Keeping Drawings 'fast'

[Anonymous]

I wonder, would users like to put forward their tips on how to keep archicad running 'fast'; particularly teamworks?
When i say 'fast', i mean quick loading/sending/recieving/closing/browsing;

[Anonymous]

... yes, this would be interesting... send and receive takes here up to 15 minutes... in a teamworkfile.

[Anonymous]

Ok, so i can't be completely sure if this necessairly speeds up archicad yet...

through experimenting it would seem that keeping xrefs that are attached to worksheets to a minimum will help keep the overall file size lower.

perhaps making sure drawing sources are not 'unavailable' ?

[Anonymous]

I've only just started as a student with AC12, but I've found that loading lots of libraries really bogs the program down. Not just on initial load, but particularly when rebuilding the 3d window.

I probably haven't quite worked out the best way around this yet ("best practice")... but as I ended up with a project using a few items out of lots of different libraries, I eventually decided to save it as an archive (saving the objects used with the file), then I changed the path to those libraries, loaded the file back in, and then saved out those objects to an external folder (from then on known as the "project library"), removed all the links to the missing source libraries, and lastly added the link to the "project library". Result: a huge speed boost.
(Tips for "best practice" welcomed! )

Don't ask me why lots of loaded libraries slowed the 3D rebuild process? It didn't make sense to me.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

peter_h wrote:

Don't ask me why lots of loaded libraries slowed the 3D rebuild process? It didn't make sense to me.

Yes, loaded libraries (along with just plain loading libraries) is one of the more annoying things about ArchiCAD regarding speed. But you're right on the mark in pointing out that the best way to get the best load times is, to only load the librabries with the objects that are actually in the project and perhaps libraries that you're certain you will use. And then save the file as an archive, to isolate and collate the objects, and then to either work from the archived file or use the archive file as the primary library. And if you can, stay the hell away from working off of Networked libraries as this (in my experience anyway) always always seems to slow down the program performance; regardless of how fast your network is.

The problem comes when you have to load a new object that you previously didn't use before and have to load it from another library. And then it goes through the process of having to re-install every single library again, just for one object, and that can be annoying. same goes for missing ornew textures. I also don't understand why it has to load the libraries going to the 3D windows, but I can only imagine that it has to do with limited resources that ArchiCAD has available going between the 2D window(s) and the 3D window. It always seemed to me like an inefficient way for ArchiCAD to have to run, and one which GS were forced to do because of trying to have this complex program run on slower systems back in the 90's, but technology(hardware and software) has long evolved since then.

Yet another reason for them to make AC a 64bit application to take advantage of more Memory that people tend to have in their systems - or even better yet, overhaul the source code to (among other things) accommodate the capacity to swap physical hard disk space into some sort of virtual RAM memory that would potentially enable ArchiCAD to load the libraries just once when you start the program, and then not have to keep reloading it again for every small thing or small change.