SolidWorks 2011 Performance and Reliability

SolidWorks 2011 promises to have better performance and reliability in a few areas.  This is a topic that sometimes is not well represented in the What’s New file that are included with SolidWorks products.  However, the improvements are still very important.

Memory management

One area of improvement is better memory management.  Previous versions tend to eat up more memory as a SolidWorks session remains open and active in Windows.  Though this tendency is not completely gone, SolidWorks 2011 is reported to be better at releasing memory when closing or suppressing parts and files.  According to Jeremy Regnerus of SolidWorks Corp, users should be able to keep SolidWorks 2011 open longer and with more stability than previous versions.  Generally speaking, SolidWorks seems to have taken major strides in stability over the past couple of years. 

Better performance logs

To to a better job of tracking issues when they do arise (such as crashes), performance logs will now be more comprehensive to give SolidWorks support better information to determine the cause of the problem.

Simulation

Regnerus also brags about improvements to SolidWorks Simulation performance.  He stated that users should see a 20% faster solve time with 15 to 20% fewer number of equations.  Additionally, multicore CPU use will allow Simulation to run single simulations much faster.

Author: fcsuper

As a drafter, mechanical designer and CAD engineer, I've been in the mechanical design field since 1991. For the first 8 years of my career, I was an AutoCAD professional. I utilized AutoLISP and many other AutoCAD customization features to streamline drafting activities for 6+ drafters and designers. I authored several custom functions, one of which was published in the March 1997 issue of Cadalyst Magazine. Since 1998, I've been used SolidWorks non-stop. I've worked to utilize the SolidWorks' user environment to simplify drafting and design activities for 20+ engineers. I've created this website to provide current information about SolidWorks from a variety of contributors. More recently, I am now employed by Dassault Systemes as SOLIDWORKS Sr. Product Definition Manager to improve drawing, annotation and MBD related areas. View all posts by fcsuper