Is anyone else less productive with ArchiCAD 10?

[Brad Elliott]

As I sit here just finishing up sending a set of drawings to plot having spent 40 minutes cleaning up the drawings so the will plot without the black fill bug I have just realized that somehow my auto referencing on all my sections and elevations is screwed up and all sections reference the same drawing and all elevations a different one. So once again I have a set going out that is not right.

Which leeds me to contemplate that I have been working on this project in AC10 for two months now and it is behind schedule and over budget and I have yet to have a clean set of plots go out. I am finding lots of bugaboos with this version that have turned into productivity killers. I am finding the internal plotting a time killer because I cannot work in the file while it is updating, the black fill bug is taking up time, misreferencing section cuts are now getting me, the Sun study bug lost me a couple of days. And without really being able to list other items I just have a general (and monetary) feeling that I have not achieved productive parity with AC9 and am strongly considering returning to it. It seemed like with AC9 I was more productive immediately.

Is anyone else experiencing this or am I just grouchy/loosing my touch?

[Anonymous]

What kind of hesitation do you mean?
I can not follow you.
For selection there is some hesitation to outline what I select (I love it).
AC 10 is definitly more effective than AC9.
But we need to drill with AC 10.

[Anonymous]

In hesitation I mean I click something, it is selected but I cannot drag it it until some process that is running in the background completes itself. This takes many seconds.

One of the processes that is linked to the hesitation is the refreshing of the information palette that I usually have open full length so that I can see all settings in one glance. If I click a door for example, the door will highlight and the information palette will start to refresh. I can actually watch the refresh progress down the info palette. When the refresh is completed then, and only then, can I drag or move or do whatever to the door. When I close the info palette, speed increases but still some lag between when I click and when I am able to effect change on the selection. The lag time is in the seconds, sometimes 3 or four seconds. Very noticeable and inhibiting to my workflow as I am used to moving very quickly. In 9 I can move very quickly, in 10 I cannot. It just is not fun where it used to be. (palette size related thus bad on my 30" monitor)

I believe the other processes that are linked to the slowdown are the new highlighting features (I like them but have them turned off to try and speed up my basic clicking and dragging)

In 9 the refreshing of the palette happens after the ability to move the item is established. You can watch it happen. Maximize the information pallette (on small monitor make it large enough to see all information at a glance). Click something and you wont be able to move it until the information palette refreshes. In AC 9 watch and if you click and drag an item the info palette won't refresh until you have completed the action. Different priorities that I assume have changed because of all the highlighting and palette changes.

I believe this is a bug. The ability to move an item should take priority over all other background processes 99% of the time. Only one time in one hundred do I want to hesitate before moving or editting an object. It does in 9 but not in 10.

[Anonymous]

AC has basically nothing to do with speed!!
AC was allways slow!
The function with highlight (adition. with guideline) I like very much (It is no more necessary to zoom very big.).
But I agree,it takes time to be used for AC 10.

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, when a task you do thousands of times a day becomes slower after an upgrade, not good.

Speed was adequate before. Not adequate now. I feel like I am working on an ancient computer or something. Not fun. And I like fun.

[rjwilden]

Their is no way to quantify how much more productive one version is against the other, too many variables,different operators different building,different design problems, different client. If youv got some figures, lets see them. I've seen fantastic claims of 40% productivity gain, were did they pull that one from. This is modern marketing, change something and call it better, faster,whiter, cleaner,I'm sure you are all familiar with the rest of the cliche'es. I am not saying some things in V10 are a bit better but some of the claims I've read seem a bit out there.
Richard.

[Anonymous]

On the other hand there are also many other factors to speed up the working process.
It is not so easy to calculate the final time.
It makes me more fun to work with AC10.
But the bugs must be solved very soon.

[Anonymous]

I have seen a definite improvement in the productivity or production staff in the switch to 10. It is much easier for novice and intermediate users to understand and improve their skills.

On the other hand I am working overtime to stay ahead of them with all the changes to workflow and practices. There is definitely some significant overhead time in reworking the process and training staff on the changes.

In a small practice where these costs are often not tracked separately this feels like a straight up loss of productivity. In the larger firms it is not as painful but the overhead still has to be amortized and recouped from the improved productivity.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:
On the other hand I am working overtime to stay ahead of them with all the changes to workflow and practices. There is definitely some significant overhead time in reworking the process and training staff on the changes.

Absolutly correct.
AC 10 is nice improvement.
The old user is frustrated because they dont want to relern.
GS must help this part through website.
Interaktive learning should be made and shown as service for own interrest.

[Anonymous]

If you want ArchiCAD to be faster you should by more memory

[Brad Elliott]

I think maybe Matthew is on the right track for me. I feel like I'm working faster in 10 put I seem to have a hard time getting to good output. In AC9 I had all my templates worked out and had immediate sets when I opened Plotmaker. None of that really translated correctly from AC9 when I tried to integrate it into AC10 so I am having to correct it or set it up as I go along. Plus trying to keep my template updated so the next project is properly set up from the get go. That and the three major (to me) bugs that I have reported to Graphisoft have hammered me when I try to output. That and learning tricks like turning off autoupdate in the layouts when setting up the layout book and really using the Drawing manager for multi-drawing changes will hopefully make the next project better.

Has anyone else had a problem with the section/elevation tool losing its correct auto-referencing? Should I start a new topic or was it just a unique on off event to drive me over the edge?

I appreciate all the input and will soldier on.