Mark Aceto

With Twinmotion 2022.2, dual screens, or something else?

When 8k becomes standard, I'll care greatly about this study that Bjango did instead of rewriting iStat Menus Today View for ARM. In the meantime, it only says: get the LG Ultrafine or native Mac displays, and run them at exactly 1080, which is totally ridiculous. The issue with palette text size of the OIP (and other palettes on the right side of the screen) is that VW refuse to increase the text size even 1 point to match the tool palettes. It's literally the smallest text size of any app that I use. I'm convinced there's an architect that uses an 11" MacBook Air involved in this decision-making process. I have begged and begged for this but gotten absolutely nowhere for such a simple request.

Welcome to the Walled Garden! The only reason (literally) that I'm on Monterey is because the Studio ships with it. Really enjoying Mail crashing every 5 emails I send... I've noticed that Apple fix bugs like the dual screen thing in the final updates of each release (.5 and .6) so fingers crossed. They prioritize fixing bugs of the new sexy features first, and then eventually get around to the stability stuff before they start the vicious annual subscription cycle all over again with the next release. As a workaround, you could replace the 2x 27" displays with 1x 43" display. For context, if you look at the res of the 40" display in my signature, it's probably pretty similar to both of your 27's, right? It's basically the same height as a 32" but 1.5x the width (both in inches and pixels). Btw I got mine through Dell small business sales for about $700 under list price (nowhere near what you'll find advertised online with a Google search).

Keep in mind that "Retina" is just 1/2 the native resolution, so if you're planning on getting a 4k monitor and running it at 2k, this is great.

In another lifetime, I grew up in SLO and went surfing there all the time. Brought back some great memories... Anyway, curious to see what Matt says as that artifact is only visible with the photo as the background (vs the VW model).

This day in history: the stair tool was used as an example of how something could be improved.

And that one users can't even resized the dialog. I'm wondering though... when you assign classes that aren't the default placeholder, are they still getting cropped? My assumption is yes.

take that a step further: option to show counts of assigned classes in the nav palette i said "option" to btw for years i've desperately wanted to create the inverse of this filter (Unassigned Classes): Filters are another of those features that came out of the gate swinging, and then were swiftly abandoned. They have SO MUCH potential, especially in an app with Criteria pull downs throughout...

You can also class data tags (and even class multiple parts / fields of data tags in the layout).

Not clogging up at all. My very close second choice to the Studio (which I'm still second guessing) would be a MBP + a Windows workstation. There are only 2 things holding me back: total cost and KVM switching (Synergy is still a little janky even when connected by ethernet). And also which computer gets the big monitor? Go back to 2x 32" displays?

BTW I've always been torn between a 32", 40" and 43" display, so I did a monitor study with a bunch of comparisons overlayed to eliminate the guesswork. For context not shown in the study, the 40" monitor is the same width as a 43" and the same height as a 32" (both inches and pixels). I'm personally leaning toward a Dell 43" plus the LG DualUp, which is basically like 3x LG DualUp's side by side. And here's what a 40" display looks like split in half (a 60/40 split would be enough for most users that don't want to add a 2nd display for referencing stuff but I prefer to spread out the VW palettes as much as possible in my "cockpit"):

Glad that worked out! In the short term, it's hard to recommend Mac (especially M series) if TM is an essential part of your workflow. In the long term, who knows? The deciding factor for me was that TM is lacking too many features for events / entertainment visualization, so RW is more important to me. I only play with TM when there are new features to test, and they quietly added importing lights from 3D design software to 2022.2. Although they didn't mention VW by name, TM will import VW Spotlight Lighting Devices, so I gave it another test run, and it was a huge disappointment. They prioritize arch viz, Windows, NVIDIA, and SketchUp. That said, TM may be less crashy on M1 if you're not importing lights, direct syncing, or using an older version like 2022.1. There are other folks here in the forum that may be able to advise on workarounds and best practices for TM on M1. I haven't really tested Unreal yet, so I can't comment but I do have higher hopes than with TM. As for the dual monitors thing, what you're describing sounds exactly like what others are experiencing. I'm probably about to add a second monitor to this Studio, so I can't wait to deal with that... This is why I typically stay a full release (year) behind on macOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they fix that issue in 12.6.1, so hopefully that's right around the corner...

Native res of the internal display doesn't really factor in the external display. Here's the last cable I bought on Amazon that worked fine for that connection: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XSYZNMT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I honestly can't stop laughing at this. I keep reading over and over again about how important Retina scaling is from people who chose a 1st gen product with 8-16gb combined RAM / VRAM for the their business (meanwhile there were plenty of Intel Macs available with sufficient RAM / VRAM). This is Mac fanboyism at its finest.

Assuming it's a 15" with a discreet GPU, it should work great with a 60Hz MDP to DP cable. I had many similar setups with my 2014 MBP (on the desk next to me). It's HDMI that will limit you to 30Hz on that display. This is also a handy reference to answer these types of questions (with all Macs): https://mactracker.ca

Speaking of eye strain, I always recommend this: https://justgetflux.com These are the typical settings I've been using since 2013 but you can dial in whatever works best for your eyes / environment:

OK, so this is my first bit of bad news. TM 2022.2 is an an absolute Crash Monster. I can repeat the crash every single time I start direct syncing TM with VW. After 30 minutes to an hour, the screen will freeze, then I'll be logged out, and brought back to the login screen. At that point, if I continue, the crashes will continue to happen in rapid succession (a few minutes apart every time). However, if I restart, I can get back up to that 30-60 min lead time again before the next crash. UE/TM have been very up front about not supporting M1 (and non-hardware accelerated GPU's), so this is mostly on them, and partly on Apple. I filed a bug with VW, so the VW team is exploring this but after a lot of back and forth, it's become crystal clear that the common denominator is TM in this recipe.

Eye strain is the #1 reason I stopped using Apple Cinemirror Displays. You can get the antiglare option now but it's a nightmare to deal with from what I hear. BenQ are my favorite (easiest on the eyes), followed by Dell and LG (close second). Again, they're using all the same panels.

Get the latest Dell 43". The LG is trash (used it once while I was onsite, and returned it). I'm prob going to replace this 40" curved Dell with that 43" Dell because I miss the vertical real estate. Don't get hung up on "Dell"; they all use the same panels (LG, Dell, BenQ, etc.).

When the screen freezes, if you wait, will it log you out, and then bring up the Login screen?

Yes, M1 / Monterey are still categorically having issues with multiple monitors.

VW removes those options, and checks Accelerate graphics by default:

Right there with ya. In 2017, I had the same feeling with a 10-core iMac Pro (and a 12-core cheesegrater 1080ti before that). For context, this Studio is the first Mac ever where I didn't get that sinking feeling of buyer's remorse. The only exception to that rule is when I turn on Show Shadows in the RW Background (that makes a 1-min render take 5 minutes) but we've known how "expensive" that setting is for awhile now. I haven't tested displacement mapping yet but I'm expecting a similar "cost". For more context, this Studio cost 2k less than than iMac Pro, and about the same as a base model 2019 Mac Pro (without the wheels). There are only 3 monitors with that "sharpness": the 2 overpriced Apple displays and the LG one. I've been much happier with BenQ and Dell 32", 40" and 43" monitors. All I want from Apple is a macOS "brain". OK, and the trackpad. Every other peripheral has better third party options.

Ah... yes. This just came up in a user group meeting last night. 100% agree. In the meantime, a workaround is to create a worksheet to manage that outside of the dialog. Worksheets make great bandaids for where the interface falls short.

Or do you mean the column width chaos that ensues when you double click the column border to auto fit the column width like you would in the RM or Nav palette or any app made after 1995?