Multiple crashes to date - novice user / new project on 8.1

[Anonymous]

Veteran Microstation user/novice Archicad user experiences crashes on 1st Archicad project in Archicad 8.1, running (Mac OS X 10.2.8 (6R73)) with 1.25 GB ram.
Background - migrating to Archicad - had full gamut of Archicad 8.0/8.1 basic training (Boston) and now trying to understand the structure of Archicad and project documentation. Things are going well but when navigating from the viewset dialog box to plan files or when changing floor files via the command keys (floor up / dn ), executing subsequent drawing commands regularly result in a system crash. Any drawing element function results in a crash, no tool discrimination found- slab, wall, roof, line, polyline, object library tools all experience a crash upon execution.
This is disappointing to say the least. I'm sure that I'm doing something incorrectly or have some settings in conflict somehow. I am experiencing other standard learning curve problems with objects/documention but I'm sure I'll figure those problems out with time and a little more nose to the manuals and general office discussion.
Please note, upon startup drawing is fine but when project navigation is required the system follows with the crash and an instant bug report.
Is anyone running 8.1 experiencing similar system crashes?
Please advise.
Very best regards,
Jim
PS Graphisoft, please see attached bug report, thank-you.

[Jacek]

Need more information on the hardware you are using; video card, memory and of course the processor, G-4, G-5?

You may want to check out system requirements on this forum to see what are acceptable setups to work with ArchiCAD.

[Anonymous]

Mac OSx 10.2.8
Dual 533MHz Power PC G4
PCI- SLOT-1 (AGP) Display card NVDA,NVMac, Model GeForce2 MX, Vendor ID 10de, Device ID 110, ROM# 1027F, Revision a1, Card (Video) Memory 32 MB.

Archicad 8.1.0V1

[Anonymous]

JAS wrote:
Mac OSx 10.2.8
Dual 533MHz Power PC G4
PCI- SLOT-1 (AGP) Display card NVDA,NVMac, Model GeForce2 MX, Vendor ID 10de, Device ID 110, ROM# 1027F, Revision a1, Card (Video) Memory 32 MB.

Archicad 8.1.0V1

This is close to the minimum Mac for running ArchiCAD. We are still using one 450MHz Cube but this is by our least experienced operator who does mostly hand rendering for us and doesn't need much horsepower yet.

You don't mention how much RAM you have. I would say 256MB is a bare minimum (and probably inadequate), 512MB seems to work OK, but I recommend at least 1GB if you are upgrading. (If you already have more than 512MB you are probably OK.)

[Jacek]

JAS wrote:
Mac OSx 10.2.8
Dual 533MHz Power PC G4
PCI- SLOT-1 (AGP) Display card NVDA,NVMac, Model GeForce2 MX, Vendor ID 10de, Device ID 110, ROM# 1027F, Revision a1, Card (Video) Memory 32 MB.

Archicad 8.1.0V1

James,
32 MB of V Ram is definetely low, Would recommend at least doble that. However that should not cause system crashes, but rather slow rendering, 'blue screen' and very slow regeneration/redraw or "out of memory" messages.
I do not know how much system memory you have, but I would advise at least 1.5GB -it is very cheap and with a dual processor you will need more, especially if you use both at the same time.

I would recommend upgrading your processors to ones over 1GHz
See : www.macsales.com for one source for upgrades.

I also think that 10.2.8 is not as stable as 10.3 and would recommend an upgrade.
That's a lot of upgrades,,,.

On the other hand nothing except the system (?) ram points to crashes and problems that you are experiencing. You may have old libraries from older projects installed and used along with the 8.1 ones. If so download the latest for 6.5 and 7.0 from Graphisoft's website and try again. Check this site for archived info on the libraries and installation, a lot has been written on the subjects.
Hope some of this helps,
Jacek

[Anonymous]

I do not recommend a processor upgrade. Better to borrow the money (if necessary) to get a G5. It will pay for itself in increased productivity. At $500 to $750 the cost of the upgrade will be make least 2-3 months payments on the G5 (and this isn't counting the cost of video and RAM upgrades).

[Jacek]

Matthew wrote:
I do not recommend a processor upgrade.

If that is an option, then I agree.
Nothing like a brand new computer.
It's only money javascript:emoticon(':lol:')

[Anonymous]

Jacek, Matthew,
Thanks for the words of wisdom on the hardware/support systems.

I've done a little in-house troubleshooting as well. Friday I noticed an interesting tidbit about having .PLA extension files in the libraries loaded on the server. It noted if one is working off a server,(which we are), check all libraries for .PLA extensions, we apparently don't want any .PLA files being loaded from the server at startup, otherwise something to do with duplicate libraries being loaded and longer load times etc. I need to understand the structure of this better.

I've been getting duplicate file reports regularly for some textures and some division 12 items which I currently don't need so I have been ignoring them but perhaps I should not.

I discussed with Rob here in the office (in-house guru) and decided to delete the .PLA's we found and rebooted Archicad. But he noted that the smartparts library items are the .PLA type files so this may be problematic when we want to get into smart parts. Words of wisdom here would be good from those in the know.

I also did a little fix that SBRA use to do with corrupt .dgn files (Microstation). I did a save as to the desktop and tried that file. I'm now on a second iteration of the original off the office networked template file and I've only had 1 crash to day post fixes as noted above. But I have been using the navigator less today and using the command 5&6 keys to navigate up and down floor plates. Next resort before spending money will be to unlock all layers and copy all floor plates individually into a new empty file.

I don't know if the navigator dialog box has something to do with the crashes or not but it has been notorious for crashing post navigator use. I'm using a cloned view set to navigate between floor plates, as recommended by IC+S our Archicad CADD trainers.

We will look into additional VRAM for now and pursue new hardware and software OSX panther. Perhaps it is time.

[tsturm]

Jim

A couple of suggestions.

Matthew and Jacek are right about the hardware. And I do hear that Panther if better than 10.2.8.

Did not fully understand which verison of AC 8.1 you are using but our office is using 8.1 v1 1410 on Macs G4 and 10.2.8 and a server nicely.

Our processor speeds are faster than the 533 though.

We did start out with the libraries with the .PLA extenstions on the server. Found that doing this was a major waste of time. The only libraries we now keep there are project specific and our office base, from which we are adding to on a daily basis custom parts. Otherwise our purchased libraries are installed on each and every machine and loaded from there. Major time saver.

Aboutt using AC 8.1, just skip using Gregs advice on the navigator and use the commands. Cmd +5 for down, Cmd+6 for up and Cmd+4 to enter a specific story. Moving your hand and mouse to get the navigator is a waste of time. Plus the thing only takes up screen space.

Get mice with scroll wheels for every person. Then get the Quickview location window off your screen as well. With this mouse you can zoom in and out with the flick of the mouse wheel. great for quick zooms.

Also try to use the group object function as little as possible. This will add a burden to AC and slow your work down.

Do not have more layers than you need. Reduce the material list to only what you need to render images.

Learn the keys for your most used commands such as the text tool and the object tool. Then you willl be moving your mouse less and using less of the floating windows. Freeing time to draw and write more and getting back screen space.

Try these out to see if they help.

And when you can. Do not skimp on your means to make the bread and buttter with your next system upgrade. Buy more than you will need as you will always work to fill that limit in short time.

[Dave Jochum]

Jim,

I think you are on the right track (file issues) in finding a solution to your problems. I can say from recent experience that your current hardware, at least specification-wise, will not cause the problems you are experiencing. Until a few months ago, I was running AC 8.1 on a Sawtooth with the original 500 MHz processor, 128 Rage Pro graphics card (with its whopping 16 MB of VRAM), and OS 10.2.8. I did have 1 GB of RAM, however. With this setup, I had no crashing problems what-so-ever. I have since upgraded the machine as you can see in my signature below. I still have the slow graphics card because I'm waiting on a backorder. I decided to spend a few hundred dollars on these upgrades rather than a new G5 at this time to tide me over until the next major architecture change which is said to be less than a year off.