Usually the reason .skp files are large is because of textures. Each texture can range from 1 KB (colors) to 25 MB (12K textures) and beyond. Each texture is stored in the drawing file and incrementally increases the file size. I’ve made models with tens of millions of polygons (it was mainly components) with no textures, but the file was only about 1.5 MB. Geometry probably isn’t the problem. I’d recommend trying texture resizer to reduce the file size. Extension | SketchUp Extension Warehouse
Maybe reducing the file size will help prevent freezes.
Also, make sure SketchUp uses the dedicated graphic card. A lot of times, a Windows update messes with the battery-save-mode on laptops, which set the nvidia card aside.
Check yhe nvidia settings (rightclick on an empty space of the desktop.
I knew there was a reason I loved working in monochrome. I feel validated. Plus no expensive printing or arguments with building departments.
I have been playing around with the concept of proxy textures. So the texture assignments only get applied when the model is pushed to the renderer or xrefed into a skp file where the proxies are replaced. I understand that I can use styles to control the display but I’m pretty sure having all the actual textures in the file will ultimately become a performance issue.
I know zero about programming so I have been trying to use some work arounds. I went as far as to create phony textures in my real model and then when I wanted color for presentation or rendering I loaded a bunch of swatches into a copy of the model and use “swap texture” to replace them all. You can imagine how cumbersome that became.
Trees and stuff get swapped when you send to tenderer. Why not textures too?