A cache is a portion of memory. ABAQUS/CAE uses the following feature-related caches to store geometric states:

If you find that ABAQUS/CAE is consuming an excessive amount of memory on your workstation and affecting the performance of your system, you can use the Clear buttons in the Feature Options dialog box to erase the memory associated with the part and assembly caches. Clearing this memory will increase performance; however, the snapshots of the geometric state will be erased and regeneration will be slower. If you toggle off the option to cache geometric states, ABAQUS/CAE does not clear the states that have already been stored. In addition, ABAQUS/CAE stores a separate cache for each model. As a result, you can make more memory available by deleting the caches of any models that you are not currently working on.

If you spent a lot of time making a series of changes to a part and are satisfied that your design is correct, you can manually save the current state in memory by clicking Cache current state in the Feature Options dialog box. As a result, ABAQUS/CAE can return to this state and regenerate any subsequent additions or modifications. However, if you continue to automatically cache geometric states, ABAQUS/CAE may erase the state that you saved manually after it has saved the maximum number of geometric states. Alternatively, you can toggle off the option to automatically cache geometric states and continue to manually save states at significant intervals.

The Feature Options dialog box indicates how many geometric states are stored in the three feature-related caches. A cache can contain a combination of geometric states that you saved manually and states that ABAQUS/CAE saved automatically. You can query the Current part cache and the Assembly cache to determine the positioning of geometric states relative to the sequence of features.