Free SOLIDWORKS from Performance Constraints (FSWPC-13-#11)

(Modeling Methodology – SOLIDWORKS Image Quality)

SOLIDWORKS has the capability to display designs vividly with extremely high Image Quality and while this feature allows for a model with extremely high resolution, in general, they are not needed for everyday modeling. Higher Image Quality is intended to give better visual definition of very small components or components that contain very fine detail. The effect of this is a model that takes longer to calculate its visual data and a significantly larger file size. The former affects rebuild and repaint times while the latter affects model opening, closing, and saving. Both affect the amount of RAM required which amplifies the performance hit.

The best place to change the Image Quality setting is at the assembly level and selecting the option to propagate that through to all the sub-assemblies and part components as the Image Quality setting is per document. We have found that the sweet spot for this setting is around 25% up from the low end.

Also one item to note is that when you change the setting at a top level assembly it will adjust all of the part file but it will not adjust the sub-assemblies Image Quality level ony the parts in those sub-assemblies.

Note: This setting can have a larger or smaller on each users performance depending on how high their Image Quality was set.

You can by looking at our deltas see that on our Practical machine where we have enough hardware to support our model it added 15% to our benchmark. Where if we look at the Typical machine we can see that we pay the price for not having enough hardware to support our model set and it cost us almost 300% and took over 14 additional hours to run our benchmark.

Please
check back to the CATI blog as we will continue posting our
series of articles that goes further into the details of each of our tests. All
of these articles will be stored in the category of Free SOLIDWORKS from Performance
Constraints and links to each with their
release date are listed below:

• FSWPC-13-#1 Introduction (3/19/13)
• FSWPC-13-#2 RAM (3/21/13)
• FSWPC-13-#3 Processor Cores (3/26/13)
• FSWPC-13-#4 Processor Cores for Simulation and PhotoView360 (3/28/13)
• FSWPC-13-#5 Processor Clock Speed (4/2/13)
• FSWPC-13-#6 Hard Drives (4/4/13)
• FSWPC-13-#7a Graphics Cards-SolidWorks Functionality (4/9/13)
• FSWPC-13-#7b Graphics Cards-Hardware Comparison (4/11/13)
• FSWPC-13-#7c Graphics Cards-Model Complexity (4/16/13)
• FSWPC-13-#8 Files stored in an older version (4/18/13)
• FSWPC-13-#9 OS Visual and User Settings (4/23/13)
• FSWPC-13-#10 SOLIDWORKS Options (4/25/13)
• FSWPC-13-#11 SOLIDWORKS Image Quality (4/30/13)
• FSWPC-13-#12 SOLIDWORKS RealView Graphics (5/2/13)
• FSWPC-13-#13 SolidWorks Level of Detail (5/7/13)
• FSWPC-13-#14 SOLIDWORKS Mates and Flexible Subassemblies (5/9/13)
• FSWPC-13-#15 SOLIDWORKS Defeature (5/14/13)
• FSWPC-13-#16 SOLIDWORKS Envelope (5/16/13)
• FSWPC-13-#17 SolidWorks Large Design Review (5/21/13)
• FSWPC-13-#18 SolidWorks SpeedPak (5/23/13)
• FSWPC-13-#19 SOLIDWORKS Save as Part (5/28/13)
• FSWPC-13-#20 SOLIDWORKS Large Assembly Mode (5/30/13)
• FSWPC-13-#21 Optimal Configuration and Conclusion (6/4/13)

Thanks,

Josh Altergott, CATI Support Manager
Adrian Fanjoy, CATI Technical Services Director