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I'm posting this here as I intend to upgrade my architect package from 1.0 to 12.5 (I know, I know). I have a chance of getting an Emac for a give away price and wondering if anyone was using this machine. It will run VW only and I will also have to update plotter driver. Specs:

1Gz G4 (133MHZ)

1 GB SDRAM

Superdrive

17" display

ATI Raeon 7500, AGP 4 x support, 32 MB DDR SDRAM

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Not a nice machine to be frank. The QSs in the same building as us had some. They sounded like aeroplanes and they all went tits up eventually. There's a reason you're getting it for a giveaway price. Personally I couldn't imagine running VectorWorks on one of them but then I've been spoilt over the past few years in terms of hardware.

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Christiaan means a Quantity Surveyor...

I?ve still got an emac but I wouldn?t like to use VectorWorks on it every day as i was one of the old ones and is sloooow by today?s standards. Even at a give away price you will have to pay for it?s slow speed everyday that you use it.

I might get one for the kids to use it, but for me, I?m worth more than that

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Actually, speed is relative..I'm using Architect 1.0 on a 450 mhz G4 tower with 512 ram and, for what I do, speed, in terms of response to command input, never has been as issue; started with G3. I'm getting older and spend more time as a spec writer than designer. I'm not sure what is meant by "speed", can someone shed some light on what "speed" means to them. I did notice the G4 was faster than the G3, but the time it took to produce a given set of documents did not seem to decrease with the benifit of the faster machine..I also price my services by the hour.

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Upgrading to VW 12 is going to require more umph from the computer to get going.

Although you could use the eMac - as long as it will run the newer versions of OS 10 (a limitation of some older eMacs) - you may actually lose productivity because of the more powerful program running on a slightly better OS.

It's likely the OS will consume most of the power of the eMac, making other operations just as slow.

Some still believe up through OS 10.4.x is slower than OS 9, overall. This is definitely something to consider, or at least keep in the back of the mind.

If you can afford the better computer, you are doing yourself a huge favor by going to the newer machine. Why not try to finish a 3 hour project in 2 hours? That's an extra 1 hour to work on another project, producing more revenue, or another hour to spend doing something even more entertaining - in my case it would be sleep! smile.gif

Edited by Katie
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I think it depends what you are using it for, I have an old G4 400 (upgraded to 1ghz) and I can run VW fine on it,rendering things on the other hand is so slow that I just don't do it. The biggest draw back for the emac to me would be the screen size. Having two monitors is pretty sweet. As I'm actually beginning to earn money using the computer, it's time to start socking money for the new computer, but I'd say the emac will run VW 12.5, I just wouldn't plan on renering anything.

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I'm thinking that I have one more computer / cad upgrade left in this life (age & stuff) and the only reason to upgrade at all is that although everything works fine now, for what I do (no rendering) its all old stuff (computer, plotter, printer, plot driver)and if any one element goes I would have no choice but to start from scratch. 12.5 seems like such a great upgrade it may be time to bite the bullet sooner than later.

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We have one of each (G5 and Intel CoreDuo) iMac. Both are solid; either will be a significant upgrade from what you've been using; the Intel is a noticeable step up in speed (especially rendering) from the G5. If you watch Apple's webstore, you can often pick up a factory reconditioned CoreDuo for 15?20% off list.

We don't run Windows on the Intel very often, but haven't had crashing problems when we did.

Good luck,

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Go with an Intel iMac. Adobe is finally releasing Intel Mac-compatible betas of Photoshop. The developers here at NNA are almost all working either on Windows or on Intel Macs, so that Mac version is getting more testing. I suspect in the next couple of years, many software companies will start dropping PowerPC Mac support in new releases.

(As usual, I can neither confirm nor deny NNA's plans regarding PowerPC support in future versions of VectorWorks.)

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