Don Seidel

HA ! $2000 buys you a respectable 4th place.

Well yes, but you could probably buy 3 MacMini M2 Pro's for the cost of your machine. What was your total cost to build?

It's helpful if people post the COST of their machine as well. As expected, higher end machines yield shorter render times. But valuing the cost to get faster renders is a factor. Anyone want to Bar Chart the results posted? Would be interesting to see the cost vs performance in the same chart.

I assume VW is gathering all the posted times for their benefit, as well as ours. There is a BUG on the time clock at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes (not always) if you click away to another program or desktop, the stopwatch on screen reports a much longer time than reality...you have o render again to see correct time.

OK you motley bunch ! SPEED TEST TIME 😁 Still think the M2 is not a big deal? Below is a link to a VW model. Don't worry (criticize) the model, texture or lights...that's not the point. The model's purpose is to deliberately tax your system. Open to the only sheet layer and simply render (update) the VP. Our times. All Macs OS 13.2., VW 2023 SP3, no other software running. 70GB VW file: 12:40 - 2021 MBPro M1 Max 64GB ram ($ 4200) 12:23 - 2022 MacStudio M1 Max 64GB ram ($ 2600) 9:12 - 2023 Mac Mini M2 Pro 32 GB ram ($ 2000) 11:22 - Interestingly a buddy's identical MBPro, but running VW 2023 SP0B1 Of course our office would never render views like this in VW, but go to TM in a heartbeat. NO - not everything in VW is render time. But look at the 25%± speed boost with half the ram. My opening comments on this forum stand: The M2 Pro Mini is an excellent value for the price. Shut up and render: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1jqw0ufomdgpoek/test render model.vwx?dl=0

“Value” is very subjective, of course. Value of what you can buy today is not so subjective, because your choices are limited.

context fellow VW users, context. If you're a power user, you're debating the wrong topic . The VALUE (cost to performance) of the M2Pro Mini 32GB ram for $2000 is an excellent buy and well suited for the average user.

Like the cell phone companies, Apple has long ago "done the math" on machines, performance and cost. You can't beat the system on the cheap. There will always be compromises. For 30 years my reply is the same: Buy the most machine you can reasonably afford. In 6-8 months a faster one will be out at the same price. But did you get your money's worth? yes if you used it as you THOUGHT you would. The M2 Pro Mini is a very suitable VW station for most users. 32GB ram is fine for most users. OF course a Studio Mac w/ 64GB ram or more is great (better) if you have the money. I'm currently waiting to sell a top -end M1 Max MBPro and get an M2 Studio when they come out. Worst case: you sell your nearly new Mac for a better more expensive machine. Macs hold their value very well, so you're not going to lose more than 20-25% selling a barely used Mac.

Twinmotion will lose customers over the simplest thing: the interface…specifically navigation! SO clumsy, so frustrating , and yet SO simple to fix. There are other criticisms of TM of course, but nothing so devastating as frustrating your own users.

So…in a Database worksheet we literally cannot ask VW to take results from " B3" (record field-price) and multiply by results from "F3"(function field-count) …..amazing ** SOLVED*** 2 call to VW Tech had no idea. Friend w/ same problem solved it a year ago. BUT you would never think to use this setting Screen Shot 2022-09-20 at 3.54.37 PM.pdf

It would be handy if we could view a VW model on iPad WITHOUT any online connection or 3rd party software (.usdz or sim are not VW export options)

One must never fear innovation... (greatest mistake of Steve Jobs: killing the Newton Message Pad. It was SO ahead of it's time.)

Nomad is not practical. It's past time for an iOS port of VW. M1 iPads have more than enough power and memory

Nothing in the Apple-Vectorworks ecosystem is a serious problem. Yes there are some minor temporary bugs, but there are always minor issues we have to work around. Nothing that inhibits normal every day work on the Mac OS. I'm unhappy about some of the bugs, but none of our clients will fire us because we have to use a different sketch-render method short term.

there remains an odd, white background when no document is open. As if a new blank document is on screen, but it's not. Minor bug, but FYI. no document open.pdf

Same UI fail on 2 Macs upgraded to Monterrey. This is not an isolated issue. Both Beta and regular VW 2022 same issue. UI missing some palettes, tool interface unresponsive. Obviously something substantially wrong here.

gotta downgrade back to Big Sur https://www.macworld.com/article/234409/how-to-create-a-bootable-macos-big-sur-installer-drive.html

It would ge great if possible to have VW and TM on separate machines, WITH the live link for sync.

My current M1 Mini performance vs my high end (3yr old) i9 MBPro is impressive. I've ordered the new MBPro w/ M1 Max. This is one of those times when the speed and performance boost of new machines will be a true leap ahead, and not another small bump.

You can fake it: - Set the door leaves to look you want via Settings or import custom - set Jamb Width & Depth to Zero - don't place in a wall (place walls on either side) or place in a wall of equal or LESS height this way you can render them open if you want, with no header.

of course if you need nothing better than Open GL with maybe line sketch overlay, there's no reason to go outside VW. It's 10% of the time that we need something better, and Final RW is dinosaur tech at snail speed.

Working in TW is a love-hate exercise for me. I love the datasmith VW to TM method, with intelligent updates. I love the instant environments, backgrounds etc that TM offers, and I love the near-instant final output of still images. For Mac users, TM is at the moment the best possible workflow if you want a pretty good rendering without huge effort after you’re done w a VW model. i hate the navigation. I mean, really? It’s so basic to using the software. It should be the fastest part of using TW, but it’s the slowest. I haven’t used a mouse in almost 30 years. You can program the Mac trackpad for right-click, but not center-button (I don’t think). Good night! What effort would it be for TM programmers to add orbit, or pan with simple space bar?? I look forward to Red Shift and Octane

Well ! Finally the VW Mac rendering world takes a leap forward! Many thanks to the VW Team for this great mid-cycle bonus ! The Datasmith export/import to TM is very clean. Our models come in just as we see them in VW. The re-import update in TM for changed VW models so far is flawless and extremely fast. Even better, texture changes made to your model in TM remain so. just short of the live link method, this is still a massive leap in realistic render workflow. Now If we could get VW lights to come into TM...

Well ! Finally the VW Mac rendering world takes a leap forward! Many thanks to the VW Team for this great mid-cycle bonus ! The Datasmith export/import to TM is very clean. Our models come in just as we see them in VW. The re-import update in TM for changed VW models so far is flawless and extremely fast. Even better, texture changes made to your model in TM remain so. just short of the live link method, this is still a massive leap in realistic render workflow. Now If we could get VW lights to come into TM....

...But TM is the only solution for Mac at the moment, and the Mac version is pretty sorry.