AutoCAD 2014: Improving Startup Times & Performance

by Dennis Collin

1. Disable creating a new AutoCAD file on startup

When you start AutoCAD, it will create a new file using a default template. The thing is, we don’t always want to create a new file when we open AutoCAD. Quite often we'd rather continue working with a previous drawing.

Other reason to disable the default template is that you often have many different drawing templates. When you create new drawings, you probably want to use another template.

You can change this behavior by changing the STARTUP system variable to 1. Instead of creating a new file, it will let you to decide to create a new file from a desired template or open an existing drawing.

For AutoCAD 2012 or later, you can set the value to 2 instead. This setting will start AutoCAD without opening any file or any dialog boxes, thereby speeding up the startup process.

2. Disable the 'Splash Logo'

Disabling the splash screen can reduce load times. It may not have a significant effect on newer computers, but it may help performance on more vintage hardware.

To disable the splash screen, right click the AutoCAD shortcut on your desktop.

Click properties on contextual menu.

Add /nologo switch on target field to disable it.

A typical line will read something like;

"C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2014\acad.exe"  /product ACAD /language "en-US" /nologo

(this tip works for most recent AutoCAD based products)

Now when you double click the shortcut, AutoCAD will not show splash screen when loading.

Once you are in AutoCAD if further performance improvements are required try disabling the transparent command line box and palette menus, along with hatchpreview functions, hatch transparency, quick properties and automatic selection cycling.

Within Windows disabling fancy graphical options like the Windows Aero feature, or under System Properties tick the optimise for best performance option to gain the maximum speed from your hardware.