Dieter @ DWorks Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 (edited) They have stated long ago that they are working on a from the ground up rebuild version and are going 64 bit and multi-core. It's taken too long. I begin to wonder how big there team is? dont under estimate the complexity in doing this. I use to develop large computer systems for a living and one of my projects was to port our 32 bit app to 64 bit. Our app was similar age to VW but was a server/server based app that inherrintly would run across multiple processors, so the complexities of having to rewrite algorithms to be thread safe or multi processor aware was not on the list. It took about 18 months to port, test and more importantly optimise data structures for 64 bit. Without optimisation the app ran slower than 32 bit version. For a ground up rewrite expect much more time. I worked on the system for just over 10 years. In that time, two ground up rewrites came and went without seeing the light of day. A third made it to production only for it to be replaced within a year by a much simpler system that offered about 20% of the functionality. Our >25 year old system outlived and out performed the lot. The only reason why they replaced it was because being so old it was perceived that maintaining it was expensive and slow. As a programmer myself, I know the difficulties, that's why I wonder how big their team is, because it matters in time. Plus they stated it long time ago. Edited September 19, 2012 by DWorks Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 I am sure it is immensely complicated, otherwise they would have done it. I think I am crying over spilt milk that they did not start the process sooner.... A rebuilt stair tool might appease me for a year or so.... Quote Link to comment
billtheia Posted September 19, 2012 Share Posted September 19, 2012 Also noticed that multithreading for hidden line renders is windows only? I saw that too. What a drag. Just did a quick comparison with a file I created in VW2012. Updating an interior elevation sheet with 11 hidden line viewports took the same amount of time in VW2012 & VW2013. Updating an interior perspective with custom renderworks & hidden line rendering was 14% faster in VW2013. Embarrassingly, I hoped for greater performance increase. Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Well, if you are 14% faster 50% of the time, you will save 140 hours a year, which is like adding over 3 weeks of production every year. Quote Link to comment
Bryan G. Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Good point Tom. many little things can add up to quite a bit. Quote Link to comment
billtheia Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Well, if you are 14% faster 50% of the time, you will save 140 hours a year, which is like adding over 3 weeks of production every year. While that is true, the claim being made by NVW does not match the reality. Quote Link to comment
Bob Holtzmann Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Regardless, NVw thinks it was a good enough version release to pay for the champagne and confetti-filled balloons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vectorworks/ Quote Link to comment
Dieter @ DWorks Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 The balloons are pretty, untill they pop.... Seems familiar.... Quote Link to comment
Assembly Posted September 20, 2012 Share Posted September 20, 2012 Well, if you are 14% faster 50% of the time, you will save 140 hours a year, which is like adding over 3 weeks of production every year. 140 hours at $100/hr = $14,000!, the software pays for itself! hmmm. how much time do you save if you use software that has live sections, elevation, perspectives then? Quote Link to comment
rDesign Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Embarrassingly, I hoped for greater performance increase. We were lead to believe that there would be a greater performance increase. In their Performance Improvements in Hidden Line Rendering video, they are clearly using Mac OSX while making the claim of "2x to 5x faster in hidden line renderings", and there is no disclaimer that this is a Windows-only feature. It's only in the 'VW2013 What's New Brochure' PDF where it says 'Hidden line rendering now uses multi-threading on the Windows operating system...' While 14% improvement is better than no improvement, it is definitely not the 2x to 5x as claimed. Quote Link to comment
propstuff Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Well I just tried it: (intersecting lines turned on) with a VW2012 file; interior of a house: 13 seconds The same file opened in '13 took less than 4 seconds So I'd be calling that 3 times faster -on a mac. So presumably on widows it would be faster again......... Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Nicholas, Are you running both 2012 and 2013 on the same computer? I want to install it and check it out but the office is not ready to roll it out until next week. In the seminar they told me that I could not maintain my installation of 2012 if I installed 2013. I am on a mac as well. Quote Link to comment
Dieter @ DWorks Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Nicholas, Are you running both 2012 and 2013 on the same computer? I want to install it and check it out but the office is not ready to roll it out until next week. In the seminar they told me that I could not maintain my installation of 2012 if I installed 2013. I am on a mac as well. So they say that having 2012 and 2013 installed gives problems? Can this be confirmed please? Quote Link to comment
Joe-SA Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Nicholas, In the seminar they told me that I could not maintain my installation of 2012 if I installed 2013. I am on a mac as well. This is good to know. Depending on the new features we will often choose to finish a job in the previous version and not convert it to the new version while starting new jobs in the new version. I have multiple releases of VW installed on my computer right now. Are you saying that you were told this will no longer be possible? Joe Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 (edited) I have 2011, 2012 and 2013 on the same machine, 2012 runs as it did before, haven't used 2013 for anything big and the crashes I got/get are basically the same as what others have, so probably bugs......in the past there haven't been any significant problems with running different versions on the same machine either.... ....mind, I don't have anything server based, it's all stand alone...... Edited September 21, 2012 by Vincent C Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee Tamsin Slatter Posted September 21, 2012 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 21, 2012 It is possible to run several versions. They are all independent installs. You can't run them concurrently though. Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 I want to push our office to move to 2013, but we do not want to upgrade projects that are already significantly designed, and just start all new projects in 2013. We did this for the upgrade to 2012 form 2011, and it worked well. I asked this specifically at the seminar and I was told no, but maybe they did not fully understand the question. You experienced more crashing with 2013? Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Thanks, Tamsin. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 (edited) You experienced more crashing with 2013? Yup, especially 2012 files opened in 2013, this year I am actually following my own advice and waiting with my upgrade until SP2 has been released (probably sometime in November), if I stick with VWs..... btw your signature says you're on SP2 2012, there are SP3, 4 and 5 available you know... Edited September 21, 2012 by Vincent C Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Thanks. I have upgraded, but I just forget to update my signature. That is not a bad plan. The background rendering enticement is so big, I wonder if I can wait that long. Quote Link to comment
VectorGeek Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 You can't run them concurrently though. I think that depends on the license type. With "E" licenses, you can. I have 2011 and 2013 (same license number) open concurrently as I type this. Working in 2011 and testing our custom plug-ins in 2013. I'm finding for basic 2D operations (panning, zooming, and especially getting in and out of symbols), VW2013 is considerably faster. Our files vary between 75MB and 100MB each, and in some cases have upwards of 60 DLVPs. The files were bogging down in 2011 but seem great in 2013. This is a good thing. VectorGeek -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VW2011 (SP5) VW2013 (Build 169810) Mac OS X Lion (10.7.4) iMac 27", 2.93 GHz i7, 8GB RAM, Radeon HD 5750, 1 GB VRAM 1972 Datsun 510, pretty much entirely held together with duct tape. Quote Link to comment
Tom Klaber Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 DLVPs currently kill my files. I have to have them isolated so they do not interrupt my drafting. It would be great if they could remain on and more integrated into my drawings. Quote Link to comment
VectorGeek Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 DLVPs currently kill my files. I have to have them isolated so they do not interrupt my drafting. It would be great if they could remain on and more integrated into my drawings. Tom, We found the same thing, once the number got up over 50 or so. It's too bad, because having crossing referenced DLVPs (elevations -> plans, and plans -> elevations) is a huge time save on the large projects we work on. Vijay. Quote Link to comment
billtheia Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Well I just tried it: (intersecting lines turned on) with a VW2012 file; interior of a house: 13 seconds The same file opened in '13 took less than 4 seconds So I'd be calling that 3 times faster -on a mac. So presumably on widows it would be faster again......... Hmmm... The sheet that I used was full of hidden-line-rendered interior elevations. They were all made from section viewports. I wonder if that is why they weren't any faster. Quote Link to comment
starling75 Posted September 21, 2012 Share Posted September 21, 2012 Aloha, Service Select Members can download now... Is the the 2013 trial version still available only for Service Select Members? Quote Link to comment
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