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Why is WF 5.0 so bad?

J

jhyder79

New member
Before I start my rant I wanted to give a little background about myself and my experience with Pro/E:
<ul>[*]I have used Pro/E on Windows, Solaris, and Linux platforms (Windows is by far the least stable).[*]I have been using Pro/E since version 2001 and have used WF 1,2,3,4 in a production environment.[*]My work is primarily in heavy equipment and involves large assemblies and extensive use of Large Assembly Management.[*]I have now been using Pro/E Wildfire 5.0 for two weeks on an HP xw4600 workstation just to see how it runs compared to previous versions.
[/list]
With that, here are my experiences so far with Wildfire 5.0:
<ul>[*]Seems much slower than previous versions of WF on the same hardware and models.[*]Crashes much more than any other version of Pro/E I have used.[*]I currently can not open an IGES file and save it. It will open but immediately crashes when I attempt to save. I have no problems opening the same files on WF 2.
[*]Measuring between two points in a chassis model I am currently working on takes 15 minutes (no lie!). The same procedure on my old workstation running Linux and WF 2.0 takes a few seconds.
[*]I cannot create a straight Pipe section between two points. The only way I have been able to make a straight pipe is to use the extend option. This is really annoying when I am using points to route a hose.[/list]
Am I the only one experiencing this kind of stuff? I know that the first few maintenance releases of Pro/E can be a bit bumpy, but this is ridiculous. From my experience WF 5 is completely unusable.
 
And to think they delayed the launch to ensure this level of quality! WF5 is on my "releases to skip" list. I'm almost ready to use WF4 when M110 ships.
 
Thanks for the warning. I'm greatful that there are peoplel out there who are willing to debug the software.
 
Strange. It does seem that WF5 differs per user/hardware etc. I just tried opening and saving some fairly big iges files and it worked fine so cross fingers I dont get that issue. I am also working on a chassis model, and measured between points and like your previous version it took seconds.


there are a few things that annoy me with WF5 so far, but nothing on the scale you are experiencing.
smiley18.gif
 
Have you checked or upgraded your graphics driver? I've seen some pretty whacky behavior that was linked to driver issues.
 
It seems more stable to me.


Definitely slower and I think the graphics card has a lot to do with it. Hardware upgrade is in the cards, especiallyonce they getPro/Mental Ray working.
 
I am using ProE since 2001 and have used all WF releases (1, 2, 3, 4, and now 5). I fully agree with [-Skint-] and mgnt8.


I think WF5 is the most successful release so far. I wonder why people start crying with new releases. Each new release has all the previous features plus new features and the discussion should be on how much effort have been done to introduce the new features and how to improve it. Its the positive feedback that makes a new release stable with sucessive maintenace.
 
...and speaking of importing files. The new import dialogue box where you can control imported data and assign start templates to both the assembly and the including parts is a great feature.
 
I wanted to give another updated since I have been using it off an on for about a month and a half now...

I have done what several of you have suggested and upgraded my video card drivers. I also made sure that Windows was up to date. With these changes, this is what I have learned:

<ul>[*]I put WF5 head to head against WF2/3/4 and verified that it is much slower. Sometimes as much as 3x slower.
[*]The IGES import problem that I was originally having exists in both WF 4 and 5. I have no problems opening it with WF2 and 3.[*]Crash frequency is still too high to be usable.[*]Running Pro/E in both Solaris and Linux is still considerably more stable than running in Windows on the same hardware.
[/list]
Overall I still think WF5 is unusable and that anybody looking to upgrade should stick with WF4. Even though WF4 still has some quirks, it is considerably more stable and faster.
 
Last month I ran the OCUS benchmark on WF 4 M050 & WF 5 F000. WF 5 consistently used 15% - 20% more memory throughout the test. Hardware requirements should have been revised. PTC is kidding themselves if they think people aren't going to realize this right out of the box.
 
tried wf5 in a training session, kind of like meeting a new girl and discovering that she "doesnt like it that way"

who likes the new 2d?

to be fair, can a maintenance build really compare to a first release?

do find more bugs, and send them in so we can get m0XX as soon as possible...

and some of you need to dust off those wallets and get some hardware ;-)

hehe

cheers

M
 
I have been using WF5 since the preproduction release. I have had some of my engineers testing it since the official release. I have not found any stability issues. I think it actually crashes lease then WF4 and when it does crash most of the time it is able to restore the model you were working on.


I think it does require more resources so old machines, that ran WF4 just fine, might have problems. I am hoping that we will be Ok.


I think there are too many new capabilities to skip this version. WF4 was the version to skip - they added no new functionality with that one. Everything they did for WF4 was new optional modules and bug fixes.
 
I just like ordering every new maintenance release, I don't run anything until they get to at least M100. Soon I will have such a tall stack of PTC CD's I'll beat NASA back to the moon.
 
One reason to use WF 5 is the new rendering engine. Whatever was going on with system usage in C000 has been fixed in F000. Rendering time is about what it was in WF 4. And its a monumental improvement. Finally.

Edited by: mgnt8
 
WF5 appears to support Direct3D under the config.pro option
graphics d3d. You need to be running Direct3D 10 -
Vista apparently. Any experience out there with this ?

Been using Mechanica in WF5 F000 for several weeks now. It
works rather nicely - changing units on the fly is great.
No show stoppers and some nice new features.

The interface is definitely slower than in WF4 - jhyder79
whats your machine and graphics card spec?
Edited by: moriarty
 
After watching a demo: Still there is no option, once in a solid feature sketch, to switch to surface or thin wall / thicken? Is this really so difficult to implement? I really cannot see how PTC justify the cost of WF5 with so few real improvements.

If PTC spent a week browsing through various CAD forums and took on board what people were saying, they'd have an excellent product. There's no cost involved; just be involved with the people - join a community and engage once in a while. Employ designers, engineers and artists; get rid of the legions of marketing tricksters.
 
WF5 is actually quite nice to use - especially on a new
Core i7 machine. There are a lot of improvements amongst
the old familiar thorns. After using it for a while I don't
think you'rd go back to WF4 - its very stable.

With regards speed - turning off all the fancy Windoze
effects helps - animation etc. WF5 uses more of these which
is OK if youve got CPU cycles to burn - on XP and old
hardware they need to used judiciously.
 
Moriarty,

Which options are you talking about and how do you turn them off?

I don't find Wildfire 5 much slower, but am running an XP machine and am always keen for speed increases.

Thanks,


Sam
 
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