AutoCAD hardware

[Down the Pub]

Originally Posted by Jon T

Do you know what a typical size may be for one of the AutoCAD files, does the NAS have enough space for now/the future?

Not knowing the network topology, how many workstations etc, this may not be a issue, but has the network got enough headroom/spare bandwidth and speed to cope with the backups without causing slowdown?

Sorry, not trying to be difficult, just helping you to make sure you've got all bases covered.

most of our cad drawings are a 200-400kb , and this is for quite detailed electrical schematics but ga layouts get much bigger. now this may differ depending if the client has any add-on packages integrated into autocad and how detailed the layout/schematics are.

i.e if i draw a control panel then i would use different layers and colour's for for various components, in the end the overall layout may end up being a meg or so and depending on how many drawings there are in a package it does start to mount.


as for hardware, i always found that plenty of memory and a good gfx card were top of the list - i do a bit at home on my pc when i don't have time and autocad runs well enough on my 8800gts, although i must admit that i don't deal with 3d work

[Dai]

It's the 3D that's the killer. He's trying to do a walk-through for his client of a shop layout. This includes car park and other exterior detail so the client can visualise walking up to the shop front and then strolling around the store. It's a monster with loads of different textures and he wants to be able to manouver it around effectively in real time.

[Jon T]

Originally Posted by Down the Pub

most of our cad drawings are a 200-400kb , and this is for quite detailed electrical schematics but ga layouts get much bigger. now this may differ depending if the client has any add-on packages integrated into autocad and how detailed the layout/schematics are.

i.e if i draw a control panel then i would use different layers and colour's for for various components, in the end the overall layout may end up being a meg or so and depending on how many drawings there are in a package it does start to mount.


as for hardware, i always found that plenty of memory and a good gfx card were top of the list - i do a bit at home on my pc when i don't have time and autocad runs well enough on my 8800gts, although i must admit that i don't deal with 3d work

My workplace deals with landscape layouts and building plans, which can come out at 20mb a drawing.

[Kymmy]

My partner is currently working with a Rhino file (comparable to an Autocad DWG file) which is 220Mb on the disk for a 6 wheel drive range-rover project.

[Down the Pub]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

My partner is currently working with a Rhino file (comparable to an Autocad DWG file) which is 220Mb on the disk for a 6 wheel drive range-rover project.

only slightly bigger than what i deal with, but as i said that was just an example depending on what your doing with it. the drawings the i did for a previous employer were quite large aswell - mainly due to everything being drawin independantly (including bolts etc) on different layers/colours and linetypes, so as you can imagine the detail on a 15 metre long double sided switchboard can get quite chaoticly detailed.

the company did start to look to dabble with the 3d work to demonstrate and show the equipment in situe, but i got laid off before it went anywhere.

http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=539

infor on softmodding an 8800GTS to a Quadro

This actually looks like it works on a few cards. The hardware is the same on certain models to their Quadro counterparts. Its all simply done using rivatuner