r13 Early Impressions

Just installed this morning. Hating the raster file handling, it's worse. I just attached several, they don't display until a manipulation like level on/off, ras display is used.

Then a little text editing, once you complete a single edit text command reverts to Default Tool. Single Click set to Locked in preferences.

We're just getting started with this dog, guess I'll go back to keeping a list and filing service tickets when I have time.

Anyone else feel like an unpaid beta tester?

Also crashed once today, just shut down, no error, no nothin.

Parents
  • My general impression is that it feels a bit more responsive and I like the new V8i mode implementation. However I see Bentley have just posted a blog with opening times. It seems (If I read it correctly) that unless you have a massive data set then V8i is still faster. IMO Connect should be faster in all situations. 

  • unless you have a massive data set then V8i is still faster

    This Bentley blog discusses the DGN file opening times.  I've reproduced their table and added a column that shows the performance of CONNECT compared with V8i...

    Element Count

    FO Time (in sec) CE

    FO Time V8i (in sec)

    CONNECT vs V8i (below 100% means slower)

    83.6 MB

    512500 (X)

    8

    7

    88%

    165 MB

    1025000 (2X)

    16

    13

    82%

    330 MB

    2050000 (4X)

    35

    27

    77%

    662 MB

    4100000 (8X)

    90

    58

    65%

    827 MB

    5125000 (10X)

    140

    120

    86%

    993 MB

    6150000 (12X)

    170

    440

    259%

    1.12 GB

    7210000 (14X)

    380

    850

    224%

    1.29 GB

    8200000 (16X)

    390

    900

    230%

    1.45 GB

    9227000 (18X)

    620

    1400

    226%

    1.61 GB

    10250000 (20X)

    880

    2000

    228%

    Apparently, their conclusion is that we should all work with files greater than 800MB, because then we'll have a faster experience using CONNECT than with V8i!  Most of us, most of the time, are working with files well below 800MB, so we're stuck with a slower experience.

     
    Regards, Jon Summers
    LA Solutions

Reply
  • unless you have a massive data set then V8i is still faster

    This Bentley blog discusses the DGN file opening times.  I've reproduced their table and added a column that shows the performance of CONNECT compared with V8i...

    Element Count

    FO Time (in sec) CE

    FO Time V8i (in sec)

    CONNECT vs V8i (below 100% means slower)

    83.6 MB

    512500 (X)

    8

    7

    88%

    165 MB

    1025000 (2X)

    16

    13

    82%

    330 MB

    2050000 (4X)

    35

    27

    77%

    662 MB

    4100000 (8X)

    90

    58

    65%

    827 MB

    5125000 (10X)

    140

    120

    86%

    993 MB

    6150000 (12X)

    170

    440

    259%

    1.12 GB

    7210000 (14X)

    380

    850

    224%

    1.29 GB

    8200000 (16X)

    390

    900

    230%

    1.45 GB

    9227000 (18X)

    620

    1400

    226%

    1.61 GB

    10250000 (20X)

    880

    2000

    228%

    Apparently, their conclusion is that we should all work with files greater than 800MB, because then we'll have a faster experience using CONNECT than with V8i!  Most of us, most of the time, are working with files well below 800MB, so we're stuck with a slower experience.

     
    Regards, Jon Summers
    LA Solutions

Children
  • We don't have data sets anywhere near the size that would see the speed benefits. In another blog post

    https://communities.bentley.com/products/microstation/b/microstation_blog/posts/time-for-change-help-your-colleagues-switch-to-microstation-connect-edition-1885868783

    which reads to me as somewhat desperate. The 'advantages' of Connect are listed. My comments on them below

    • Sheet tracking and ordering - This is to slow and lacks basic features that would make it useful.
    • Tables - Finally but to be honest we don't use them enough for this to be a must have.
    • Item types and property- driven reporting and annotation - Potentially useful but for most things I need tags work just fine
    • Explorer Slow. Keep it closed 
    • Parametric modeling, parametric cells Could be good but not robust enough yet and Revit does it much better
    • Reality modeling support for ContextCapture reality meshes We haven't needed any of this on a project as yet
    • CONNECT services like Issue Resolution Service, Standards Sharing, ProjectWise Share, and CONNECT Advisor . Don't use
    • Online help This is not advantage as it's slow and not updated much more often than the delivered help file.
    • Bing Maps can be used as background images We could do this already and anyway would use Google
    • Expanded interoperability with support for multiple file formats and versions This is about the only advantage and the one thing I sell Connect on.

    My strategy at the moment is to put new users onto Connect as they don't know what they are missing. i'm trying to move new projects to Connect but until I physically remove V8i from users, the experienced users will go back to V8i as it's faster and more stable and they know the interface. CE13 seems to be an improvement but there is still away to go IMO to persuade users that CE is a better option.. 

  • I just looked at our main project drive...  Our largest dgn file is 852 KB.  Our median file size is about 50 KB.

  • So they even admit that, for those of working with smaller files, CONNECT is NOT the optimal program. Not a good look, if they want to convince us that CONNECT is an improvement.

    And I agree with Duncan - a lot of these "Advantages" are things that just do not apply to the work we do. The sheet management looks really good, but what I've seen of it, it isn't robust enough to be actually useful.

    MaryB

    Power GeoPak 08.11.09.918
    Power InRoads 08.11.09.918
    OpenRoads Designer 2021 R2

        

  • It would be good to understand what the curve looks like with the most of the data being loaded as reference attachments. Most of the data we load are in Refs and not the active file. We tend to open relatively small files with a lot of Refs for context.

    I would say that a say 20% difference in speed over the four years that CE has been out would be easily offset by hardware upgrades.

    I wonder why the 600MB mark takes such a hit and whether if this can be fixed.

    I would be more worried about performance when switching between models/files.

  • This Bentley blog discusses the DGN file opening times

    And these tests were done on a pc with 64GB RAM!! I certainly don't have that much RAM and I'm guessing that a lot of other users don't too!