We have a large project ~275,000 SqFt. It was started in Revit 2009 32bit by people relatively new to Revit.
It is one
1 - in-house new architecture model (250MB)
1 - existing neighboring building with limited work (21MB)
1 - In-house MEP 3D Model (78MB)
1- In house MEP 2d/detailing Model (25MB) This is separate from the 3D because of slow performance.
1 - Site Model (25MB)
1 - Mockup for the contractor to construct in a parking lot (15MB)
1 – Consulting Structural Engineer’s Model (42MB)
(All of the file sizes are after compacting the central file.)
The MEP and Arch file are linked to each other through detached files that are updated/replaced 2x per week. This helped performance a lot.
The whole team is on Revit 2009 x64 with 12gb of ram recently upgraded from 8gb because of not enough memory to open project warnings. They all have Core 2 duo or Quad core chips with vista business 64. We have a 100Mbit network.
At any given time there may be 10+ people in the arch model and 3 or more in the MEP model. There are a lot of error warnings in each model but we feel it may be too burdensome to clean all of these up. The users are much more experienced now that they are in the 6th month of the project so fewer errors are being generated.
Performance is slow and save to central times can be 10 minutes at times.
The 12GB seems to have got the project to open but with 2 months and a lot more 2d detailing to go I’m worried we may need to go to 16gb.
I guess my questions are.
1. What is the performance bottleneck the CPU, RAM or Network Speed?
2. Are there too many people working in one file?
3. Other than the tips on AUGI about reducing file size how are people dealing with revit projects over 200,00sq. ft. / 20,000 sq. m.?
4. The old rule of thumb was for every 50mb of file size you need 1gb of ram does that hold true when you get past 150mb? Does that include all the linked and loaded file sizes or only the open file?
Thanks