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Ask the Reader: What Do You Love/Hate About Upgrading to SolidWorks 2009?

Started by Josh M · 7 months ago

Ah, it’s that special time of year. That time of year when we consider the ramifications of firing a harpoon gun blindly into the air and also the pain of asking the IT department about upgrading to the next version of SolidWorks.
Point that spear away from the whirring server room a ... Continue reading »

31 comments

  • Jonathan Bravard

    7 months ago

    New Video cards, what's up with that, and now I hear that I need to wait for SP02. Considering all the issues we are having 2008, I was hoping to upgrade sooner, now we will be waiting.
    reply
  • Josh M

    7 months ago

    Hey Johnathan, when we evaluated and decided to go with 09 at SP0, there were a lot less issues with 09 than 08. We had one person testing 09 out for a while just to see. That works for some, but yeah, I wish I could just do a 'set it and forget it install' with each new version. I'm a lot more careful with upgrade recently, but my group is also bigger, more spread out and uses more customization and third-party programs than many.

    When you do upgrade, I'd test first. Install one license and go at it.
    reply
  • Zohso

    7 months ago

    I definitely recommend waiting til Dec 22 when the EV of SP 2 is available. My company is experiencing extreme issues with the upgrade.
    1. A lot of tools have regressed from not only 2008 to 2009, but from 2009sp0 to 2009sp1.
    2. Roughly 200 to 300 drawings are now corrupt due to the upgrade. We are working with SolidWorks engineers to fix our drawings so that production can continue.

    We have been informed that SP2 will fix all the issues we're having - but that's not for a couple of weeks away.

    WAIT TIL SP2 IN DEC.
    reply
  • Byron

    7 months ago

    I had 2 significant problems when we upgraded our engineering problems (5 users)
    1) All our video cards are now obsolete
    1a) Our budget doesn't leave me much room to fly low and replace them with decent cards.
    $700 cards now being replaced by $200 cards, but at least they work
    2) Immediately on installation, I am notified of a service pack, a rather large collection of patches. This
    inspired my IT manager to offer to beat me about the head and shoulders if I asked again. Led me to
    download them at home, which included both 32 and 64 bit patches.
    reply
  • Dennis Hvam½

    7 months ago

    Hi Byron,

    What cards did you use before the upgrade?

    /Dennis Hvam.
    reply
  • Byron

    7 months ago

    We were using ATI Fire GL 3100's before, and we went to nVidia FX570's. That's the best I could do with the budget being held by a garotte.
    reply
  • Hugh

    7 months ago

    I run Fx1400, they say it is compatible with 2008, rotating a built model is fine, but open and edit a sketch is now so so so slow, a very simple sketch now takes ages to zoom in and zoom out, sigh...
    reply
  • Josh M

    6 months ago

    Hugh. check this out. I've ben finding that some workstations running an FX auto enable OpenGL which will slow solidworks down to a crawl. when you have a model open, go to Tool, Options, Performance ans see if Use software OpenGL is set. If it is you need to shut down solidworks, go to your desktop and do the following.

    1. Right-click on desktop and Nviddia Control Panel
    2. In 3D Setting, make sure 'let the 3D application decide'
    3. RESTART your computer.

    Changing it to this will allow SolidWorks to use DirectX instead of OpenGL. good luck.
    reply
  • Hugh

    6 months ago

    Thanks for the tip, it is better than before now, still a little slow compare to 2008, I will have to upgrade the graphics card one day. Cheers
    reply
  • Derek T

    4 months ago

    According to SolidWorks (I double checked), their application is OpenGL only.
    reply
  • Josh M

    7 months ago

    that stinks Byron. If I run right up against nother service pack, I'll wait unless I'm having real issues. Easier for one person with no IT department per say.

    From a budgetary standpoint, I've recommended consolidating hardware and software upgrades together and to set that as a cycle within the company. for video cards I recommend nVidia's FX line - 1700's are great, but you may seem some regression if put into an older system. All 10 of our engineers are running FX cards, and even the older 1400s have held up pretty well.
    reply
  • Devon T. Sowell

    7 months ago

    My experience has shown that the longer a customer has been using SolidWorks, the longer they wait to upgrade to the newest version. After 9 1/2 years of upgrading and applying scores of Service Packs, I'm burned out on the whole process. SolidWorks continues year after year, to release software that has not been tested. For example, 2009 Weldments, Edit or Create a new Weldment Profile, the Profile Preview does not appear. There is no excuse for this at all.

    I want to design parts and assemblies. I don't want to test software nor discover and report bugs. I don't want to apply 5 (or more) Service Packs every year. I don't want a new version every 12 months.

    Devon T. Sowell
    http://www.3-ddesignsolutions.com
    reply
  • Rod_Uding

    7 months ago

    Hopefully I will find out before the end of the year what is good and what is bad if the remote IT guy comes to town to upgrade us to 2009 network licenses! After seeing the new goodies at the SWUG meeting, i was drooling all over myself to get it.
    reply
  • Josh M

    7 months ago

    We switched to network licenses for 2009 + using and Admin Image. It was the easist install I've had thus far with that set-up. I'm not 100% happy with the Installation Manager, but it worked alot better than previously. It really helps to have a clean system and convert all the solidworks files to 09 as well.
    reply
  • Dennis Hvam

    7 months ago

    Hi all,

    Does any of you use PDMWorks, if so have you experienced any problems or other upgrade related issues when using SolidWorks 2009 and PDMWorks?

    /Dennis Hvam.
    reply
  • Jon Bravard

    7 months ago

    Considering the outrage over 2008 acting like a beta, we are looking for a quick roll out. There will be testing, but it will be limited due to network issues.
    reply
  • btitus

    7 months ago

    Just recently did an upgrade at a client from 2007 + PDM Enterprise to 2009 SP1. Skipped 2008 altogether do to stability issues. By the time they decided to upgrade, 2009 was already released.

    Utilized an admin image + network license and experienced little (if any) problems.
    The biggest hassle was converting (library) files up to 2009 using the Task Scheduler.
    After 10 years of SolidWorks upgrades, this one went smoother than expected. Not perfect, but better than expected.

    The customer uses FX1300 video cards. They work decent but are looking to upgrade later this year.

    Overall, the client is happy with 2009 so far. It's probably a combination of the new (2008) interface plus the new stuff in 2009. PhotoView 360 is a big hit. New enhancements in SolidWorks Enterprise PDM are well liked.
    reply
  • Dennis Hvam.

    7 months ago

    The small ones we use are FX3600, I'm running fx 4600, so I won't expect any trouble there then! (I hope)
    reply
  • NathonRose

    7 months ago

    Stability, added ease from auto-dimensioning, combined materials and great toolbox/custom parts, etc. And if upgrading from earlier the overall changes of auto-tolls from right/left clicks, just can't say enough about it..except goodbye for now...stVpid NGC using Pro/E....I still don't like it. So funky trying to do things that are intuitive and take SECONDS in SW... :-( waaaaa
    reply
  • ion

    7 months ago

    the: IT department if functioning honestly should have very little involvement in the deployment and integration of SolidWorks. (Exceptions may involve: SolidWorks Premium with MS office integration).

    1. SolidWorks is fully capable of Nanotech.
    2. SolidWorks is fully capable of Nanotech.
    3. The IT department dislikes Dust.
    4. prophet?
    reply
  • Josh M

    7 months ago

    exactly my thought ion, dust is horrible. A lot of companies don't have IT involvement. It usually comes in varying degrees. I've had some emails specifically about this and it involved IT needing reason why/why not to upgrade. To me, the main reason is... The ENGINEERING dept. is asking you to do it.

    Now if I were a Solidworks Admin, I'd have them install it on my computer (if I couldn't do it myself). I'd gather results from testing and share that data with them, telling them we need to upgrade or wait until, such and such happens.
    reply
  • Tom

    6 months ago

    "IT needing reason why/why not to upgrade. To me, the main reason is... The ENGINEERING dept. is asking you to do it."

    Except that when the new software is unusable, the engineering department is now telling IT to 'fix' it. Right now.

    But we can't fix it right now, because the other 5 departments we support are all upgrading to the latest and greatest (read: beta, buggy) versions of their respective software packages.

    The end result is a productivity loss across the board, which could've been avoided by doing a proper upgrade assessment before jumping in head first.
    reply
  • Big Moe

    2 weeks ago

    Way to go, Tom! I'm tired of IT getting the heat for another department's overzealousness. IT's job is to provide a stable and productive environment for users; not to verify the latest bleeding edge release of every software package the company employs. We're here to help users get what they need, even though it's not always what they want. Why shouldn't the Engineering department have to do a ROI analysis when requesting an upgrade? Believe it or not, upgrades are not free in either dollars or resources.

    After our upgrade to SW 2009, which the Engineers requested, they are complaining that the network must have slowed down because the new Solid Works is SOOOO SLOW! Of course - it's the network.
    reply
  • Gord Metcalfe

    6 months ago

    I just installed SW 2009 because I started a new job at a manufacturing startup and, having used SW since 2001, when asked for my opinion, it was the choice to go with. I got a new workstation put together on a budget and settled on an Intel E8400 w/ ATI FireGL 5600 and 4 gig DDR2 RAM, etc. Mixed results so far. I'd be appreciative of any input with regards to settings in order to achieve a level of performance that exceeds that which I experienced previously with a very cheap GeForce card and an entry level Pentium IV processor and 2 gig DDR RAM. I have read mostly very positive reviews indicating very good performance from the v5600 in Solidworks but I a not feeling the love yet.
    reply
  • Josh M

    6 months ago

    Hey Gord. I wish i could comment on the 5600. I haven't had a chance to try it out. I've been using nVidia Quadro series since having bad results with ATI years ago. I tend to set the application preference to SolidWorks in the Card options. Occasionally I'll mess with some of the performance settings, but I always use the defaults when setting others up. Do you feel the 5600 is performing well? smooth rotation? no clipping?
    reply
  • Mark Carruthers

    4 months ago

    I found solidworks 2008 64 bit about as stable as a earthquake even thugh the machine was a Dell X64 maintained by IT proffesionals bought from Dell and repeatedly rebuilt on the software side from the OS up. It uses a approved Quadro FXcard and has the latest drivers etc. Eventually I dumped it in favour of SW2009 32 bit which is very stable in comparison. However SW is still very slow even slower for example than my laptop which is a DV7-1125EA from HP, which has the wrong graphics card and OS and runs 32 bit only. In fact the difference is so stark I am wondering if there is a hardware issue which my desktop cannot cope with.
    reply
  • Josh M

    4 months ago

    Hey Mark. I found 09 more stable than 08 as well. I remember being surprised after using 09 for a while and getting my first crash and that probably wasn't related directly to SolidWorks. I have seen some very odd behavior from some computers with older AMD motherboards. I'm not sure right now if that is the problems, but the newer hardware is working much better.
    reply
  • Mark Carruthers

    4 months ago

    Josh, Franfly given the insistance on certain graphics cards and the critiques from elsewhere I thought that SW simply would not function on my HP at all let alone be as quick or quicker, which came as quite a surprise. I have spoken to a SW rep who commented that they prefer 32 bit SW on 64 bit as it can use 4Gb RAM rather than 2Gb, which given that 64 bit ships with 32 bit SW is quite a claim. I dont know which motherbourd my Del Precision 690 Workstation uses but I think that all of the upgrades such as addition CPU, RAM were authorised by Dell etc. I am hoping that Solid Works have the resources to fix 64 bit version as having to use 32 bit is frustrating.
    reply
  • Josh M

    4 months ago

    Mark, I was at a session yesterday on hardware optimization. They were using the SPEC Benchmark http://www.spec.org/gwpg/apc.static/sw2007.html to find issue between the cpu and gpu. basically they narrowed a lot of issuesdown to various issues with the cpu. might give it a try.
    reply
  • Mark Carruthers

    4 months ago

    Josh, I have asked my solidworks support agent to sort this out and give me an updated version if one exists so I will let you know the results.
    reply
  • Mark Carruthers

    4 months ago

    Josh, No joy with solidworks as they quote the same software which only runs on 2007. I would like to know if anyone has ever experienced getting two machines to give different answers to the same assembly simulation / analysis? I have experianced precisly that problem with my two machines one running 209 SP2.1 on Vista and one running 2009 SP 1.0 on XP Pro.
    reply

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