Is there any help for MEMORY ERRORS in SS4?

Keith

There are two things I recommend and these should be part of your standard operating procedure.

1. File management.  

Split your corridors into segments of not more than 1.5 miles long. You can do this now if needed. Just copy the dgn file with the long corridors and change the start and end stations. I’ve done this on many projects where the designer was unaware of this recommendation. The longest was a 10 mile long corridor which I copied 5 times and then changed station limits on each segment.

Keep terrain model files to less than 200-300 MB

Never use live nesting when referencing files.  Ok, never is probably too strong, but live nesting with depth > 1 can get you in trouble.

Be very careful when detaching ref files. Detach one which contains a referenced element causes huge instability.

2. Every time you leave your desk close and restart the product. This will clear any memory leaks. If you don’t leave your desk then restart the product every hour or two. 

Bonus #3 - get training for your entire staff. Teaching yourself is an invitation to disaster.

All: Ss4 is not a dead end. It was the 2nd giant step of a multi version migration to full OpenRoads designer. The evolutionary release schedule allowed designers to migrate in small steps rather than one giant leap. What you see in ss4 is a complete design package which relies on legacy plans production tools for sheeting and labeling.  OpenRoads designer is next giant step.  It is 95% identical to ss4 for design but adds new plans production tools and is of course 64 bit.

If you are expecting nirvana with ORD, you will likely be disappointed. This is not a disparagement of ORD, just a recognition of the fact that it is still OpenRoads and is still very complex software.  Does 64 bit help? Yes, especially with large files. Is it faster? No. File open times are horrendous. Otherwise feels about the same in real world projects.  Various sluggishness has been reported in these pages related to user interface interaction. Is it 100% stable. No. Is it the best bentley civil product yet?  Yes, it is and in my opinion better than the competition.  

Does it help an organization to skip ss4? No, not in my opinion. If you have waited this long then really all you have accomplished is that you now must learn Everything in one huge bite rather than an evolutionary process. In other words you now must climb a very steep learning curve in one go rather than a flatter learning curve stretched over time.

Keith

There are two things I recommend and these should be part of your standard operating procedure.

1. File management.  

Split your corridors into segments of not more than 1.5 miles long. You can do this now if needed. Just copy the dgn file with the long corridors and change the start and end stations. I’ve done this on many projects where the designer was unaware of this recommendation. The longest was a 10 mile long corridor which I copied 5 times and then changed station limits on each segment.

Keep terrain model files to less than 200-300 MB

Never use live nesting when referencing files.  Ok, never is probably too strong, but live nesting with depth > 1 can get you in trouble.

Be very careful when detaching ref files. Detach one which contains a referenced element causes huge instability.

2. Every time you leave your desk close and restart the product. This will clear any memory leaks. If you don’t leave your desk then restart the product every hour or two. 

Bonus #3 - get training for your entire staff. Teaching yourself is an invitation to disaster.

All: Ss4 is not a dead end. It was the 2nd giant step of a multi version migration to full OpenRoads designer. The evolutionary release schedule allowed designers to migrate in small steps rather than one giant leap. What you see in ss4 is a complete design package which relies on legacy plans production tools for sheeting and labeling.  OpenRoads designer is next giant step.  It is 95% identical to ss4 for design but adds new plans production tools and is of course 64 bit.

If you are expecting nirvana with ORD, you will likely be disappointed. This is not a disparagement of ORD, just a recognition of the fact that it is still OpenRoads and is still very complex software.  Does 64 bit help? Yes, especially with large files. Is it faster? No. File open times are horrendous. Otherwise feels about the same in real world projects.  Various sluggishness has been reported in these pages related to user interface interaction. Is it 100% stable. No. Is it the best bentley civil product yet?  Yes, it is and in my opinion better than the competition.  

Does it help an organization to skip ss4? No, not in my opinion. If you have waited this long then really all you have accomplished is that you now must learn Everything in one huge bite rather than an evolutionary process. In other words you now must climb a very steep learning curve in one go rather than a flatter learning curve stretched over time.