MS Office 2013, 2GB Macro Monster vs. Hardware

[Mr.Faul]

OK so for various reasons my uncle runs a self written "2GB Excel Macro Monster" as company software.

(The main reason is that the unix based custom ERP, which was awesome for 20 years, disintegrated into thin air because it was still the original hard drive.... yeah backup your stuff accessible, 20 year old rotten tapes don't help you nowadays....)

 

Honestly what he does is sheer amazing and I never though you would be able to archive this kind of complexity with just Excel, VBA and a few Word Templates for printing.

(Even some certified MS Office experts bow before him)

 

Now he starts to create UIs for employees and has one major concern: speed.

He already managed to get most tasks (and those are mostly the "idiot prove, mega safety check" type of functions because Office is a bitch) under 8 sec. (which is faster than any ERP I have encountered so far) but he still complaints that they need to be under 3 sec. for a feasible workflow.

 

So his next step is to build a "MS Office Mega Server" but he has no clue about hardware.

He asked me for advice so I thought lets try beefier hardware which worked to some extend but still doesn't make a noticeable improvement because it isn't properly utilized.

We also tried a RAM disk and a shitload of office settings but we are unable to find the bottleneck.

 

It seems MS Office is really picky about hardware and you need compatible hardware to get any gains.

(This includes graphic cards and printer interfaces too)

 

So if anybody has experience with this topic please share it with me.

 

P.S. I don't have the current system specs at hand right now. I will post those when they are available.

[AlTech]

What do his excel spread sheets do and what specs does he currently have?

 

I can tell immediately he'll want an SSD, lots of RAM and a quad core CPU. Graphics? Integrated is just fine.

[Mr.Faul]

What do his excel spread sheets do and what specs does he currently have?

 

I can tell immediately he'll want an SSD, lots of RAM and a quad core CPU. Graphics? Integrated is just fine.

 

Those "spread sheets" replace an entire ERP System they are way beyond anything I would call a spread sheet :-D

(To name a few things: Database management/maintenance, Calculations, administrative Tasks, User interfaces etc.)

 

And yes your suggestion seems to be obvious but unfortunately that's not enough. (Already tried :-)

I'm really searching for hardcore experts with experience in this matter.

But thanks, any input is welcome.

[AlTech]

Those "spread sheets" replace an entire ERP System they are way beyond anything I would call a spread sheet :-D

(To name a few things: Database management/maintenance, Calculations, administrative Tasks, User interfaces etc.)

 

And yes your suggestion seems to be obvious but unfortunately that's not enough. (Already tried :-)

I'm really searching for hardcore experts with experience in this matter.

But thanks, any input is welcome.

Ummm. Let  me see, 2-4, 12-18 core Xeons? X99 mobo, 128GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD. GTX 950 for graphics.

[Mr.Faul]

Ummm. Let  me see, 2-4, 12-18 core Xeons? X99 mobo, 128GB RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD. GTX 950 for graphics.

I'd would love a system like that but that wouldn't help at all.

MS Office is one of those programs who doesn't scale at all, or least in a very wired and unpredictable way.

The first system you suggested has plenty of horse power already and would be more than enough if it would be utilized properly.

 

And maybe I haven't stated my goal for this topic clear enough.

I want to identify the bottleneck which keeps MS Office from using those resources.

Once those are identified, picking suitable hardware is easy.

 

Brute forcing is very expensive and isn't the best method at all ;-)

[AlTech]

I'd would love a system like that but that wouldn't help at all.

MS Office is one of those programs who doesn't scale at all, or least in a very wired and unpredictable way.

The first system you suggested has plenty of horse power already and would be more than enough if it would be utilized properly.

 

And maybe I haven't stated my goal for this topic clear enough.

I want to identify the bottleneck which keeps MS Office from using those resources.

Once those are identified, picking suitable hardware is easy.

 

Brute forcing is very expensive and isn't the best method at all ;-)

Is Graphics Acceleration enabled? Should be by default but I'mm just checking. And Office just doesn't really take advantage of hardware past a certain point. That point is quad core i thin. They don't scale after that. 

[spaiduhz]

Those "spread sheets" replace an entire ERP System they are way beyond anything I would call a spread sheet :-D

(To name a few things: Database management/maintenance, Calculations, administrative Tasks, User interfaces etc.)

 

And yes your suggestion seems to be obvious but unfortunately that's not enough. (Already tried :-)

I'm really searching for hardcore experts with experience in this matter.

But thanks, any input is welcome.

 

are you running 64bit office or 32bit? excel is one of those applications that benefit with 64bit access to memory once the spreadsheets get that big.

[Mr.Faul]

I double checked the settings again.

All hardware stuff like multitasking and acceleration is marked.

And it is a 64bit version this caused already some printer problems.