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Mac vs. WIN


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We are currently in a Windows environment, and are planning a purchace of a new workstation for me. Right now I'm running a Pentium II with 256 Mb of ram. I can equate this to pulling a horse trailer with a Yugo... I know that 99% of the CAD and graphics users are using Macs. Can someone tell me why? What kind of system should I ask for? Right now our systems guy is pushing for a Pentium 4 w/dual processors and "loads of ram". It seems the rest of the world is using G4's.

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Considering all the current display issues with the G4's in addition to all the apparant conflicts between OS 9.XX and VW/RW, I'd probably consider a wintel machine. The P4's REALLY FLY when it comes to 3D rendering, but I'm assuming (based on experience) that the architecture of VW will not be taking advantage of the revised SSE structure of the P4 chip. In fact, VW is currently unable to maximize on the awesome capabilities of most current mid to high end graphics cards.

That being said, I can't even imagine what kind of nightmares will ensue when OS X is unloaded. Therefore, I'd go with the P4's. It's a better investment in the long run (hoping that VW 9 will be a major revision).

BTW - I run VW/RW on 600 P3 with 256RAM and an Oxygen GVX1. I'm running it on top of Windows 2000 (SP1) And, VECTORWORKS NEVER CRASHES. I repeat VECTORWORKS NEVER CRASHES. And I push it to the limit with some serious 3D modelling and animation. (I also use Maya and 3DS Max). I kid you not - Absolutely no Vectorworks problems with my setup. And I've seen side by side comparisons between G4's and PC systems very similar to mine and the speed difference is negligible.

Hope that helps.

- Jack Fulmer

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Mr. Fullmer makes some very good points. It seems as though VW is not currently optimised for multiple processors, so while 'loads of RAM' is always sound advice, I have to wonder if multiple processors are a good investment. Perhaps VW 9 will address multiple processors, the way its sister product Cinema 4D does. Also, is it in you or your company's best interests to start mixing platforms, if all your current software runs to your satisfaction on Windows?

Like Mr. Fullmer, VW doesn't seem to crash on my box, either. It also delivers perfectly smashing speed performance. I also do a fair amount of 3D-in fact, I do virtually no 2D in VW, unless I am extracting drawings from a 3D model. Most of my stuff is done as a 3D rendering, exported to Photoshop.

Also, given the 'display issues' that Mr. Fulmer notes, and how quickly Nemetschek does not seem to be responding to the situation, perhaps a Wintel box is a good choice.

That said, I'd have to say that the only real differences between my experience and Mr. Fulmer's is that I am running on a G4/450 dual, 1 GB RAM, with Nexus 32Mb video and using the stock video to drive my palette monitor. I am using Mac OS 9.0.4, and have experienced none of the vanishing rulers or bounding boxes mentioned in the 'video woes' posts. If you look at that thread, by the way, you'll see that Mac isn't the only affected platform.

Anyone who leaps headfirst into a major OS release (like X, or anything else) is asking for some mischief, anyway. Like any other major OS revamp regardless of platform, of course there will be issues at first with X. Many people predicted the Apocalypse with Mac System 7, too. However, it is my purely subjective belief that Macintosh is, and will remain, a Superior Comestible for getting paying work done on deadline. You need to look at the benefits of Macintosh, and decide for yourself if they outweigh the benefits of Windows.

Your 'Systems Guy' is only the person who has to fix the box. You have to spend hours every day with the box, and your objective is to get billable work done, not spend your day learning computer science. I have no desire to get into the platform wars, here, so I'm gonna leave it at that. Look at both. See which one feels 'righter' to YOU, and buy that. Any other course of action will just make you frustrated in the long run.

[This message has been edited by ajs (edited 02-28-2001).]

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  • 2 weeks later...

quote:

Originally posted by Luis Sanchez:

Just wanted to point out that the Pentium 4 does not suport SMP. For SMP support, you will need to stick with the PIII, the PII based Xeons, or wait for the SMP AMD Athlon board comming out soon.

Well, that's ok. We decided to go with a 1 Ghz PIII w/512Mb ram. I tried to get them up to a gig, but they wouldn't go for it.

Anybody out there using a similar system? I'd like to know how it runs.

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I have 10 Macs running 8.5.2, we have absolutely no problems running withh OS 9.04. I also have WinNT runnign on 550Athlons, the 450Mhz G4 are 25% faster using the VW speedtest. On the NTs we had to change out a higher performance graphics board that was incompatible to fix a bunch of display issues with VW. So sum up is my experience withh 25 seats in use has been the opposite of what has been stated in this thread. My 2cents. Karl Mead

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As a guy who just traded in all my Macs for a Wintel machines, let me give you some free advice. Stick with the Wintel boxes! The Pentium 4 just screams through rendering jobs as the windows software knows what to do with the graphics cards I have (64 Mb Nvidia Ultra AGP's). I have been a Mac aficionado from the git-go and can honestly say that the smartest move I ever made was going to the Wintel environment. Good Luck!

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