IMPORTANT – Several Vectorworks features have placed higher demands on graphic hardware. Additionally, the performance and quality of the graphics provided by the Vectorworks Graphics Module depend directly on the speed, memory, and supported extensions of the graphics card. These features have the potential to provide a very fast and fluid experience if used on capable hardware, or a noticeably slower experience if used on older or incompatible hardware. Graphics cards should support at a minimum Windows DirectX 11; cards not meeting this recommendation will not work. In general, the more powerful your graphics card is, the better your Vectorworks experience will be.
For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations and for other hardware recommendations, go to the Quality-Tested Hardware page.
We strongly recommend that all users check that their video drivers are current. The majority of display problems reported to our Technical Support department have been traced to older video drivers. In general, a recent graphics card running the latest drivers is preferable to an old high-end graphics card running outdated drivers.
Windows users should install the latest video drivers from their card vendor’s web site, especially for new PCs and after installing Windows OS updates.
MacOS users should use the latest stable version of macOS available (non-beta), as macOS includes ongoing fixes for video drivers. From our testing, Metal drivers in old macOS versions may show serious issues on certain specific video hardware; after updating to the latest macOS the same hardware performed well and without issues. Similarly, minor version updates may improve stability; graphics problems seen on certain hardware on macOS 10.15.1 were resolved simply by upgrading to macOS 10.15.7. For these reasons, we recommend using the latest macOS with your system.
Regarding macOS 10.14 (Mojave): Vectorworks 2022 uses Metal for graphics processing. In our testing, macOS 10.14 video drivers on certain hardware showed multiple serious problems with Metal processing. Therefore, Vectorworks system requirements require at least macOS 10.15. We expect this requirement will help users avoid serious issues with Metal graphics in Vectorworks 2022.
You can view the graphics hardware information by choosing About This Mac -> System Report… -> Graphics/Displays. On laptops with more than one GPU, the System Report will show the less powerful “integrated” video GPU then the more powerful “discrete” video GPU. Metal compatibility is listed as: “Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v4”, meaning this hardware can be described as “GPUFamily1 v4".
How to find the macOS Metal version: You can view the graphics hardware information by choosing About This Mac -> System Report… -> Graphics/Displays. On laptops with more than one GPU, the System Report will show the less powerful “integrated” video GPU then the more powerful “discrete” video GPU. Metal compatibility is listed as: “Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v4”, meaning this hardware can be described as “GPUFamily1 v4".
VRAM: The amount of Video RAM (VRAM) required to drive Vectorworks adequately depends largely on the size of the display being used and the complexity of the Vectorworks document. When using multiple displays or high resolution displays, more VRAM are required to keep the same smoothness with the same file.
The amount of Video RAM (VRAM) required to drive Vectorworks adequately depends largely on the size of the display being used and the complexity of the Vectorworks document. Medium-sized displays with a native resolution of 1920x1080 or less should be driven by a graphics card with at least 1GB of VRAM. Larger displays should use a modern graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM, with 4GB or more recommended.
OpenGL renderingRendering of shadows and edges are VRAM-intensive and require at least 1GB, with 2GB2GB, with 4GB of VRAM or more being preferable. If you want to take full advantage of OpenGL shadows and edges, you should consider upgrading your graphics card, especially in situations where you have any combination of the following and you have less than 1GB2GB of VRAM:
Using Multiple View Panes with different visibilities in all panes can be VRAM-intensive in large Vectorworks documents. Rendering of shadows and edges are VRAM-intensive. If you want to take full advantage of shadows and edges, and if you have a graphics card with minimum specifications, you should consider upgrading your graphics card, especially in situations where you have any combination of the following:
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many lights
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point lights
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image textures
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anti-aliasing
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high shadow quality
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excessive geometry
Using Multiple View Panes with different visibilities in all panes can be VRAM-intensive and require at least 2GB of VRAM, with 3GB or more recommended for large Vectorworks documents.
We strongly recommend that all users check that their video drivers are current. The majority of display problems reported to our Technical Support department have been traced to older video drivers. In general, a recent graphics card running the latest drivers is preferable to an old high-end graphics card running outdated drivers.
For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2016, go to the Vectorworks Knowledgebase and search for "OpenGL".
For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2017, see This Article.
M-series and Unified Memory: Apple M1 and later Macs share memory for general processing and graphics. We recommend more memory for these systems than for traditional systems where RAM and VRAM are separate.
Vision
Vision requires a dedicated OpenGL 4.1 compatible graphics card, preferably released in the past three years. We do not recommend any integrated Intel video chipset. While Vision may run under these environments, we do not support them due to their lack of performance and speed. We recommend gaming cards over workstation cards for Vision due to the higher clock speed.
Vision Pro requires a dedicated OpenGL 3.0 compatible graphics card supporting GL_ARB_draw_buffers extension preferably released in the past three years. We do not recommend any integrated Intel video chipset. While Vision may run under these environments, we do not support them due to their lack of performance and speed. We recommend gaming cards over workstation cards for Vision due to the higher clock speed.
For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations for Vectorworks 2018, go to the Vectorworks Knowledgebase..
For the latest information on our graphics card recommendations and for other hardware recommendations, go to the Quality-Tested Hardware page.
