Ultiboard 10.1 too slow to view 5.71 files

[Orbit353]

I have some old Ultiboard 5.71 files, that works just fine on my old PentiumIII-450MHz machine (with 5.71). As I wanted to take some screenshots of the design for use in a presentation on signal integrity design, and wanted to do that on the road with my 2.2 GHz Core duo laptop (nVidia graphics), I downloaded an eval verison of 10.1.

To my surprise, the screen rendering was a nightmare. My board took 30 minutes to load initially! Even panning around is at least 10x slower on the new machine & software, than with the older system. Is this as expected? The design is rather large (around 15000 pins, 10 layer board), and have a fair amount of polygons (as UB 5.71 had no way of keeping power planes away from mechanical features). But still.....a new version should not be that slow. I tried to turn off all real-time DRC, ratsnets etc, without any help. The laptop is fairly decent, 2GB RAM, 7200 RPM disk, 128 MB graphics, and at least much better than the older system.

Anyone with similar experiences? I think there was a redesign of the GUI after 5.71.....but it should not have crippled the system!

[nestor-sg]

Hi, I will suggest sending your file to Tech Support... contact them at ewbsupport@ni.com, or if you have SSP at http://www.ni.com/ask/ we might need to see your original file to identify where the problem is...

[Orbit353]

I don't have a valid support account any longer, would you still be interrested in receiving the file for investigation?

I've been able to do a little checking (although every click takes .....lots.....of....time........), and there seem to be some import errors causing numerous DRC errors:

1. My blind/buried vias are not imported properly, and are thus showing up with shorts to nets in other layers.
2. Polygon clearance settings seem to be violated as well
3. Two of my layers are fake mechanical layers with drawn routing traces for panel cutouts (these had DRC errors originally, but there was no native mechanical layers in 5.71)

I have a hunch that this is part of the problem....but not all of it.

[lacy]

This is just a thought based upon my reading of the forum and experience with this version and early versions. I know Multisim 10 is compatible with fles going back to Multisim 2001 (which is version 6). Before that then it is not totally compatible due to the component pins being arranged differently on the components. This was dicussed at length in a different post, but I can't recall exactly how it went.

I am wondering if this applies to Ultiboard also and may be the root of the problems you are having.

[GarretF]

Hi Orbit:

We are still interested in the file for investigation. Please send the file as Nestor indicated. If you put my name (Garret) in the email's header, tech support will forward it to me, and I will investigate it personally.


Message Edited by koekje on 11-28-2007 12:26 PM

[Orbit353]

I've already sent the file. It was received by your colleague Fernando D., who reproduced the issue and forwarded it internally for further investigation. Please check with him.

[Orbit353]

Any update from NI on this? Is it a real problem? Is it something that will be fixed soon, or should I just try to live with it for my screenshots. The eval licence expires in less than two weeks......

[lacy]

I don't mean for this to sound as bad it it is going to, but you probably won't get any fixes in 2 weeks. There are a bunch of issues that NI has to deal with and some of these have been on the burnner for over 6 months and there have been no fixes/updates issued. The last update I believe was sometime around April so don't expect a quick fix. They may be able to give you a wrokaround solution, but permanent fixes take a while.

[Orbit353]

I was definietively not expecting a product fix within the short time frame, but that somome might have discovered a "magic" check box that would enable/disable some feature that is stealing all the CPU cycles. I have tried some (like disable real time DRC), without success

[lacy]

Sorry about that. I must have misinterpreted your post. I thought you were waiting for them to issue an update to the software.

This is going to probably be a real dumb suggestion, but have you tried diabling all windows background programs including any virus protection. Don't know for sure, but it may free up the CPU and memory and may make things run faster. Just a thought.