jhutchison Posted March 31, 2002 Share Posted March 31, 2002 We are presently an all-mac Architectural office w/ 6 mac clients (running OS X) a mac File server (running OS X) and a mac print server (running OS 9). All clients presently run VWA 9.5. Recently we have had a client (a National company) ask us to switch our cad program to AutoCad so we can standardize with the rest of their firms. Our gut reaction is that the best thing to do is to purchase pc's and network them into our mac network. Does anyone have a similar setup? What are the issues involved? Can we keep our OS X server, or will we have to get an additional server to serve the PC's? Any recommendations will be much appreciated. Quote Link to comment
aersloat Posted March 31, 2002 Share Posted March 31, 2002 Oh, I hate it when a client asks you to sell your soul to the devil. We used to have a mixed environment with our CAD machines running AutoCAD. All our machines connected to an AppleShare IP 6.X server. It worked pretty well. A few questions: Do you have OS X Server, or are you just using OS X as a server? Are you intending to generate all your drawing on AutoCAD now, or are you going to do most of the work in VectorWorks and then convert and do some touchup in AutoCAD? If you are only going to do light work in AutoCAD and have G4's, then VirtualPC is something that could work well for you. We use VirtualPC to do occasional work on AutoCAD. Networking tends to be easier in VirtualPC than in real PCs because you can share OSX volumes and folders, ie piggyback on top of your connected OSX machine. VirtualPC also does a pretty good job of connecting directly to OSX Server. Virtual PC is not lightning fast on OSX, although it is plenty usable on a G4. Give it lots of RAM (your virtual machine, not the application) and when possible run it in full screen mode so you don't have to take a Quartz speed hit. Despite Virtual PC's usability, if you are going to be doing all your CAD in AutoCAD it may be easier to just buy some PCs. We have only connected Virtual PC to our OSX server, but it seems to work very well. Anyway, good luck. Quote Link to comment
jhutchison Posted April 1, 2002 Author Share Posted April 1, 2002 Currently, we are just using an OS X machine as a server---not "OS X Server". It works flawlessly for us (after a few downloads such as "Sharepoints", etc.). If necessary, we will upgrade to "OS X Server", but would obviously prefer not to unless warranted. We will still do all our work in VWA on Macintosh, EXCEPT work for this client. The jobs are pretty substantial (about 25 architectural sheets) and require thorough coordination w/ consultants (all of which use AutoCAD). We will still use MAC OS apps (Office v.X, photoshop, quark) in the Mac OS environment as default. My gut feeling so far is that Virtual PC will be great to load on the Laptops for people who work at home as well as the office. But I think that the jobs are going to be too big to solely produce on VPC. My guess is that as the file sizes and xref sophistication become larger, VPC will bog down. Ultimately, what we are looking to do is purchase a $600 tower for each workstation with a kvm switch that converts back and forth. What do you think? Quote Link to comment
aersloat Posted April 1, 2002 Share Posted April 1, 2002 Networking Windows to an OSX machine will be a bit more difficult than to an OSX Server machine, and in truth, I haven't tried it. However, Samba is freely available and should work fine. I have used Samba on FreeBSD and Linux before with some success so I imagine that it will be about the same with OSX. If you are doing fine without OSX server than I would skip it. Look for "Samba" on versiontracker and it comes up with a few hits. You can also install fink and compile/install samba through that avenue. I haven't done any speed tests with VPC5 on OSX. I do know that on my iBook it is slower than VPC4 on my old 292 Wallstreet. We also have just upgraded our license to VPC over the years-- not our Windows license-- so we still run W95. I don't know what difference any of the newer OS's will make. We also haven't bothered to upgrade our ACAD licenses, so a newer version of ACAD might also run very differently on VPC. I would try out VPC first and run it for a day or two, but in the end it will probably be easier to do the 600 box deal since you will be generating you stuff in AutoCAD. Good luck. Quote Link to comment
UserName Posted April 2, 2002 Share Posted April 2, 2002 quote: I haven't done any speed tests with VPC5 on OSX. I do know that on my iBook it is slower than VPC4 on my old 292 Wallstreet. We also have just upgraded our license to VPC over the years-- not our Windows license-- so we still run W95. I don't know what difference any of the newer OS's will make. We also haven't bothered to upgrade our ACAD licenses, so a newer version of ACAD might also run very differently on VPC. I run OS10.1 /9.2 and VPC5 on a 550MHz G4 Pbook.My experience with ACAD 2000 on VPC5 in OSX is that it's a dog. Completely unusable in fact; the screen redraw can't even keep up with moderate cursor movements. I daren't even try a model.Under OS9.2, however, it's a bit sliggish, but usable. See if you can audition it on someone elses machine before you commit yuourself. good luck,Nicholas Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.