How are people dealing with the huge files that 3D creates?

[cargo33us120260]

How are people dealing with the huge files that 3D creates? Getting more memory and better graphics cards? I have several 9-15 meg floorplans that I need to rotate and view ductwork, etc on and they are just too huge for my computer to handle it. Is there 3rd party softward that I need? A way to just load small sections of the floorplans? This is very frustrating.

TIA,
cargo
using plain 2007

[david_peterson]

Cargo,

I'd start with 2 GB of Ram, if you've already hit that, then I'd look at one of the newer dual core processors or if you really want speed, the new quad cores. Shelling out for a graphics card may not help that much. I've got $100 256mb Nvida Card. Works just fine. You really only need it for rendering. If you want a better program, Navis Works may be of interest, but that's not going to solve you speed (or lack there of) problem. Hope this helps.

[ronie_ernanto]

How are people dealing with the huge files that 3D creates? Getting more memory and better graphics cards? I have several 9-15 meg floorplans that I need to rotate and view ductwork, etc on and they are just too huge for my computer to handle it. Is there 3rd party softward that I need? A way to just load small sections of the floorplans? This is very frustrating.

TIA,
cargo
using plain 2007


I have a same kind experience like you, I got 20 megs interior drawing and my computer spec is AMD Athlon 1.29 Ghz, 256 MB Ram,Excalibur Radeon 9000 Pro 64 Mb. Don't talk about rotate and view it in realistic mode, it's already hard work just for loading. Then I break the file to some smaller drawings. I think if you have fund better purchase a new memory or processor.

[fhoffnar]

I use a couple tricks to keep the files sizes and performance in check. I have a dual core PC with 2Gb of RAM and any Acad file over 10Mb can get slow in my opinion.

- Change SOLIDHIST to 0, and/or manually remove the solid history of an object in the properties bar. This also makes the file size much smaller also.

- Rearrange Adaptive Degradation in the 'Performance Settings'. I bring Materials, Textures, Wireframe display up to the top so they're the first to turn off. Select per your needs of course.

- Avoid threaded objects, such as screws or bolts.

- Try doing layout work in paperspace with flatshot (yuck) or profiles (yum) to get faster performance. 3d styles with obscured edges is cool but quite draining on performance.

[robert.1.hall72202]

I remember about 10 years back when I had to split my 3d files into several component drawings so that my pc could handle the job. Modern day computing seems
like a luxury compared to what I had to use when I started my career. I couldn't
have more than 2 part files open at one time.