Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Get a faster hard drive. Chances are you're working on Revit on a local hard drive. If you're
working on a large project with a central file, your local file will be on your hard drive. If
you're working on a small project without worksharing enabled, there's a chance you might
be working on your local drive if you're taking the file home or if you don't have a network.
Regardless, one of the things that will affect performance is your drive speed. This is how
fast your computer can read/write to the local drive. With the large files Revit can create, a
faster drive will equal less read/write time; so if it's within your budget, try to get the 7,200 rpm
drive as a minimum, 9,600 rpm if you can get it, or even SSD (solid state drives). You'll
appreciate the difference.
Get a good graphics card. R evit is also very graphics-intensive and will push the limits of
any video card you have in your computer. While there are many graphics cards available at
a variety of performance and price levels, a good starting point is looking for ones that have
been tested and approved by Autodesk for use with Revit. You can find recommended
system hardware as well as graphics hardware and driver specifications at www.autodesk
.com/graphics-hardware-detail.
Figure out how much RAM your project will need. Before you email your IT department
requesting 64 GB of RAM, figure out how much you're actually going to use on your project.
Your OS and other applications like Outlook will use some of your RAM, but you can calcu-
late how much RAM Revit will need to work effectively. The formula is as follows:
Model size in Explorer × 20 + Linked file size(s) × 20 = Active RAM needed
Let's look at a couple of examples to demonstrate how it works. You have a Revit file with no
linked files, and your file size on your server is 150 MB. So you'll need 150 MB × 20 = 3,000
MB, or 3 GB of RAM just for Revit to operate effectively. In another example, you have a 120
MB file, a 50 MB structural model linked in, and four CAD files at 1 MB each. The calculation
is as follows:
(120 MB × 20) + (50 MB × 20) + (4 MB × 20) = 3,480 MB or 3.5 GB of RAM
Once you've put as much RAM into your workstation as is practical, your next recourse for
improving model performance is to reduce your file size so you're not using as much RAM.
Here are some tips to do that and thereby improve your file speed:
Manage your views. There are two things you can do using views to help improve perfor-
mance. First, the more views you have open at once, the more information you will load into
active RAM. It's easy to have many views open at once, even if you're concentrating on only
a few views. Close windows you're not using to help minimize the drain on your resources.
You can always close all the windows except your active one using the Close Hidden
Windows tool. Choose the View tab and click the Close Hidden button (Figure B.1). You
can map a keyboard shortcut to this command such as “XX,” or you can find it in the Quick
Access toolbar. The Close Hidden Windows command will close the hidden windows in your
active project as well as all other open projects and families in your current session of Revit.
Figure B.1
closing hidden windows
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