Being Civil

Civil 3D Performance Part II–How Much RAM is Enough?

My second post in the series from my class at Autodesk University (CI3200-P Improving Performance with AutoCAD Civil 3D) is going to be dealing with memory and will put to bed a few myths and misconceptions.

As usual, follow the link for the full article!

Civil 3D Performance Part I - Memory Management and Your Operating System

In my Autodesk University class, I talked about operating systems and which one was best for AutoCAD Civil 3D. Of course we all know that the ultimate answer is “Windows 7 x64.” It just makes sense. But during a luncheon, I had a customer tell me “You know, common sense told me that Windows 7 x64 was the right operating system to use, but you really simplified it and told me why it was the right one.” I’d like to share with you why Windows 7 x64 is the best operating system to use for AutoCAD Civil 3D as well…find out the secret after the jump (teaser – I’ll be showing the infamous “school bus” graphic if you click the link to see the rest of the post!)

Time To Build a New Computer?

In Product Support, we are asked quite often for advice on which components will yield the best performance for Civil 3D.  Let me get it out of the way first – we can’t give specific recommendations on which brands and models to buy. As much as I would love to build your machine (honestly, I would!!), we can’t get that specific with our advice.  No two users are exactly the same in the way they use Civil 3D.  What is appropriate for one company may be an overkill for another.  Alternatively, what may be a solid processor for the average Land Surveying firm may not cut it if you are working with large Corridors or creating huge Renderings.  That being said, there is a lot of information out there that can help someone while they research their next purchase.  The purpose of this blog post is to consolidate this information so it is easier to find.

Autodesk Performance Monitor

If you haven’t checked this out from the Autodesk Labs site, you should go get it now!

http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/acad_perf_mon/

This little gadget runs on your desktop  and will let you know the level of virtual memory used.

For more memory-related posts on Being Civil, click here.

Windows 7….revisited

So a while back I had posted that Windows 7 was not officially supported for Civil 3D 2010.  While we certainly continued to assist customers that were early converts, Windows 7 lacked that, ummm, “official” blessing.

While, some of you may have stumbled across this post in our Discussion Groups from our Sr. Product Manger, which stated:

The Civil 3D team is excited by the interest shown in Windows 7 and on
moving to a 64 bit operating system. We have tested Civil 3D 2010 and
Windows 7 and haven't found any issues that should stop you from deploying
Civil 3D 2010 on it. We are planning to update our website to list Windows 7
as an operating system for Civil 3D.
Windows 7 is one of the operating systems that Civil 3D will be tested on
moving forward.
Regards,

Peter Funk
Autodesk, Inc.

Could it be?  Is this legit?  Absolutely!  Peter stopped by my desk yesterday to confirm that this is truly official at this point. 

So for those of you waiting to jump to Windows 7, now is the time.  Just do yourself a favor and make sure you go for the 64-bit version!

New Video: Understanding Performance using Civil 3D

Time for the monthly Product Support video over on the Autodesk YouTube channel.  This review of Performance covers a collection of topics including:

• RAM and Virtual Memory
• 32 bit and 64 bit Applications and Operating Systems
• Recommended Operating Systems
• Performance Tweaks

Then it ends with a few FAQs:

• When will we have a 64 bit version of Civil 3D?
• Is Windows 7 supported?
• I am upgrading my hardware, what should I buy?
• Task Manager never shows Civil 3D using all the available virtual memory, why not?

Please do have a look, comment and rate it - this is useful feedback for us, thanks.  And thanks to those who responded to the poll on video content - we are reviewing the results and seeing where we can make improvements!  I understand from the poll some of you are blocked from YouTube; I will create some posts to cover the major topics presented in the video wihin the next couple of weeks.

To see the collection of monthly videos, go to the general playlist here.

Unloading Map from Civil 3D 2009 or 2010 startup and welcome Almas!

We won't tell you about every Technical Solution we publish (look to our RSS feed on the left sidebar or subscribe yourself), but this one deserves a mention. Yesterday we published a method of how you can turn off autoloading of the Map 3D functions when starting Civil 3D 2009 or 2010. If you don't use Map functions very often, this will free up approximately 85MB of Memory. You still have the option to load them on an as-needed basis.

Also, last but not least, you probably noticed we have another mugshot on the top left - Mr. Almas Suljevic!  Since Almas has been posting often for awhile now, he has been added as a regular contributor to BeingCivil.  You can find out more about Almas by clicking on his photo.

Performance tweak for 32-bit XP or Vista with 3GB switch enabled

Back in January, Justin wrote a great post on "The basics of RAM and 32/64-bit environments."  I wanted to add another tip for those of you on 32-bit Operating Systems who have enabled the 3GB switch and still have some problems.  This will not solve all issues, but may provide some relief.  If you just set the 3GB switch, you force the OS to allocate a full 3GB of virtual memory for application use, and the OS (kernel) is limited to 1 GB.

By setting the /userva switch, you give the OS a bit of space back.  This can be useful if you are running into display issues with your graphics card, as some video adapter drivers with onboard RAM need more than 1GB of kernel address space.  Or we have found sometimes drawings that would not open with just the 3GB switch will open successfully if you tweak it back a touch using /userva and give the OS a bit more breathing room.

The Microsoft Documents are here:

• Windows XP 32-bit (don't worry, it says for Windows Server 2003, but is also applicable to Windows XP 32 bit).

• Windows Vista 32 bit

Microsoft recommends setting the variable between 2800-2900 for optimal performance.

Our Technical Solution for enabling the 3GB switch on XP and Vista 32 bit OSs is here.  (Note for Vista, all it is doing is setting the UserVa setting to 3072; you can set this value lower, as mentioned in the Microsoft document link above).