Plumbing/Fire Protection Model is SLOW

[ALM BIM]

REVIT MEP 2010 Plumbing/Fire Protection Model is SLOW. Try to change a pipe size and you will see what I mean. The file size is not big at all (25 MB) this is not normal. I am using a 64 bit 16GB Ram machine. I tried disconnecting some of the systems and still seem to be slow as christmas. User is not sure what the last thing that happened before the model began reacting like this.

[m20roxxers]

This sounds like a file issue. We have hyd and fire projects over 100mb with work sets and so forth in 2010 without the issues you are seeing and we are running 8gb ram machines i5 clocked to 4ghz on ssd for the locals.

[alan.jackson]

If you use systems and they are not set up in the perfect way (don't ask what that is .. because nobody knows not even Autodesk) it will make changes to piping take considerably longer even if the file size is small.

I wish I could tell you the best way to utilize systems, but I can't because it is flawed. :\

Edit: the Revit performance white paper tries to address this with some information, you may find it useful.

[ALM BIM]

Response From Autodesk:

"Large systems have been known to cause slowdowns. The workaround for this is to make strategic breaks in the system to lessen the amount of data that Revit must process while you are working, then make the connections when you need to run the calculations. At this time there is no way to globally turn off the calculations in Revit MEP 2010."

I didn't think the system was very big, compared to most of our projects, this is a small. I did go through and start breaking the system up and it helps performance. The problem I face now is the project is in CA & the users who produced the model used "other systems and made his own names for the systems. The pipe tag he used tags size and system name. When disconnected the system name is becomes a default with the user name so all pipe tags are no good at this point. I can't really go back and change the way the pipes are tagged bc as i said the project is already in the CA phase. Since this is a healthcare facility there are numerous "Other systems" pipe tagged this way. Anyone have suggestions on how to "make strategic breaks in the system " but still keep pipes part of the system so the tags will work.

Thanks,

[alan.jackson]

Hey. I feel your pain, believe me. It isn't necessarily related to the system size. I have worked on single story data centers with just a single chilled water system and a very small file size and it has been painful.

The Autodesk response is straight out of their performance white paper. It is a sorry excuse for a resolution to the problem because, as you have just described, not only do we use pipe system tags but also hopefully one day in this century for piping calculations, and breaks in systems is not going to help those calcs.

The best way to keep the tags working properly is to make sure the breaks occur with at least one terminal device from the system downstream of the break.

[gate2ken]

I corrected the slow changes problem with the file. The fire protection portion of the job had a huge amount of heads and equipment not assigned to the fire protection wet system. Once I changed all the fire equipment that was not assigned to a system the speed of adding and modifying the pipe worked very quickly. So it was the issue of finding those fire protection pieces of equipment that were not assigned and assigning them to a system to correct the problem