell how well it works but I'm replying to this post to describe a problem that may be attributed to x64 but is more general.
I have the issue described where SW locks up when first started. The only way to stop it is to use the Task Manager. Once restarted, it runs fine. The ONLY common part between the old and new systems it the monitor! (Princeton 19" LCD). The new video card is ATI Fire GL 7350. The old is an old ATI Fire GL but I don't recall the model.
When I "kill" SW I find an artifact on the screen, usually the Task Manager title bar.
I'm a computer cripple so I have no idea if some memory location is being accessed by SW and the video driver causing a collision.

 

[Valshnar]

I've had my Dell Precision 690 w/Quadro FX 4500 for about 6 months or so running XP64. If you are exceeding the 1.2gb limit it's a great choice. If you are exceeding the 3gb limit it's an no-brainer.

Stability is excellent, even while opening huge assembly files in CATIA V5 and exporting out to STEP and simultaneously importing the resulting STEP files into Solidworks.

We also threw a huge CATIA assembly together on an HP XP64 box. The engineer had been trying to create a drawing of this tooling jig on and off for over a year...5 minutes into the process he could tell it was a whole new ball game with XP64. A couple days later he finished his drawing and sent it off to the customer.

If you don't need the ram, save your money and stick with an XP 32 box for a while. If you aren't bumping up against memory limits XP64 will only bring you pain, no benefits. Yes, there are problems, especially with wierd software and drivers, and now you get to enjoy maintaining TWO admin images for Solidworks instead of just one. Sigh. But if you need the RAM go for it.

We are happy with both the HP and the Dell workstations. If you get one, grab an HP LP2465 flatscreen monitor to go with it and put an end to all the dual monitor problems too.