Feature Request: more accurate run time predictions and/or more frequent "% completed" updates please!

Altair Forum User

Hello,

I have noticed that whenever I start an optimisation run with Inspire, the progress bar always jumps straight to '5% completed'.

Then, after maybe 10 or 30 minutes it almost always goes straight to '58% completed'.

And then it goes on to either finish the run (or show an error).

 

The trouble with is that I am not getting a reliable indication of the amount of time that a run will likely take.

Right now it's very hard for me to know if a run is going to take 1 hour or 1 day (or 1 week– in which case I would definitely alter my parameters to speed up the optimisation).

 

I would like to see the progress bar updated preferably at least once a minute or something. Even once every 5 minutes would be nice! Right now, I have to wait too long to see how things are taking for each run and I am wasting a lot of computer/CPU time (because some runs are taking way longer than 60 minutes). I'd like to be able to abandon a run if they look like they are going to take way more than 2 to 4 hours say.

 

The reason is that I just have one work computer (at home). It is reasonable and has 4.0GHz CPU with 32Gb RAM. But this is my only desktop computer so I need to know roughly how long things are going to take. That way, I can begin my runs before my lunch, or at night...

 

Of course, what I would really like to see is a real-time visual indication of where on the model the solver is working. So again, that way I can see if the run is likely to be successful or not. For example, I know it is a completely different (mostly 2D) program, but Adobe after effects videos show each frame it is working on during the rendering stage. Some quick 'preview' runs can take as little as 5 minutes. Some runs can take 3 hours. And some runs can take 9 hours! It's very nice to see what the computer is working on. That way I can see if it has stalled or if the time will be too long for me. Yes I would rather lose 5% of my run time/speed to be able to see what is going on with the model and where.It's also nice to know so that I can see how I can speed up my runs and what gives me faster results.

Hope this helps you come up with a better product.

 

Thanks,

Leslie

Rahul_P1

The visualization of run time is being constantly enhanced and we will raise a RFE (request for enhancement) for this anyway with the developers,

at the moment I would suggest you look at the run directory (go to preferences  > run options > run history path) and see the progress file or the .out file to understand the status of the run more accurately,