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VW2008 and Snow Leopard


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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

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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.

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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

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"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.

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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 by ossccar
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@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!

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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.

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@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 by ossccar
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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 by brudgers
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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

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@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!!!

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@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 by ossccar
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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 by Bill at GFC
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