Designer slow to open

[cnsranch]

Sorry to bother you all, tried search to no avail (my 25 cent word for the day).

Over the last few weeks, my Designer software takes almost two minutes to open, whether I'm opening directly from the desktop, or clicking on an attachment from one of you on the forum. Running XP, now upgraded to 1.3 from 1.26 - same problem with both versions.

I haven't added any other software to the computer, so I can't figure out what may be wrong.

Any suggestions re settings, etc?

Thanks

[Kenm810]

Hi cnsranch,

I've noticed it also on both my deck top computers
and my Lap top. Mine aren't quite as slow as you describe,
but I got spoiled by the earlier versions of Designer -- 10 or 15 Seconds tops to load up.
Now 20 to 30 seconds, but it often feels like a minute or two since the last couple of up dates. http://www.carvewright.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_sad.gif

[Semper Fi]

Mine also seems to take a lot longer, but I just timed it and it took 30 seconds. Guess my memory isn't what it use to be! LOL

[cnsranch]

It's like the program's "hanging up" in the process of opening.

I just timed mine, too. If I go to open an attachment on the forum without Designer already open, it takes 98 seconds to open. If I open Designer directly from my desktop, it takes 93 seconds.

I must have some settings on the computer that's interfering with the program.

Any ideas are appreciated - not a big deal, but something of a pain.

It was really bad with 1.26, because Designer opened every time you wanted to see a ptn or mpc thru the forum. Now, it recognizes that Designer's already open, and just opens a new window - really good improvement.

[Amonaug]

Without knowing the specs of your computer it's hard to compare times.

I have a
AMD athlon 3200+ 64 CPU
3 GB DDR RAM
Nvidia 7950 GTOC video card
WinXP64

and Designer opens in 5 seconds and most projects around 15 seconds.

[cnsranch]

RAM's probably my problem - I've also got a 3200 processor, but only 512MB of RAM. I'm at the office, and including Designer, I have 4 other programs running.

Oh, well, Micro Center's right down the road...

[Deolman]

Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? If not, you may need to do it several times. Even if it doesn't show fragmentation after the first time, it will do some houskeeping on subsequent operations.

[Amonaug]

Have you defragmented your hard drive lately? If not, you may need to do it several times. Even if it doesn't show fragmentation after the first time, it will do some houskeeping on subsequent operations.

Good point, fragmentation will slow you system down dramatically as the system has to look all over the hard drive for the data. This is why I have give my temp/pagefile it's own partition.

[jackssib1]

long time to upload also.
Jack

[cnsranch]

I've got a 160GB hard drive with 149 Gig free. I defrag about once a month, but I just defragged (is that a real word?) about 6 times - didn't really help much.

How much RAM you guys running?

[bjbethke]

I found a large Favorites file (MPN) will slow the designer when loading. I try to keep mine between 5MB to 10 MB. I also defrag my system and run a Registry Cleaner; I found a free one that works great, http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html?Str=purchase

When my MPN file is greater than 20 MB I give it a number. And remove it from my CarveWrite folder. You can always add it any time you need it.

I have 767 MB of RAM to use.

[Ken Massingale]

With 1.30 Designer is opening faster than with 1.26. Opening a project seems faster also. But, compared to other much larger applications, Designer is dog-slow. Moving or resizing a component in designer takes a long time.

I do defrag often and have 2 GB of Ram.

I saw some improvement when I changed the hardware Accelleration to Auto in Edit, preferences, 3D graphics. I found it was set to 'On'.
Ken

[Amonaug]

Normally you want Hardware Acceleration on as that tells it to use your graphics cards to render the graphics in designer instead of your CPU. You might want to make sure you have up to date drivers for your system too.

[cnsranch]

BJB said something that got me to thinking - I looked and found that Designer had created three favorites files and two basic files. I deleted the two favorites and the extra basic, now Designer opens in less than five seconds.

That was the problem, way too much to load up! Each Fav was 40mb, and each basic was 7mb.

Don't know why Designer does that, but it has in the past. Getting rid of the oldest of the files is the trick.

[Kenm810]

cnsranch,
Nice catch, looks like I have some deleting to do on a couple Pc's

[cnsranch]

Make sure you don't delete the "basic" file from

C:\Program Files\CarveWright\data

That's the important one - Designer won't operate without it - I found out the hard way - although you can always restore the file from your recycle bin, so long as you have your computer set up to not automatically empty the bin.

The location on my computer with the multiple files is

C:\Documents and Settings\user name\CarveWright

[bjbethke]

cnsranch,
The C:\Program Files\CarveWright\data should only have the basic file, but the favorites will work there also.

The C:\Documents and Settings\user name\CarveWright, should have the favorites file. The CW works with more than one favorites file, but they need different names, I just add a number to the file.

I save the extra favorites files on a CD or DVD. I use the “Copy and Paste” function to move them. I only use the Recycle Bin to get rid of them if I do not want to save them.

I found you will get a new favorites file every time you update the software, unless you do a complete update. Then you will lose them. I had to replace my hard drive and I lost a lot of stuff that I did not get backed up on my DVD’s. Good thing it was only fifteen days since my last backup.

I save my old Favorites files with a Screen Print so I know what I have in the files on my CD’s or DVD’s.