Q: How can I speed up TopRank's what-if analyses?
A: There are a number of steps you can take to speed up TopRank's analyses:
For large models, TopRank can use a large amount of memory. If you do not have enough physical (i.e. RAM) memory, it will page information to the hard disk. This can drastically slow down your simulation. Watch your hard-drive usage light while a simulation is running. If it is constantly writing or reading information from disk during the simulation, you should considering increasing your system's memory.
Multitasking is great, but other applications reduce the amount of available memory (see #1 above) and steal CPU cycles from TopRank. If you need to optimize the speed of your TopRank analyses, try to close all unneeded applications.
Network traffic can slow things down. Try to install both Excel and TopRank locally, instead of running over a network. If you are running a network version of TopRank (which comes with the DecisionTools Suite), choose the "Install Locally" option instead of the "Install Remotely" option.
This setting is located in the Other tab of the TopRank Settings dialog. By turning it off, you tell TopRank not to show each recalculation of the Excel spreadsheet. This can speedup the simulation dramatically.
If you have workbooks open that have nothing to do with your analysis, close them. Each step of a what-if analysis, TopRank tells Excel to recalculate everything. Your extraneous open workbooks may take significant time to calculate.
Consider removing unnecessary graphs, graphics, and tables from your model. These may take significant time to calculate and update.
Determine the temporary directory used by TopRank by looking in the DTOOLS.INI file in your windows directory. The [DIRECTORIES] section has an entry TEMP which determines where TopRank reads and write its temporary files. Go to that directory and clear out unused temporary files.