SolidWorks 2004 vs. SolidWorks 2005 performance comparsion

Discussion in 'SolidWorks' started by Janne Hietanen, Oct 15, 2004.

  1. Hi,

    There is an interesting performance comparsion between SolidWorks 2004
    and SolidWorks 2005 available for download. Performance test shows
    that there is no significant changes happened in SolidWorks capability
    to handle large assemblies.

    Results can be downloaded from:
    http://www.cadfaster.com/downloads/performance_test_results.pdf

    Test datasets and other testing material such as macros are also
    freely downloadable from www.cadfaster.com/odownloads.html. So if you
    don't belive your eyes you can reproduce test results in your own
    workstation. :)

    Yours,

    - Janne
     
    Janne Hietanen, Oct 15, 2004
    #1
  2. Janne Hietanen

    Steve Tietz Guest

    Has anyone tried this yet? I watched their video & it appears a little
    misleading when they rotate the assembly model. Looks like they are just
    using the keyboard arrow keys to rotate & then later use a spacemouse. That
    doesn't seem to prove an increase in performance to me. However the rest of
    it does seem pretty convincing. I would have liked to see them actually
    mate something into place in addition to moving components in the large
    assembly.

    I guess I just need to go out & try it myself. Just curious if anyone else
    had yet & could save me the hassle.

    by the way I do not see them listed on the solidworks partner list nor gold
    level list.

    Thanks
    Steve Tietz
     
    Steve Tietz, Oct 15, 2004
    #2
  3. I just tried it with 2004 and it certainly does rotate faster. However, to
    do that, it removes detail during the operation, and then puts it back when
    you stop. Pretty much like LAM does, but with more control. If you do your
    rotating and then look at it, it might be handy. But, most of the time I am
    rotating to study a clearance, or lack thereof, and to have detail go blank,
    is unacceptable. I'll leave it installed for the trial period and see if I
    find it useful. However, I'm currently mostly working in 2005, so my trial
    period may not be very good.

    Just for reference, in SW2005, you can set the level of detail you see when
    rotating. Rather than stuff disappearing, it makes blocks out of it.

    WT
     
    Wayne Tiffany, Oct 15, 2004
    #3
  4. Interesting, hmm, I don't know. By the numbers listed in the comparison,
    2005 shows a 13% increase (bottom line number) in performance. Is that
    insignificant? One of the earlier posts about this product mentions that
    some assemblies don't show any performance increase at all. Which ones I
    wonder?

    What I really find interesting is the marketing technique being used. Posts
    to many different message boards from Hotmail accounts, or from "users"
    touting the virtues of the product. One of the "user" posts to the
    SolidWorks discussion forum had a link to a website under the signature.
    When I tried to follow it, I got an server not found error. Go figure.

    I'm kind of surprised that these folks haven't been taken to task a little
    more. Blatant sales pitch posts are usually flamed right out of here.
    Perhaps they've hit a nerve when it comes to large assembly performance and
    SolidWorks. I think I'll sit back and see how this turns out. Could be fun.

    Richard
     
    Richard Doyle, Oct 15, 2004
    #4
  5. Janne Hietanen

    MM Guest

    I've been waiting for someone else to bring this up. As far as I can tell,
    interactive graphics performance has nearly doubled. It's really noticable
    on older computers, like my home machine.

    Apparently they've done some serious optimazations on their OpenGL code.
    What they've done really isn't new, it's been used on UNIX based OpenGL
    applications for years. I think they used to call it "pruning" and
    "culling". This is where the level of detail is dependent on what's actually
    on the screen, like a zoomed feature/features that fill the screen. All off
    screen rendering is "pruned" from the OpenGL display list. The other part
    has to do with detail simplification when zoomed out. Features that can't be
    seen anyway are simplified.

    This is real easy to see. Bring up a moderate sized assembly that contais
    some small highly detailed parts. Keep your eyes on one of these parts and
    zoom out untill you can just barely make out the details. Rotate the model
    while watching the part. It will turn into a simlple cube while moving, but
    the larger features will keep their detail. If you can't see it. zoom out a
    little more and try again.

    They did a real good job of putting right on the threshold of visibility.

    The result is faster graphics.

    Regards

    Mark
     
    MM, Oct 16, 2004
    #5
  6. Janne Hietanen

    JJZ Guest

    I created a simple program that measures the time (in ms) to load
    documents in SW to see the difference between different versions. I
    haven't tested it with SW2005 vs SW2004, but you have to be sure that
    before having a reliable result, you should convert old documents to
    the newer version. You'd best first do a 'save as' and then make a
    copy of the files in a new directory, so these can be converted to the
    new version. Then you can run unfrag on both directories. Only now,
    you removed all 'rubbish' from the files to make a good comparison.

    If you're interested in the program, please let me know.

    Kind regards,

    J.J. Zwaard
     
    JJZ, Oct 16, 2004
    #6
  7. Janne Hietanen

    P Guest

    I am not sure if this is a performance increase where it counts, in
    rebuilding parts.

    Assembly loading and rebuilding isn't all that differenct from 2004 to
    2005, but part regeneration did measurably slow down.
     
    P, Oct 16, 2004
    #7
  8. Janne Hietanen

    Andrew Troup Guest

    That's a shame, given that 2004 is dog-slow on large assemblies,
    particularly section drawings

    What's more of a shame is that now 2005 is released, 2004 will not receive
    any significant further attention. I never migrated from 2003, but a major
    site I do contract work for has gone 'up', and they and I are tearing our
    hair out at how long general assembly drawings are taking. We are doing
    seriously inconvenient workarounds to eke every percentage point of
    performance we can, yet, to match the productivity of SldWks 2003, on the
    particular work they do, would necessitate providing two PCs and two
    licences to each CAD jockey doing major assemblies, so you could be doing
    something useful during the twenty minutes it might take to, say, change to
    another sheet, or switch from draft to high quality. (With the CPU pegged at
    100%, so that the machine is unusable)

    They're seriously thinking about winding back to 2003, which would be a
    major PITA, given that thousands of models have been opened and saved in
    2004 and they would have to laboriously recover them from backup tapes.

    Very few complaints about modelling in 2004, but drawing (SP4.1) is
    nightmarish, still buggy, still sloooooooooooow.
     
    Andrew Troup, Oct 20, 2004
    #8
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