VW on a Macbook Air M4/24GB??

[Desmo]

Maybe a silly question, but my daughter is starting an interior design study and needs a laptop to use Vector Works. I have a spare Macbook pro 16" M2pro with 36MB and a 1TBssd. But she finds it too heavy and bulky to carry around all day.

So I was wondering if the software would run OK on a 13" Macbook Air M4 with 24MB memory. Or will she run into issues? Considering she most likely will not be creating very large models.

[Pat Stanford]

I think the Air would probably be fine for student use. But depending on her desire to do photorealistic renderings, it could be limiting.

Also, what is the relative resolution of the two machines. VW uses fairly large palettes, so if there is a big difference in resolution that could be an issue also. I would set up a window on the MacBook that would give the same resolution as the Air and have her look at both and see how much drawing space she actually has.

 

Automatic or manual window shading would definitely help, but I would be lost with out running VW on a large external monitor.

[line-weight]

Maybe it's just that I'm so used to using VW on a desktop with large screen, but I recently tried using it on a 13" macbook (retina display) and found it awful - nowhere near enough screen area left over once all the palettes are there, to work comfortably.

[bcd]

3 hours ago, line-weight said:

nowhere near enough screen area left over once all the palettes are there, to work comfortably.

I'd usually agree and recommend an iPad in Sidecar to extend the screen and house most of the palettes, however @ 2560x1664 it's really a question of how acute her eyesight is. It might just work. Have her try to work sitting maybe 4' back from the mbp with VW  full screen mode to get a gauge.

[Pat Stanford]

And she is going to want to carry a mouse and maybe a numeric keypad with either laptop. Trying to draft using the trackpad is difficult and will add an additional step to her learning curve that she does not need or want.

 

I understand the desire to not have to carry so much, but don't let her be the carpenter who left his hammer at home because it was to heavy to carry.

[E|FA]

I run my practice (single family residential and small commercial projects) on an M2 MacBook Air with 24GB, so I think she should be fine with the M4.  The only thing I have to watch out for is having too many tabs open in Safari and/or Chrome.

 

My current hardware setup is in my signature below.

[line-weight]

2 hours ago, E|FA said:

My current hardware setup is in my signature below.

The 27" 4K external display presumably being a crucial part of that!

[E|FA]

2 hours ago, line-weight said:

The 27" 4K external display presumably being a crucial part of that!

Yes, I don't think I could work without it. I almost never use VW if the screen isn't attached.  Also. I keep it in clamshell mode. That may help with not overworking the processor by trying to drive two displays.

 

Edited July 16, 2025 by E|FA

[Desmo]

Thanks all for the advice. Will take her to the apple store next week to get a feel of the 13 and 15 inch Air. I am positive it will be good enough during her education. Also have an external screen at home, so that should work out fine.

[WANA]

Didn't want to start a new thread as I am contemplating something similar to the OP. 

 

We work from an office and at home and currently have a 16" M1 MBP which gets ferried between two larger screens. 

 

I am debating a smaller Air to minimise my tech as if smaller form factor I would happily ditch the iPad which is on its last legs. 

 

@E|FA - you said your M2 Air works fine on smaller projects. We also just work on small scale residential projects so it gives me a bit of confidence. Is this still the case? 

 

Reckon if I max out the spec it would do what I want? 

[E|FA]

It's still working for me, but my files/workflow may be different than yours.  I run App Tamer (also available on SetApp) on my Mac to keep an eye on CPU use and also make sure I don't keep too many Safari tabs open.

 

The current maxed out M4 Macbook Air 15 32GB/2TB has more cores, memory, and a better chip than mine, so should do even better.   

[JustinVU]

Just chiming in here, I work for a company which uses VWX quite a bit in the design of interior spaces in the buildings we build and operate. 

 

Our design team were using the Intel MBPs for a while (2017-2022) and I never heard any complaints abut hardware and VWX. There has been, as we know, a huge shift in apple hardware with the M series of CPUs. For varios reasons we moved to the 13inch & 15inch M (M2, M3 & M4) series Macbook Airs for design devices. 

A few weeks ago the team started complaining about performace when rendering on the company MacBook Airs vs their private MBP. They claimed while the Mabbook Pro could render some files in minutes while it was taking hours on the Air. We found several oddities when comparing the systems.

MBP M3Pro 36GB VWX 2026:  render time 2min

MBA M4 16GB (base model)  VWX 2022: render time 11min during the render RAM usage was maxed out.

MBA M4 16GB (base model)  VWX 2026 : render time 4.5min RAM uses was not maxed out. This is the same device as above upgraded to latest VWX version.

So it is clear the naitive Apple silicon verison of VWX has huge perfomace increase , obiously due to not being emulated.

Our next step will be getting the maxed out MBA M5 with 32GB RAM and the faster 1TB SSD and repeating the same test renders as above.

 

[E|FA]

Thanks for posting the tests.  I don't think the numbers are odd.  VW2026 runs better than VW2022 on the same MacBook Air, which implies that the software has been improved in its efficiency.  VW2026 works better on a 36GB M3 Macbook Pro than a 16GB M4 MacBook Air, indicating the value of more RAM and/or the difference between a Pro and an Air is more significant than the difference between M3 & M4.  Am I missing something?

Edited March 5 by E|FA

[Pat Stanford]

I think what you are seeing in the renders is heat throttling of the Air.  The air has only passive cooling while the pro has active cooling.  When the air gets hot (like during a multi-minute render) it is going to slow down substantially to avoid over heating.

 

The extra RAM will help, but I think in a longer render where the machine is basically running flat out, you will always have problems with the Air.  If rendering is a large part of your workflow (rather than an occasional nice to have), you are much better off accepting the higher weight, higher cost, and lower transportability and just get Pros.  

I would even recommend 64GB as the minimum RAM if you are rendering and want to be able to do something else in the background while the render is running.  For one of my projects I had to go to 128 GB as 64 was not enough,

[JustinVU]

13 hours ago, E|FA said:

Thanks for posting the tests.  I don't think the numbers are odd.  VW2026 runs better than VW2022 on the same MacBook Air, which implies that the software has been improved in its efficiency.  VW2026 works better on a 36GB M3 Macbook Pro than a 16GB M4 MacBook Air, indicating the value of more RAM and/or the difference between a Pro and an Air is more significant than the difference between M3 & M4.  Am I missing something?

I think the oddity was really related to a new MBA taking hours vs minutes on the Pro. And it was clear the native app is a biggest factor in performance than hardware in our case.

Taking a look at the new M5 pro and Max VS the standard M5 its also clear the GPU configuration is hugely different on these processors and performance will obviously be different

So I was really just putting this info for new device buyers to be aware that its more important to have the right software of the CPU, with the view of seeing what is the minimum workable MBA configuration is.