Solidworks 2018

[Bruno_A]

Hello all,

 

My desktop (specs in my signature) is currently being used as a remote workstation, through RDP, and it has Solidworks 2018 installed, and the user is building a massive project. I am no expert and never used any software like Solidworks, but I would assume it's GPU intensive, as it's a 3D Modeling software. I was told what the project was, and, in my opinion it's very not optimised, as, for example, there are bins with 900 screws each, that's a lot of components to process, especially when you have 10 of those bins, full. However, it is for a university project, and I was told that the project, when finished, should be a factory with all the components necessary to manufacture a specific product, and therefore, there has to be a certain number of screws, etc. Anyway, even on my machine, which even though does not have the best hardware out there, it's certainly no slouch, Solidworks becomes unresponsive, at times, when inserting components, for example. I logged in remotely and noticed that the GPU is not really being used much, or the RAM, or the CPU, so, I'm not really sure what could be done. It seems like it's not actually hardware limited, so, could it be that the project is just too "big" for solidworks itself? Any ideas?

 

Many thanks,

Bruno.

[Juular]

Most 3D modeling \ CAD software are single-threaded and not really GPU bound either. I have no experience with Solidworks either, maybe it's normal to have some lockups with very heavy projects. What can help are getting unlocked Intel CPU specifically for this task and OC it to maximum possible clocks (5.0-5.2 GHz), i5 9600k or even i3 9350k would get better performance in this specific use case because of better ST performance but getting overall bad value new PC just for one task when you already have a good PC at your hands might be sorts of bad idea.

Make sure you've updated your UEFI and Windows 10 as older UEFI revisions have problems with boost algorithm and pre-November Windows 10 works with Zen 2 CPUs poorly, resulting in bad performance.

[Bruno_A]

25 minutes ago, Juular said:

Most 3D modeling \ CAD software are single-threaded and not really GPU bound either. I have no experience with Solidworks either, maybe it's normal to have some lockups with very heavy projects. What can help are getting unlocked Intel CPU specifically for this task and OC it to maximum possible clocks (5.0-5.2 GHz), i5 9600k or even i3 9350k would get better performance in this specific use case because of better ST performance but getting overall bad value new PC just for one task when you already have a good PC at your hands might be sorts of bad idea.

Make sure you've updated your UEFI and Windows 10 as older UEFI revisions have problems with boost algorithm and pre-November Windows 10 works with Zen 2 CPUs poorly, resulting in bad performance.

I just did some research, and yes, it seems like Solidworks loves single-core performance. However, building a new machine is not an option, as the project is not even half-way finished, and the CPU is already struggling. To be honest, any of the CPUs you listed, even with OC, will not be much faster in single-thread speeds.

[Owen33]

Make sure you are running the latest drivers recommend by solidworks.com gaming drivers will reduce performance. 
 

Make sure large assembly mode is active, it greatly reduces load times by not processing all mates instead treating assemblies as singular components. For this to work well sub assemblies for things like the bolt bins are essential. 
 

One of the best and easiest things to do is to suppress things like those bolt bins you mentioned. Suppressing basically removes the item letting the program ignore it until it’s needed. This will greatly reduce your component count and increase speed. When the full model must be viewed simply un-suppress them. 
 

Another thing that is commonly over looked is what drive the model is stored on. If it’s not on your SSD you will see additional lag.  

[Bruno_A]

14 hours ago, Owen33 said:

Make sure you are running the latest drivers recommend by solidworks.com gaming drivers will reduce performance. 
 

Make sure large assembly mode is active, it greatly reduces load times by not processing all mates instead treating assemblies as singular components. For this to work well sub assemblies for things like the bolt bins are essential. 
 

One of the best and easiest things to do is to suppress things like those bolt bins you mentioned. Suppressing basically removes the item letting the program ignore it until it’s needed. This will greatly reduce your component count and increase speed. When the full model must be viewed simply un-suppress them. 
 

Another thing that is commonly over looked is what drive the model is stored on. If it’s not on your SSD you will see additional lag.  

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'll pass that on to the user. Suppressing seems interesting. I noticed that "Large Assembly Mode" was already on, unfortunately. Could you explain what a sub-assembly is and how that would improve performance?

[Owen33]

On 12/15/2019 at 5:14 AM, Bruno_A said:

Thanks a lot for the answer. I'll pass that on to the user. Suppressing seems interesting. I noticed that "Large Assembly Mode" was already on, unfortunately. Could you explain what a sub-assembly is and how that would improve performance?

A subassembly is simple a small to medium group of parts or other subassemblies saved as an assembly.  The subassembly is then used as a part to create the final assembly. 
 

In large assembly mode subassemblies are generally treated as components, therefore solidworks shouldn’t be computing all of internal references of the subassembly, which should save you quite a bit of processing time to open the file.