AutoCAD Civil 3D 2015 Performance Tips

Good afternoon everyone. I hope everyone is enjoying their week. It’s been crazy at work, at our main office, with remodeling on going. Our main conference room was enlarge because it was unable to handle the large project meetings we were having. In addition, we had several offices get a new paint job, new carpeting and tiles. On top of that, some bldg roof maintenance to fix some leaks. Anyways, I can’t wait till it’s all done.

Well it’s been roughly a month since we first starting using C3D 2015 for production. Though most of the new features in C3D were basically in the AutoCAD platform, overall I was happy with the new version. Our only issue with C3D 2015 is that it’s sluggish at time. Most of us have been experiencing lag time and freezing with 10 mb-60 mb drawing that contain 2-4 xref’s and data shortcuts. On top if that , it’s seems to struggle at time with drawing that contains large amount of hatching such as landscape and hardscape plans.  After spending about a week trying to zone in on the performance problems, and then finding a fix or work around, here is what I have come up with. Hopefully these performance tips will help some of you, that may be experiencing the same issues.

• Update your video card drive. Don’t go thru the Windows Control Panel, but actually go to the video card company website such as Nvidia.
• Turn off your graphic performance tool. This can be found in the Options. System Tab. Not once, have I notice any improvement with this feature turned on. Most employees inform me that it works better when its turned off. I also agree.
• In Options, Selection Tab, Preview section, uncheck all the preview options such as the selection preview and command preview.
• If you are not using the cloud, log off the Autodesk 360 account.
• In Options, Plot and Publish Tab, uncheck background Plotting and Publishing
• Don't have all your tool palettes and dialog boxes always open such having layer manager, properties, sheet set manager, and xref manager. When I am working, I rarely have more then one dialog box open.
• cleanout or reset your drawing annotation scale list. You don't need 20-50 different annotation scales.
• In Windows Task Manager end process for WSCommCntr.exe, raysta_3dmax2015_63server, and Aec32bitAppServer57exe (and AcSettingSync.exe if you are not using the cloud)
• make sure your antivirus software is not scanning your Autodesk programs and drawing files.
• Last but not least, make your windows paging file larger. If you have 8 gb of memory, then change your windows paging file to at least 16,000 mb up to 24,000 mb. If this is your work computer, I  would ask your IT Dept first, before performing this task.

Anyways, thanks for checking out my website. Have a great weekend everyone. :)