Don Seidel

TwinMotion, Lumion, Enscape, RedShift...will the Mac Users of VW ever get a live or live-link Renderer? The promise of the M1 (and future M chips) is very exciting, bit they no longer allow eGPU. New render tech coming will leapfrog the need for eGPU, but it seems never to arrive on the Mac.

First session on M1 Mini with16gb ram ran fine. Could not tell it was emulation. Nothing exotic or too taxing just yet. SO far so good. Screen rendering at FQRW 87GB model was FAST, FAST. ...previously too slow on other Macs for quick preview. A bit minor lag for Open GL pan and zoom.

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I need to replace an aging iMac as office server, so I'll be getting a 16gb Mac Mini....as soon as they are available (2-3 weeks). Certainly will be testing some of our largest VW files.

5 macs : Old Mini, 2 iMacs, MB Air and 2019 MB Pro (Radeon eGPU) all running VW 2021 with no apparent issues on Mac OS 11.0.1

TESTING 2021 OS 11.0.1 (Big Sur) on intel Macs looking very good! Running on lesser Macs for Testing : - 2014 Mac mini 8gb ram - 2015 iMac 3.2ghz quad i5, 32GB ram, 2GB AMD radeon gpu No bugs or glitches so far. Speed looks normal. Same boot times, panning and zooming so far normal. Printing to Laser, Inkjet, Plotter all good.

TESTING 2021 OS 11 (Big Sur) on intel Macs looking very good! Running on lesser Macs for Testing : - 2014 Mac mini 8gb ram - 2015 iMac 3.2ghz quad i5, 32GB ram, 2GB AMD radeon gpu No bugs or glitches so far. Speed looks normal. Same boot times, panning and zooming so far normal.

yes, while the M1 is no doubt a true leap forward in chip performance we've been looking for ...oh, the last 12 years I guess...the limit of 16gb memory will definitely have to be tested with a hefty BIM model, and I suspect it will bog down. So if you're not doing big models at the moment, I think the M1 machines will be great (esp models with a fan to keep a hot chip from throttling back).

My rule is buy the machine you need now (unless of course you know a new model is 30-45 days). Computers are how we produce. So within practical limits I always get at least 1 machine as badass as I can afford. My 6-core i9 is fine for now. That said, the current M1 chip is limited to 16gb. On-chip ram so no upgrades. Apple will no doubt be developing faster more powerful chips in the next several months for their high end desktops and laptops, which must be able to take 64gb or more of ram.

The M1 chip is looking quite impressive, while at the same time the obvious step in chip development; put everything on 1 chip vs multiple chips. Different chips, the I/O process, and of course cables are all the bane of computing speed. I also have an EGPU on my MacBook Pro, but I'm not worried about that investment, as the gaming world will always be a market for an external box and graphics card. VW would of course have to cozy up to Apple's Metal technology, if they wish to see any substantial gains in rendering speed. We Mac users have been the stepchildren for sometime now. 🙂

With ever-increasing demands, the only rational rendering workflow is in-program or live-link. Exporting (and re-exporting) to any other software is a huge waste of time in the architectural design industry, where BIM changes are the norm. So Mac Users stick to RW for now. On the Mac it's an eternal waiting-wishing game. The latest chapter is titled "Metal", which holds great promise. But will the Metal code be straightforward enough, modular enough that Mac programs like VW will be able to easily (cost-effectively) use it? Perhaps this fall.... 😞

There's no way to insert a gate (Door) into a fence. Particularly if you want a fence TALLER than the gate. Doors should insert into fences like they do walls.

I'm 60. Been doing CAD on the Mac for some 35 years or more. VW since MiniCad 4 (I think). Speaking of Macs only, not PC's or Hackintoshes......Certainly some purchases are better timed (new machines always coming) than others. Certainly some machines are better ROI than others. But it's an eternal moving target. Whenever it's time to upgrade, I buy the fastest machine I can reasonably afford. SO usually it's within 15-20% of the most extreme available. I've never bought the absolute top-of-the line because of this (except....) You pay a high premium. I sold my iMac Pro after 6 months because the performance was not near what I expected. My exception to max purchase is my 2018 MBPro, which replaced the iMac Pro. It was a much better setup for me to have a portable personal machine, a 34" monitor w/ eGPU. Sure it doesn't render as fast as the iMac Pro, but I spend perhaps less than 5% of my time rendering anything beyond OpenGL

You must not be a Mac guy 🙂 Buy a Windoz PC ?? If it's good for you, OK. But So many reasons why not to for most of us. I'm not the least worried about the transition in terms of compatibility or stability. What I'm interested in is how fast VW will take advantage of new system architecture for speed, and most of all, some map to get "instant render" to the Mac version.

Is any info available on VW support for Mac OS "Big Sur" that uses Silicon?