Revit 2009 Roll Out

[ajayholland]

I am currently consulting with a very large, multi-office, multi-disciplinary firm. The technology department advises that they will not roll out Revit 2009 until after the release of the first “service pack” (unless required for a project).

I’ve been a Revit user since version 3.0, and have known it to be remarkably stable in each new release.

Please comment on your firm’s roll out strategy. Please include comments on company size.

~AJH

[rjcrowther]

I am a firm size of one so my rollout is probably irrelavent to your situation.

Leaving it to after the first service pack has been mentioned more frequently in these forums over the last few years.

In the early days Revit's stability may have been unquestionable but it seems the last few releases have not been so stable.

There have been posts by Scott Davis indicating the number of users affected has been minimal even though a lot of noise has been made here. My view is I can't afford to be one of these minimally affected users so I tend to wait until I have time to install to the new version bearing in mind there may be problems that needs time to sift through. The last release saw me install the software just in time to be updated by the 'service pack' within a few days....wasn't planned that way - just happened. This release is still sitting in the box and I will get to it when time permits.

So there you have it; my rollout strategy.

Thanks,
Rob

[twiceroadsfool]

We put it on a single machine or 2, to put through the paces and upgrde a few test models for any side effects. If all goes well for a week or son, we upgrade the rest of the office.

That said, we look at each project on a case by case basis for the benefits vs risks of upgrading. We dont always upgrade.

With 2009, we installed it on every machine but only one project team (test case) is using it,until we can verify that all of our hardware configs are stable..

[iru69]

Waiting for SP1 simply because someone said so isn't a particularly beneficial policy for any software, let alone Revit. However, the larger and more complex the organization (i.e. variety of projects and computer hardware), the more that kind of blanket policy makes sense.

Waiting for a service pack is often easier and less risky than testing for all the possible variables. With Revit, there can be huge productivity losses if a project team runs into a show-stopping issue, especially with no ability to save back to an earlier version. But there can be huge productivity gains in new features as well. So holding off for no actual reason can end up being rather counterproductive. Also unlike a lot of other software, Revit's UI stays extremely consistent from version to version, and new features are easy to adopt or ignore. With Revit in particular, I think a lot of whether to proceed with a roll-out or not depends on the "word on the street" - what kind of issues are other users running into and are they something that's going to affect your organization.

The word on the street from me is that Revit 2009 is an utter mess and far and away the most bug-ridden version I've used since I started with Revit at 6.1. The deal breaker for us though is the problems with video cards (slow performance, graphic glitches galore, crashes, etc.) - it's so bad that I absolutely regret pushing forward with 2009. It's mind boggling to me that 2009 was even released in the state it's in. For that reason alone, I'd recommend against a 2009 roll-out until the issue is adequately addressed (if ever), unless you can verify that all the video card hardware in your organization is compatible to your satisfaction.

[jeremiah77769]

I can agree with you on a bit of this (shortcomings of a simplified Mental Ray and the whole no background image issue in particular for me). There are still many quirks and issues to deal with. I will state this, however. I have had no graphic problems or massive slowdown unless I am dealing with a LOT of objects on the screen. Surprisingly enough I still think it runs smoother than 2008 on my computer. Renderings are quick and I like the quality of what MR cranks out. I'm not sure if you guys are willing to try a non-workstation graphics card, but a higher end gaming card works pretty well for me.

The box im running:
Vista 64
QX6800 Quad
4GB Ram
Nvidia 8800GTS

[rjcrowther]

It would be a little dissapointing for me if a higher end gaming card is required as last year I bought a new machine with a lower end card as I understand a decision was made to use an 8000 year old openGL standard.

I would have thought it is reasonable for a setup to last at least 3 years.

[patricks]

I guess I'm in the majority according to Scott Davis and some others, as I have had very few, if any, issues with 2009 on both my office machine and my 2-year-old home machine. Both machines are running Quadro FX500-series graphics cards.

I certainly would NOT call Revit 2009 an "utter mess".

[lhanyok]

Also consider any consultants you have that are using Revit. We had a mechanical engineer upgrade to 2009 the day he got it, so now we have to upgrade to be able to link in his model. It will now take more pushing on my part to get our IT department to roll out upgrades when they arrive.

[iru69]

I was in no way attempting to hi-jack this thread, but if you're oblivious to the video card problems in 2009, that's not going to help ajholland with a rollout. Just because YOUR hardware configuration works doesn't mean dozens of other hardware configurations will work. That's a major part of the point of this thread.

And I wouldn't take anything anyone from Autodesk/the Factory says at face value. They may be nice, smart, doing-their-best kind of people, but they WILL blow smoke up your ***. If anyone after four years on this forum hasn't figured that out by now, maybe they never will.

p.s. no hard feelings Patricks, I just think you're missing the big picture on this issue. :beer:

I guess I'm in the majority according to Scott Davis and some others, as I have had very few, if any, issues with 2009 on both my office machine and my 2-year-old home machine. Both machines are running Quadro FX500-series graphics cards.

I certainly would NOT call Revit 2009 an "utter mess".

[UpNorth]

Our general policy is 3 months or SP1, whichever comes first. Like others, we consider specific project needs and deadlines. If a project needs a new feature we will try to use it. If a project is nearing completion we will hold out on upgrading that project.

170 person firm...

[Scott D Davis]

And I wouldn't take anything anyone from Autodesk/the Factory says at face value. They may be nice, smart, doing-their-best kind of people, but they WILL blow smoke up your ***. If anyone after four years on this forum hasn't figured that out by now, maybe they never will.

You are completely wrong. This is one of the hardest working group of people you will meet, and their number one goal is to make sure you are happy, and using the best piece of software you can.

You are completely off base with your comments, and it shows how little you actually know about the people at the Factory.

[gwnelson]

But Scott, we have yet to see anyone from Adesk address the graphic issue directly. The problem cannot be solved by simply turning OGL off and then struggling with regen times.

Please answer:

1. Adesk / Factory is aware that a problem exists: Yes / No

2. If yes, a solution is being worked on.

3. If no, WTF?

[patricks]

A link to this page popped up this morning on my Communication Center:

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/ps/item?siteID=123112&id=11234662&linkID=9243099

[iru69]

Case in point. Billows of smoke.

You are completely wrong. This is one of the hardest working group of people you will meet, and their number one goal is to make sure you are happy, and using the best piece of software you can.

You are completely off base with your comments, and it shows how little you actually know about the people at the Factory.

Did I not give the little preamble about them being "nice, smart, doing-their-best"? But no, we still have to hear the same old tired recording from you. It's always "you're either with me or against me" with you. They may be the nicest, hardest working, "number one goal is their customer" people in the world, but that doesn't mean they're doing a good job.

Revit 2009 is a mess. It's nothing personal, I wish no ill-will against Autodesk or the Factory (quite the opposite). I thought 2008 was a really good release (though there have been some disturbing trends for a few releases now). 2009 isn't. It has too many bugs, half-baked features, and shows signs that it was released because of a schedule rather than because it was ready.

Despite all of that, my major hesitation to recommend rolling it out is because of the video card issue. If the video card issue doesn't affect your organization, than there's been little evidence so far of any other show-stopper issues to prevent roll-out.

[patricks]

We need to put out this fire before it gets too hot.

[captainbunsaver]

For what it's worth, I posted about upgrading project problems the first day I installed 09.
One of the developers was also posting, and he had me upload the problem project file so that the development team could work on it. So, yes, the develpment team are all working hard to ensure that we have the fewest problems possible.
I have known and talked with many of the support people (who are architects, not just script readers) and their concern and helpfulness was beyond measure.
The answer to your questions are;
1. Yes. I know from personal experience
2. Yes. Ditto.
3. Stop griping

TC

There now, I feel much better!

[iru69]

So, summing up, what ajholland should take out of this is that he should go ahead and roll-out 2009 because Autodesk/the Factory are the nicest, most hard-working, helpful people around and that the users suggesting that there are problems with 2009 are just a bunch of whiners.

Well, there you go ajholland. Start the roll out!

[patricks]

The OP was not asking about what to do. He already stated that his firm's tech department is not going to install 2009 at this time, and he just asked about other's experiences and what other people are doing at their firms.

So I guess I'll do that now. We only have 3 Revit users in our office. I'm usually the one who downloads and tries out any new versions, updates, SP's, etc. To date I have had no real issues relating to graphics or video cards. I have found a few bugs and have created support requests for these, and the Autodesk support people are currently working on them. I regularly get e-mails asking for more info on various things, so I know they are working on them.

Currently we have 2 projects in 2009 (out of our 40+ project work load :shock: ) and will no doubt be adding more as time goes on, since our consultants have already started working in 2009.

[Steve_Stafford]

Most of the firms I spend time with are in the "wait till the first new build" camp. My old boss Jim Balding started doing that back at release 6 or so because we observed that there usually was a new build within 30 days of the new release. In the past there have been memory leaks or changes to existing tools that weren't well received or just plain old bugs. We installed the new release immediately and tried it out on projects for a bit to see what issues we might encounter but ultimately the roll out was deliberately later. I still practice this myself as well as recommend it.

As for a "total mess". It's a personal opinion based on his experience and expectations and he's entitled to it. Hopefully others will find out for themselves whether or not to agree. It seems a bit exaggerated and a bit emotional to me but that's my opinion.

As for video card issues, the only place I'm hearing about them is here. But since most firms are playing with 2009, not deploying yet I suppose that makes sense. From the posts here there seems to be about a dozen people with the issue. There isn't enough data though. If it really is a prolific issue then it will get worse, meaning as more users start installing and using it the issue will become more consistently reported. Perhaps it is just that it is too early.

I guess we need a count of how many users and pc's are actually suffering from this. I'm not suggesting that it isn't happening or isn't a pain in the butt. Revit has always had issues with Open GL and I wish they would devise a truly robust solution.

As for my personal experience...I have an older HP laptop that should have been replaced a year or more ago. It has 1.25gb of RAM and has a 1.8ghz AMD Athlon processor with an Nvidea video chipset. You'd think that this poor little laptop would not suffice but I've been pleasantly surprised through each release how well it has held its own. I upgraded a reasonably large project file last night and expected to run out of memory but after about 30 minutes it finished. I then tried out the 3d view graphics to see if it was worse than in 2008 and found little if any difference. That's even before saving the file and reopening as Autodesk recommends. So long story shortened...my crummy laptop and old hardware with old driver (at least two years old) isn't making the slightest bit of difference for me. I guess that is nice for me...but it doesn't provide much solice for users whose pc's and graphics are not satisfactory.

Best advice is to work with Autodesk to help them pin down the issue...it won't get fixed any other way.

Denigrating the release doesn't do much in the end...except let off steam.

[Wes Macaulay]

I had intended to work with 2009 on one small project I have on my plate at present, but one of my colleagues upgraded our next uberproject to 2009 so I guess we're committed on THAT project. :mrgreen:

Otherwise, I'm holding off on upgrading. We have noticed the reduction in display performance, but other than that, this new release has been good. We are having some occasional crashes that I can't explain, but all in all we seem to have fewer bugs than the initial release of 9.1 or even 2008. I'm waiting till the next build release before going office-wide on deploying the software.

The network deployment I created has bugs -- when Revit starts after the install, it complains that it's missing some files, which I've been having to copy over manually. Test a network deployment to see if it's going to work OK in your office before rolling it out further.

We are a 100% ATI shop with FireGL's on Windows XP32 with 4Gb of RAM.

[rjcrowther]

As for my personal experience...I have an older HP laptop that should have been replaced a year or more ago. It has 1.25gb of RAM and has a 1.8ghz AMD Athlon processor with an Nvidea video chipset. You'd think that this poor little laptop would not suffice but I've been pleasantly surprised through each release how well it has held its own. I upgraded a reasonably large project file last night and expected to run out of memory but after about 30 minutes it finished. I then tried out the 3d view graphics to see if it was worse than in 2008 and found little if any difference. That's even before saving the file and reopening as Autodesk recommends. So long story shortened...my crummy laptop and old hardware with old driver (at least two years old) isn't making the slightest bit of difference for me. I guess that is nice for me...but it doesn't provide much solice for users whose pc's and graphics are not satisfactory.


I think you have missed a business opportunity here. With all the problem machines around, that laptop could fetch thousands on the open market.

[luigi]

We're a firm of 350+ of 6 offices, most of them multi-discilined. We are in the process of rolling 2009 Officially, although in my local office in Michigan, we have rolled out 2009 (Arch, Struc, MEP) for a few teams already.

Basically, even when we officially rollout 2009, we won't necessarily upgrade all projects, we will in Michigan, but not every project in every Studio...actually, it becomes a decision each local Studio will decide upon. Some projects, coming towards the end of CDs might not have a reason to upgrade, but they might upgrade at the end of CDs, to take advantage of some features during Bidding and CA...

So we have un-officially installed 2009 on some projects (and didn't have any issues), and are in the process of rolling it out officially this week!