Could be the HDD. Get a SSD.

Did you download the x64 version? I feel as of late that SketchUp has gotten slow... In 2015 it pauses a lot. The principle had gotten used to me modeling right along with the discussion but now I can't seem to get it going fast enough. Also, faces seem to decay into triangulated jumble after awhile.  I constantly email Tommy at SketchUp who's very nice but nothing has been solved.   

The problem is, wait for it... Sketchup. What a dumb piece of software for corporate shits....

Lol sameolddoctor. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Dude, it's not your PC that's the problem. Learn to model properly and you should be fine. Your model is not large at 250+mb, it's ridiculously large. No sketchup model should ever get that large, not even half that.

For Sir Sean Connery's sake, I have an entire Revit office tower central model smaller than that.

Haven't used 2015 but 250mb is pretty damn large. Also make sure your shadows are off when you're modeling

266 MB? How is that possible? Unless you have multiple highly-detailed towers (which I really hope you're not using SketchUp for...) then you've modelled some sort of mistake in there is my guess. Check off-layers, hidden geometry, components, etc. You need to reduce somehow, that size is unacceptably big.

"266 MB? How is that possible? "

I agree that models of this size aren't typically practical.  However, it's not only possible but pretty easy to make the mistake of choosing any number of very large file components and end up at 266MB.  Not that that's the OP's problem necessarily.

There are hospital beds in the 3D warehouse that are 9MB each.  Place 30 beds, and you have a 270MB model. 

Sketchup is a good tool. 

266mb is huge for SKP.

make sure sketchup isn't set to auto save evey five minutes.

256 MB hahaha, i think the whole of the 3d warehouse is a total of 256 MB

Sameold -- is there a larger online 3D source than the SKP warehouse? Oh, and free?

Thanks for the feedback everybody. I took a Sketchup course at community college but the teacher didn't know everything and he was foreign so his accent made it difficult to understand.

I did not know 250MB was unheard of for file size. I figure then my files should stay between 100-150 max?

I am working on a multi-use three story development with three (3 bedroom, 2 bath) 1700sf apartments and three 1800sf commercial spaces and a few other components.

I did all of the drafting on CAD and just imported the file to raise the walls and begin the 3D detailed designs.

I realized that I picked up a few things from the online warehouse that I didn't realize were ridiculous sizes due to the hidden geometry and nested components.

Now that I removed the hidden geometry I just have to breakdown the components to downsize the file I suppose.

Thanks again. Very helpful :)

Whenever you download components make sure you don't import directly to your file, save to disc, purge them, and check for hidden geometry. Form fonts and turbo squid have great libraries for a fee. 

I've done pretty detailed models of entire downtown blocks that were under 100 mb, but no bldg interiors. You need to think about the end goal of the model...just for a few views or do you really need to do a flythru?? It saves a lot of time to think about only modeling what you're going to see in the end.

Really if your file size is over 50 to 60 MB, something is wrong with the model. I've yet to have a model over 50 MB and we do multi family buildings.

As for issues with 2015, it seems to be a bit faster for me. It's opening up models quicker and is more responsive in general. I've noticed a speed boost in the new Vray update as well.

Yes, 250MB on Sketchup is ridiculously large. My largest project so far is 2.44MB, though the building is open plan the model is very detailed, from modeling entire structural system, to putting in furniture. Also when doing complex models you can break up the model into smaller pieces my referencing models. Read:

http://www.mastersketchup.com/sketchup-external-references/

http://www.sketchupartists.org/tutorials/sketchup-and-advanced-modeling/how-to-manage-complex-sketchup-models/

Is Sketchup 2015 multi-core compatible? The older versions of SKP were only capable of using a single core of a multi-core processer, which slows them down a lot on modern multi-core machines.

But yes, 250MB is way too big for a SKP model. That size suggests that whoever built it didn't know what they were doing.

gwharton - Sketchup 2015 will run on multiple processor machines but will only use one processor. Sketchup currently does not support hyperthreading or multithreading, sketchup will run on 64bit versions of windows, but will run as a 32bit application.

Check Window>Preferences>OpenGL. Check that you have either the #28 or #40 default settings checked. I have 2014 which set it at #192 and that slowed everything down. It started off like that and everyone in the office had the same problem. I don't know where it came from but you might have to manually change it. I had a 50MB file to work with. I thought the topo model in there was slowing everything down but it was really that OpenGL setting.

Make sure you don't download too many components at once and copy the model into a new file to reduce file size.

The correct answer to your problem may be the autosave, once on 5 minutes. Disable it and you`ll be surprised. I used to deal with that on my 200 mb project too.

You can try the cleanup plugin, it`s VERY useful to reduce the size of the project.

the correct answer is to use rhino

^ no it's not.

The correct answer is don't use sketchup.

I've seen that if you have Vray for Sketchup installed it greatly increases load times, and sometimes makes Sketchup unable to open a file. I disable the plugin unless I need it.

Ok sorry to be blunt but most of you guys are talking rubbish.  Sketchup is absolutely fine and workable as 3D modelling software: I have been working with it since V 2012 and I am now on 2016.  Sketchup is a brilliant piece of software and all the recommendations to use Rhino or whatever is preferential bias.  Rhino may well be brilliant, but so is Sketchup.  I learned AutoCAD 3D and 3D Studio at uni many years ago - it was purgatory and in commercial practice I reverted to hand drawing and sketching until Sketchup came along.

Also when you guys are saying 200Mb files are ridiculously large  and slating this guys modelling skills and practice its clear your perspective is narrow and limited!  I am a landscape Architect and landscapes per se be are larger than most architectural files even if the interior is fully modelled (and yes I have done that as well in Sketchup and that works fine too).  Landscape be it a large domestic garden or a national park are far heavier than most modelling applications due to all the polygons and curves intrinsic to a biological entity.  I work with an ASUS G752VL loaded only with 16Gb of RAM at this moment and I think it has the same graphics card as the original post - it works like a dream even with file sizes in excess of 400MB - don't tell me I don't know how to model because I have files of that size - landscape models by their nature are huge and that is despite any optimisation you do.  I work in the most memory efficient way possible to be able to do what I do: using components, repeated purging, hiding layers that are not seen in conjunction with scenes - this demands a strict discipline when modelling but when learned it becomes second nature.  The problem I believe is VRay.  I can't yet prove it but I have been working on a large landscape of over 500Mb in Windows 10 and Sketchup 2016.  It contains over 90 scenes and many 3D trees and humans etc (face me components are useless except for far distant objects - you can't take someone into a landscape with any degree of reality using face me components).  This model did take a while to load but then was workable until I bought VRay and installed it which I did last night.  I usually render with IRender and that is a great piece of render software, but I bought VRay last night to be able to run the Sketchup plugin called Skatter,  Skatter only works with selected render engines and I chose VRay in order to use this extension because of its reputation.  Now the load time on this 'huge' file is indeed unaccepable and unworkable.  I need to learn how to disable VRay and then I can confirm whether this is the case or not.  

So I think more constructive comments might help this user rather than comparing the model sizes you work with and dismissing out of hand that some models by their nature might be large.  I also think SS hard drives might have a bearing on this too,  I used to work with a Seagate SS 1Tb drive and that was super fast,  I recently bought a WD 3Tb and even before I installed VRay I noticed that was slower than the external Seagate I used to use.  I did some research on this and the benchmarks on the Seagate drives are better than the others inc WD.

So my advice to the original poster is....

1. Yes do make sure you are modelling efficiently: purging frequently; purging all components before importing into your model; hiding on layers as much as possible within each scene;

2. Do not attempt working directly on a display scene heavily - create a working scene with only the components you are editing; make sure shadows is switched off until you are about to render.

3. Disable VRay when not in use - Josh please tell me how I do this?

4. If you don't use VRay for a specific purpose like using Skatter then on account of this loading problem (sorry Chaos Group) I would switch to another render engine that is lighter.  IRender is simple and light perhaps because of the way it works, though beware that's my preferential bias - I only know the two render engines mentioned;

5. Perhaps buy a new external SS hard drive with a proven benchmark like the Seagate drives and make sure Sketchup is operating and saving files to that drive and not somewhere else;

6, Upgrade your RAM to the maximum and chose the fastest RAM you can buy;

7. Make sure you do not have lots of background programs running ie Word, Excel, Internet browsers etc when using Sketchup;

8. Disregard prejudicial comments from limited perspectives that basically are saying we don't know how to help you so you must be doing something wrong.

Hope this helps..

TLDR.

Old thread. Sketchup is great but very limited.

Wine gets better the older it is

^not if it's the swill you get in the discount section of the gas station.

Sketchup is absolutely fine and workable

Yeah, that sums it up just about right. If you don't want to move on from it, thats fine, it suits plenty of practicing designers - but if you're trying to compare it to Rhino, then you lack a fundamental understanding of the way each approaches modeling and the intricate subtleties that come with using each properly.

therefore i call gg for my 306 mb file. XD

Its always smart to save a large model into many components and do a "save as" and keep them in a folder. I do a lot of urban design work across multiple city blocks and I will usually have each building saved out in the folder and  have a combination of "massing_building name" and "architectural_building name". This way a large file can take advantage of less detailed massing models while it is being edited. The components can then be replaced with the architectural model by right clicking, "reload instance" and select the architectural model.

This is also useful because you can make smaller changes within the individual architectural model in a separate SketchUp window then save it and update it in the combined file.

Here is an example for ONE project that I am working on. It includes ARCH iterations, a building massing combined file, SITE layers of GIS data, and then I have one Combined file which includes everything in it. I do not typically work from this file when it gets to big, but I just use it for renders and visual representation. 

People really need to let SketchUp go for serious work...

ha- people really should learn about ArchiCAD and BimX.... wave of the future folks