Hi Robert! Opening a small file with a few references takes about a minute and a half for me, and expanding the Explorer standards branch is pushing 30 seconds or so with a local configuration.

Not sure if it's related but I've found clearing my temp folder has sped up opening a new session, not sure about everything else it does seem a lot slower with every release.

One thing I have noticed is that there seems to be a read of dgnlibs on every file open which was only at the start of the session in ss4. This adds to the slow down - any variable to disable this Maybe?

Thanks Mark and Mark: I did some registry cleanup last week which found some leftovers from previous ORD install. Things got a little faster afterthe cleanup.  Now it take "only" 1 minute 40 seconds to open the first file and "only" 30 seconds to switch files.  Expanding project explorer is still in excess of 3 minutes. SIGH!

I'm only getting a max load time of 2 minutes for files this large, but we are noticing big differences between machines depending on whether they have had previous ORD versions, network workspace locations and clearing the users appdata local temp folder.

Hi Robert. My file size is 11 megabytes, it has 8 nested reference attachments (all together 20 references) and it takes 20 minutes to open.

I remember once having a major delay in opening and/or explorer opening and it turned out that I was loading a dgnlib with OR ss4 data in it (suggested by Chuck lawson).

I'd suggest maybe checking your Dgnlibs?

DGNWS is still a mystery to me. I wish someone could explain what it does.  MSWorksetDGNS is supposed to set the default location to look for DGN files. I was trying to provide a failsafe entry to avoid the dreaded "DGN folder not found" message when working without a workset or workspace. As you know, when you receive this message, you are stuck. If Microstation doesn't know where to start looking for a DGN then it refuses to do anything.

Hi Robert,

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open"]Does anyone else see very slow times in ORD when opening files or switching files.[/quote]

I am aware your post is 8 months old. Recently ORD Update 5 was released. Have had you chance to test whether the product speed was increased?

Regards,

  Jan

Hi Robert,

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open/485433"]DGNWS is still a mystery to me.[/quote]

I recommend to ask separately e.g. in Administration forum.

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open/485433"]I wish someone could explain what it does.[/quote]

It's not magic or even myster ;-)

In help it's described quite clearly I guess: The DGN WorkSet file contains WorkSet properties, custom properties, WorkSet sheet index, and the WorkSet Link Set. The WorkSet properties can be Workset Name, WorkSet Description, and so on. Custom properties are properties that you add in the Create WorkSet dialog. These properties are then copied to the DGN file when it is opened. The DGN WorkSet files also store the sheet index and link set of the WorkSet. These files have the extension .dgnws and are saved in the ..\Configuration\WorkSpaces\<WorkSpaceName>\WorkSets\ folder. Each WorkSet Configuration File (.cfg) has a corresponding DGN WorkSet file (.dgnws). 

So it's nothing else than "workset-wide data store" and exactly one dgnws file exists for every workset.

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open/485433"]MSWorksetDGNS[/quote]

I guess you mean another variables:

_USTN_WORKSETSDGNWSROOT # set location for DGNWS file
_USTN_WORKSETDGNWS # set name of DGNWS file

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open/485433"]I was trying to provide a failsafe entry to avoid the dreaded "DGN folder not found" message when working without a workset or workspace.[/quote]

My feeling from existing discussions is that it's pretty bad idea bringing a lot of headache to use no workspace / no workset.

Personally I do not understand why so many peopla are so crazy about such configuration and in my opinion no workspace / no workset is (from users' perspective) the same as something like default (workspace) / default (workset) that can be created in seconds and do not cause any issues.

With regards,

  Jan

Hi Robert,

[quote userid="478376" url="~/products/road___site_design/f/geopak-inroads-mx-openroads-forum/146807/openroads-designer-slow-file-open/485417"]MS_WorksetDGNS[/quote]

As Mark noted, such configuration variable does not exist (I do not find any reference to this name). So you can create it, but it will do nothing.

BTW Configuration of .dgnws file location including variable names is explained e.g. in this discussion.

With regards,

  Jan

Ok makes sense. Btw the variable I noted doesn't actually exist, it's a USTN_ one. 

About a million years later, I found a solution. If variable MS_WorksetDGNS is defined anywhere except the workset CFG file then it causes real problems.  Now, my files are opening only merely slow (like the rest of you guys) instead of severely slow. 

Hi Robert,

Thanks for that.

Is the meant to be MS_WorksetDGNWS? Might explain issues we're having with Projectwise...

It is painfully slow ... especially when attachments in the ORD file are live-nested.

It slows down to a crawl when working in a cloud-based PW environment.

i have notice that if i copy my file to my "c" drive the drawing opens quicker.

any reason why ?

@Jaxon, have you found anyway to speed up openroads ?

We just discovered that ORD loads Nested References on open even when nesting is turned off for all References (which is our standard practice).

Logged as a Defect so this will definitely speed things up when its fixed - we have massive projects where it takes a very long time to open our files when ORD works this way.

Daylin & Mark:

I noticed that ORD accesses a lot of files and the closer that the files are to the computer, the faster that it operates. The speed that files move through your network is important.  Having all of the files on a very fast server located close to your computer helps.  My temporary drives are all solid state and high speed. As many of my reference files as possible are loaded with no nesting.  Terrains, alignments, corridors, and production drawings are all in separate files and loaded no nesting.  

Setting up your ORD computer is not like setting up one for SS2.  It should be setup on a clean machine as any system variables or other settings come forward when you upgrade the software.  Having many small reference files is much faster than having 1 or 2 large files that contain everything.

Corridors look for alignment names in their references, not the alignment drawing name and the same for Plan and profile drawings look for corridor and alignment names.  I hope this helps.

This is my 2 cents worth.

Mark,

Has this been fixed?

Nope, very frustrating. On our major projects, we have people who are scared to shutdown their sessions in case some one asks them to show something and it will take them 5-10 mins to get back in.

This is one of the last things holding ORD back generally (especially in PW) so hopefully is a high priority on Bentleys list.