iMac M1 8Gb

[Leandrovsk]

Does anyone work with iMac M1 8Gb? I bought it thinking it would perform well, but sometimes it's been a bit slow with Vectorworks, especially on very large jobs. Would it be worth replacing it with a 16Gb? Has anyone had any experience with it? Is it worth going for the M3?

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

It would be much better going to the M3, but I would just wait a few months for the M4 chip.  I would also suggest getting a MacBook Pro 16" and a second monitor.  I don't have details on this, but it seems the iMac is no longer considered a professional machine the same as the MacBook Pro or the new Studio.  

 

Although RAM is always a consideration, unified RAM is different.  You can get away with less, but keep in mind, you can't add anymore once you have made your decision.  I have 18 MB RAM and it works fine for me, but if I was still working, I would have gone to at least 32 MB.

[mjm]

2 hours ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

It would be much better going to the M3, but I would just wait a few months for the M4 chip.  I would also suggest getting a MacBook Pro 16" and a second monitor.  I don't have details on this, but it seems the iMac is no longer considered a professional machine the same as the MacBook Pro or the new Studio.  

 

Although RAM is always a consideration, unified RAM is different.  You can get away with less, but keep in mind, you can't add anymore once you have made your decision.  I have 18 MB RAM and it works fine for me, but if I was still working, I would have gone to at least 32 MB.

Just gonna add I have a an M1 32gB MBP and I'd recommend 64 gB minimum.

[Pat Stanford]

13 hours ago, Leandrovsk said:

it's been a bit slow with Vectorworks, especially on very large jobs

A huge amount of this will depend on your idea of what a "very large job" is.

 

I got the MBP M3 with 128Gig because I had a "very large job" that consisted of importing and editing a 10GB STEP file. Even on that machine the initial work before I did any clean up was minutes per redraw. After I cleaned the file substantially I got that down to about 15 seconds and it made it workable.  

 

In 8GB it would have never completed.

 

So what do you mean by very large?  Do you work in 2D only? 2D and 3D? Are you trying to make complex model with small details modeled correctly (screw threads for instance)? Or are you just trying to get something close enough to express intent? Do you need to generate photorealistic models? What is the file size of one of your very large files?

[zoomer]

13 hours ago, Leandrovsk said:

especially on very large jobs. Would it be worth replacing it with a 16Gb?

 

I have a 16 GB M1 Mini.

 

Recently I played with a (small) Nomad Point Cloud to try to create a terrain model from it.

That was already too much. I had to force quit VW.

 

I would also recommend at least 64 MB for larger projects.

 

While others may be fine with 8GB of memory for their typical VW work.

Apple ARM shared memory and paging, when working with less memory than available,

works well for 99% of standard Apple users with typical Apps.

It will just take a second or two when they reactivate an App from background

again that was swapped to SSD.

 

But this will no more work if you have a single App that needs more memory for its own.

In my case VW wanted 12+ GB which was not available and I got beachballs for minutes

and VW stalling for each command.

[Peter Vandewalle]

The iMac has the simple M processors, where the MacBook Pros have M Pro or M Max processors.

The simple M processors are ok for basic Vectorworks use. For any mid- or high-end use a Pro or better a Mac is required.

I would also recommend at least 32 GB of RAM for pro use.

[Leandrovsk]

Apple prices here in Brazil are absurdly high, I'm seriously thinking of going back to Windows... I thought 16GB would be enough, but from the comments it's still too little, it's not worth the investment.
The problem is that I hate Windows. 😞

[VIRTUALENVIRONS]

8 minutes ago, Leandrovsk said:

I thought 16GB would be enough

I think that model comes with 18GB.  It may well be enough, don't go back to the "Dark Side".😀

If you are doing normal architectural work, etc, the 18GB  RAM config will be enough.   It is not the same as the old RAM configurations.  I can't put a number on it, but best guess is 18 GB unified RAM equates to about 32 or more of old school RAM. 

 

Although not dealing with 10 GB files, I have been working with large files and not experienced any problems.

 

Recent Project with MacPro Laptop.

I am not at liberty to display much of this project, but I have an entire Soccer Stadium on my Laptop with everything right down to the restroom toilets and over 20,000 stadium seats, etc.  I am able to work with it.

[E|FA]

I'm using a 24GB M2 MacBook Air, and it's good enough for the types of projects I do (mostly single family residences, modeled to generate construction sets, not much rendering). A Mac Mini with 32GB would have been better if I didn't need the laptop.  I'm guessing 16GB would have been a little too low.

 

 If I make sure I'm not keeping a lot of browser tabs open I don't have memory issues.  I keep an eye on CPU & Memory usage with menubar widgets.