manfredi Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 We ordered the upgrades to Snow Leopard, but are now realising that VWA 2008 may encounter problems - I also read that VW is not going to run any upgrades for its versions that are older than VW2009. What are we supposed to do? we can't just chuck away our software, can someone in Nemetscheck run a few tests for us faithful customers who haven't upgraded to VW09 and let us know what to expect if we upgrade to SL? thanks Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Based on the statement released and the information in the knowledgebase on the problems with VW2009, I would expect that you would have serious problems with running VW2008 under Snow Leopard. I think your only real options are to wait to install Snow Leopard and upgrade your copies of VectorWorks to something that is compatible, or stick with your current operating system. Remember, VW2008 came out before Leopard and had to be patched to run properly under that operating system. Quote Link to comment
Spunkmeyer Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Don't upgrade your OS if you're unwilling to purchase the latest versions of your applications. Period. End of story. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Why can't you run Vectorworks 2008 within a virtual machine under an older version of OSX? Or if performance became an issue, why couldn't you run snow leopard within a virtual machine under your current version of OSX? Or just set up your machine to dual boot? Quote Link to comment
pkaeding Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 So does anyone have a spare computer that they are going to try VW 2008 and Snow Leopard on? I am curious as to how many problems there are or if it starts at all! I have been waiting for Snow Leopard to solve some non VW problems... but it looks like a wait and a VW upgrade are in my future. Peter Kaeding Quote Link to comment
Spunkmeyer Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Ben: You could do all those things (assuming Snow Leopard can be virtualized as Tiger and Leopard can in VMWare, etc. without an updated version) but I guess the question is why you'd want to. Quote Link to comment
RGyori Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 At this time even VW2009 SP4 is not stable using Snow Leopard. Expect a free service pack for VW2009 users in early November. Users of any earlier version of VW are out of luck since Nemetschek will not be supporting those versions in Snow Leopard. Quote Link to comment
RGyori Posted August 28, 2009 Share Posted August 28, 2009 Here's the link: http://techboard.nemetschek.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=128018#Post128018 Quote Link to comment
sig_eigei Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 "At this time even VW2009 SP4 is not stable using Snow Leopard. Expect a free service pack for VW2009 users in early November. Users of any earlier version of VW are out of luck since Nemetschek will not be supporting those versions in Snow Leopard." I've got to say that this is unappreciated. How long has 10.6 been in development? To have to wait an extra 2.5 months to avoid "frequent and random crashes" seems fairly unprofessional. I would have thought Nemetschek would have been preparing the update during the beta phase. Or perhaps they were just building v2010 expecting everyone to pay an upgrade instead? I would love to know their motivation. Quote Link to comment
amogle Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 I am still using 12.5.3 and I have not had any problems so far in snow leopard. Quote Link to comment
ossccar Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 (edited) Using vectorworks 2008 / Snow Leopard, no problems so far, haven't tested everything yet. Updated Leopard with VW2008 installed to Snow Leopard, don't know about installing it on Snow Leopard. @sig_eigei : I agree! greeting Edited August 29, 2009 by ossccar Quote Link to comment
Sky Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 @ossccar: I would love to hear if you have any problems with v2008 with Snow Leopard. I am running v2008 and wanted to put Snow Leopard on my MacBook Air to get 7 gb of space back. I do most of my work on my desktop, but if all the basic functions of v2008 will work on my MacBook Air, I would be so happy! Quote Link to comment
ossccar Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 (edited) @sky : what basic functions do you want to have working on your macbook? I got even more HD space back then 7 GB. greetings Edited August 30, 2009 by ossccar Quote Link to comment
pkaeding Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 Have you tried importing dwg/ dxf? Has it crashed for any other reason? Thanks, Peter Kaeding Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 You WILL have problems with VW2008 running under Snow Leopard. If you know that and choose to do so anyway, is up to you. If all you need is to view a file occasionally, you MIGHT be OK. It just depends on how important your work is to you. Would you drive a car that you knew the brakes only worked most of the time? How about a chain saw? A carving knife with a loose blade? Maybe an amateur would use things like above, but a professional truck driver, lumberjack or chef sure would not. You won't get much support of sympathy from anyone here for any problems you encounter. It is not 100% compatible and you have been warned. Quote Link to comment
ossccar Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 (edited) @pkeading , yes dwg import works, no crashes so far. But as Pat Stanford says, it's probably not a good idea to use VW2008 on Snow Leopard if it is your only setup, but in the past i had never really experienced any problems as Macosx updated and there was a warning from Vectorworks that it wasn"t compatible, they have a resposibility to their customers to always stay on the save side. Edited August 31, 2009 by ossccar Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 (edited) A few points in NNA's defense (which is somewhat unusual for me). 1. Snow leopard changes quartz. This means that everything going to the screen is affected. Vectorworks tends to push this subsystem in ways other applications don't. 2. Snow leopard rewrote Quicktime from the ground up, a technology that is (unfortunately IMO) integral to vectorworks. 3. Apple moved the release date up. This is something NNA had no control over. I would guess that floating the release for an operating system forward is not all that helpful to any third party application developer. 4. In general the release timing was unhelpful to NNA. They had adjusted to an annual release cycle in the fall. The snow leopard release hits them just as they are finalizing VW 2010 for its release. The choice to push a 2009 update behind release of 2010 just makes sense. The timing of snow leopard's release was completely beyond NNA's control. The number of broken applications listed indicates that breaking code for third party applications was not an overarching consideration for apple when considering a release date. I suspect Apple chose the release timing for its own purposes, and not those of third party developers. Edit: Third party testing of SL shows a substantial regression on vector graphics rendering: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macosx_106_benchmarks&num=5 and a meaningful regression in CPU performance (see sudukot): http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=macosx_106_benchmarks&num=5 If these benchmarks are both accurate and reflect real world performance, it would be difficult for NNA to deliver an SL compatible update that meets Vectorworks user expectations of increased performance. Edited August 31, 2009 by brudgers Quote Link to comment
Bobby B Posted August 30, 2009 Share Posted August 30, 2009 I just upgraded to Snow Leopard last night and have been using VW2008 all day so far without any crashes. DWG import works like a charm. Obviously I have not dove in head first and tested the program for full compatibility, but so far so good. My feeling is that Nemetschek is just airing on the side of caution when recommending what their users should do. Although, they could have gone about it in their postings a little less hard edged. I'd love to hear if any one else has had success/failure with SL and VW2008 so far. My setup is: MBP 17" 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 3GB RAM Quote Link to comment
Sky Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 @ossccar I don't do much work on my MacBook Air. It is too small to do meaningful drafting. But, I could be on site measuring something and needing to move around walls or doors or sketch up something really quickly for refinement when I get back to the office. Or I could be in a meeting with a client and we need to see what a change would look like. That might include manipulation of 3D hidden line drawings (but not RenderWorks which I don't have). Pat is right about the pitfalls of upgrading. However, I could really use that space on my hard disk. I also don't want to pay to upgrade to 2009 now either when 2010 is just around the corner. Since 2010 is Snow Leopard compatible, I will definitely be upgrading then. I wasn't planning to upgrade immediately to Snow Leopard anyway, but I would like to upgrade in the next couple of months. I'd be grateful if you would post any issues you encounter running 2008 on Snow Leopard. Thanks so much!!! Quote Link to comment
ossccar Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 (edited) @sky I have a macbook pro 3.1 (snow leopard) and use it almost the same way you use your macbook Air. Using it on location or at home and do my main drafting at work on a desktop with Leopard installed. I dont think you will have problems with the work you want to do on location as you described. I just did a hidden line rendering test of an average difficult situation and that worked fine. Renderworks also works by the way. If you are going to do the update make sure to have a good backup just i case you want to switch back to Leopard, i have. greetings! Edited August 31, 2009 by ossccar Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 More on benchmarks for snow leopard: http://www.cultofmac.com/snowleopard-downgrades-performance/15321 Quote Link to comment
Sky Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 XBench is almost 3 years old and is not a very good way of determining a Mac's true speed in actual use. Quote Link to comment
Siva Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ Here is the link to find out which applications are compatible with Snow Leopard. Siva. Quote Link to comment
RubenH Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 I have a machine running snow leopard (a litle macbook, 2gb ram... all things are running in 64bit, except Vw 2009 Sp4), and everything feels faster. Included Vw. Quote Link to comment
Bill at GFC Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 (edited) I've been testing,(lets use this term loosely)Vectorworks SpotLight 2008, on my Macbook 1.83 Core Duo, 2mb ram with Snow Leopard. I want to feel reasonbley confident before I upgrade to Snow Leopard at work, where I use Vectorworks at least a half dozen times a month. Below are the stated limitations for Vectorworks 2009. Not 2008 Some of the limitations are: - Toggling Quartz Imaging in Vectorworks Preferences display tab, crashes the application - Importing any DXF/DWG files crashes Vectorworks 2009 - Vectorworks files cannot be opened by drag and drop - Macintosh Spotlight features do not work with Vectorworks 2009 on Snow Leopard Please note: Other frequent and random crashes may occur during use of the software. I first opened a file by drag and drop, and it opened fine. Next I opened a new file and imported a DWG. No crash After the import I toggled on and off Quartz imaging(while in wireframe). No Crash. Im not sure about Spotlight usage as described above. But I was able to use spotlight to find the files name. Other testing: I decided to test the Quartz Imaging a little more, But I'll have to admit, I do not understand how Quartz is used in Vectorworks, so what is below my be moot. Please chime in if anyone knows a better way to test this. I took the most complicated drawing I have and let it render in "Fast Quality with Shadows", then I toggled off Quartz, it re-rendered with out a crash. Next I re-rendered with Quartz off, in "Final Quality".Next I Then I toggled Quartz on,it re-rendered fine with out a crash. Next I rendered in Open Gl and repeated the toggle off Quartz thing Re-rendering was fine with no crash. So far so good? Edited September 2, 2009 by Bill at GFC Quote Link to comment
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