altium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

[buenos]

hi

as i realized it, my altium slowed down since i installed the 6.7 update.
Is it possible? why is it?

for example if i want to move a component, i click on it, i have to wait 2 seconds, then i will be able to move it. Or if i want to continue routing on a trace-piece, i have to wait 1 second.

i have a 3.2GHz intel Pentium-D with 2GB 533MHz ram, and a good VGA. it was fast before the update. i need 6.7 because of the new features.

 

[ylscqu]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

it may be casued by antivirus tool

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

how?
i had antivirus when i was using 6.6. it wasnt slow.

 

[House_Cat]

There are no speed differences between 6.6 and 6.7. You may have other things going on.

First - clear DRC markers (Tools>Reset Error Markers).

Next - AD analyzes ground and power nets every time you move a component. If your board is fairly large, this can take some time. You can "hide" a net so it doesn't get analyzed by going to View>Connections>Hide Net, and clicking on any ground or power pin.

Finally - the speed of operations on the PCB is very closely related to how many online design rule checks (DRC) need to be done. If you have a lot of design rules, you may want to turn off the online checks. You can then do periodic batch checks. To turn off online checks, go to Tools>Design Rule Check, click on "Rules to Check" and right click anywhere in the table on the right side of the dialog. You will see the options to turn off or on the design rule checks under certain circumstances.

If the above don't speed up the operations, then you need to look at what else your computer may be doing to cause the delay. Hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to bring up the system Task Manager, go to the "Processes" tab, and look to see if it is really AD (DXP.EXE) that is using the CPU time.

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

ok. thanx.
i will try them at the workplace.
maybe that analyzing or the DRC is the problem, because sometimes i can see a little green progress bar at the left bottom corner..

the board is quite big, and dense: 1070 components, there are 25000 tracks already, but its about 10-30% of the final. so in the next weeks it will be more difficoult, and slower.

 

[melc]

1000 components it's not so dense, how large is the routing area and how many BGA do you have, how many layers please ?

I would appreciate if you keep us informed how's going. I'm trying to switch from Mentor's to Altium and I'm not decided yet.

thx,

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

280x120mm is the board, 8 layers, 4 signal lyers. probably i will not to fill all the layers with traces.
2 BGAs, one with about 480 pins, another with 208.
its big and dense for me, the previous ones were simplier. i will get used to it.

i will try to switch off some layers (to be not visible), i think it will also speed up. i should have it done at my previous projects, but it wasnt needed.

 

[House_Cat]

Buenos -

I should also have mentioned polygons. If you have a number of copper pours on your board, those also require update when you do component moves. You can speed up the response of the software by removing that burden by "shelving" (temporarily storing) the polygons. Go to Tools>Polygon Pours>Shelve x Polygons. That will store the polygons, but keep track of them so you can bring them back at any time. The Polygon Manager is located in the same menu, and can be used for the same sort of control over which ones are stored and which ones are visible.

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

thanx

i tried all of them
it is also slow, when i want to move a trace, or select a trace or via.
i didnt switch off the short circuit and clearance online check, because i need them.

 

[House_Cat]

Are you running in DirectX graphics mode? Shortcut "OI" to get to the preference page. If your computer is capable of DirectX 9.0c with Shader Level 3 operation, the graphics display can be accelerated in this mode. If your computer and graphics card are not able to handle the faster mode, you will need to run in the slower GDI default graphics mode.

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

i replaced the graphics card few weeks ago (with shader-3), and now i am running direct-x.

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

i did the "hide connection" for the gnd, but if i route a gnd track (component pad to a via), then it performes online DRC, about 3-5 seconds.

 

[House_Cat]

If you left online checks turned on, every change you make on the board will be checked against the applicable design rule. If you make a change to a ground or power net, all the connections in that net are going to be checked.

Turning off the online checks will not disable the actual design rules - you will still get object avoidance if a clearance limit is approached, or the chosen type of plane connections, etc. You just don't force the software to analyze the whole board and mark everything it finds for each change you make.

I like to leave the online checks all disabled while I work. I can then do a batch DRC anytime I want and fix anything that the checks find. It speeds up the response when working on large boards. I don't believe anyone needs a constant realtime check for everything done while actively laying out a board.

Hiding a net doesn't stop online DRC, it only keeps the software from analyzing all the net connections everytime you move an object. Turning off online DRC doesn't disable the rules, it just disables continuous checking and reporting (marking).

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

ok. thank you.
i will switch off all. i was afraid to lose cleaance and short circuit avoidance.

 

[Johnson]

Also it has a sever bug with manual routing and polygon placement!

 

[buenos]

@ltium 6.7 slower than 6.6?

OK.
it solved it.
i switched off in the tools/preferences.