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OSX, VW9.5, and Graphics accelleration


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Since installing OSX and VW9.5, trying to do walkthroughs or even rotate a model has become nearly impossible due to the (lack of) screen redraws.In OS9.5, VW9 is much the same speed as VW8.5, but in OSX it's a dog.In contrast, on my partners 500MHz G4 PBk, VW9 is fine on OSX.I put this down to just my PBK being older and slower untill I saw the G3/ ATI graphics accelleration issue arrising. Simply; Apple has decided to no longer support most of the ATI graphics cards in most of it's G3 computers.(Refer to Apple Knowledge Base Document No 106154)

Here's the question: Has anybody had the same graphics/ redraw experience?, and;Has anybody had one of the effected cards in a G3 and changed to an alternative card had a significant improvement???

I'm still trying to work out if I need to change computers to get VW9 to work well on OSX......

OSX 10.1.2, VW9.5, G3 PBook 333Mhz, 512Mb.

Nicholas

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Thanks for the response Mathew, I have posted to the petition. I'm surprised that more VW users don't seem to have encountered this problem.

I use the modeling functions a lot for furniture design development and really need to rotate and zoom without having to wait for each new "frame" to be redrawn. I have the opportunity to upgrade (for not much money) to a 500MHz G3. Would you be prepared to make a guess on whether I would be likely to see a reasonable improvement??? Do I need a G4???

thanks,Nicholas

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My understanding is that it is a graphics card/driver issue. The actual CPU speed involved should make little difference. Of course, some aspects of Apple's drivers may take advantage of the G4's Altivec unit. (I doubt it)

Unfortunately if you are using a PowerBook, there is really very little you can do to as far as upgrading your video hardware in this respect. I know there are some CPU upgrades available (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/crescendo_ws.html) but these probably wont have any or little effect on your video performance.

Matthew GiampapaTechnical Support

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Unfortunatly, although rage mobility 128 used on the even the newest 600MHz ibooks (on which opengl is supported by apple), suffer from the same performance degradation observed by many for 9.5 on OSX, to the degree that interactive opengl rendering is essentialy unusable; which nemetschek has acknoledged and indicated no plans to remedy prior to the VW 10 release, which is unlikely to be a free upgrade for Mac OSX users.

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Well, I've done a bit of damage to the business account, but the new Powerbook has solved my vid problems. The issue is not with VW, it's Apple's ATI drivers.The 550MHz G4 powerbook on OSX is rendering walkthroughs , in millions of colours, on 2 split monitors better than the 333 G3 did with 1 screen in thousands of colours. As noted above; it was unusable previously.

If you have to stay with an older model; try adding your weight to the pressure on Apple.

Cheers,Nicholas

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The good-news/bad-news is that apple claims to fully support opengl 3D acceleration on their newest ibooks based on the rage mobility 128 chip (the same used on the earlier powerbook G4). It would seem that there is a disconnect somewhere in between the two views; addionally as an asside, the newest ibook (600MHz) running OSX will redundantly redraw the initial 3D view prior to rendering the final interactivley rendered 3D view after releasing the mouse button when interactivly rendering 3D polygons; which wouldn't seem to help performance, and one which would seem to be capable of being properly handled by the VectorWorks application, even if it were an ideosyncracy of the OSX/ibook combination. Actually just like to see things improved, rather than the buck being passed back and forth.

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The strange redundant rendering image you refer to seems to be VW 9 (perhaps OSX) related rather than video. Both the old G3 and the new G4 do the same thing with completely different cards.I never saw it with VW8.5.

The difference for me is that now I can actually use it. (the open GL is nice and crispy too)

N.

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