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OSX 10.9 Mavericks support


IanH

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Is there any word on OSX 10.9 Mavericks support for VW in particular VW 2011?

I am being forced by Apple developers program to move on from OSX 10.7 Lion to either released 10.8 Mountain Lion or upcoming 10.9 Mavericks but do not want to lose use of VW2011 that I occasionally need to use.

As I see it, I either play safe and move soon to 10.8 that appears to be supported or wait/get develops preview for pending version. Would prefer to skip a generation especially this close to release of OSX 10.9 Mavericks.

If anyone wants to reply in private, feel free to contact me without breaching developers terms as I'm also covered by the Apple developers NDA.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I doubt there will be an official statement until its (Mavericks) official release, as has been the case with the last few OS X and Windows updates.

However it is most likely that Vectorworks 2011 will no longer receive any sort of patching ever again. The current version and the prior version to that are the only ones that ever get new patches or service pack releases.

VW 2011 runs on OS X 10.8 without any odd issues, so unless Apple REALLY pulls some major changes like it did between 10.4/10.5 as well as 10.6/10.7, then most likely it won't have problems.

Edited by JimW
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  • 3 weeks later...

There's also another option. Apple changed their license for OS X starting with Mountain Lion to allow running the OS in a VM. So if 10.9 ends up borking Vectorworks, one can use Fusion or Parallels to run 10.8 and Vectorworks. Both have an option to do so transparently, so Vectorworks will appear as a normal program.

It would be a bit more complicated and probably a bit slower, but it's good to know there's a backstop if 10.9 or any future OS update is a problem.

-Bruce

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There's also another option. Apple changed their license for OS X starting with Mountain Lion to allow running the OS in a VM.

What! I did not know this. This is great.

I wonder if they'll do the same for OS X Server come 10.9? Or is this the case already? In which case why can't NV use it to run their cloud services?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I believe OS X Server can now be run in a virtual environment, but only as long as the hardware it is run on comes from Apple as far as their EULA goes.

Im not certain which OS Vectorworks Cloud Services uses as virtual machines to accomplish rendering, however its most likely Windows because of the hardware restrictions.

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Vectorworks 2009 no longer works in Mavericks. Crashes on startup. Such a shame!

Have been running it in a VM to see if it's a viable alternative to buying 2014. It works fine, but certain aspects are a little cumbersome (no drag and drop between systems for example - yes even with PT installed).

To be completely honest I am totally let down - both with Mavericks and the 2014 trial I've been toying with. Neither are leaps and bounds ahead of their predecessors. And I might add, 2D performance is clunky compared to 2009, which is snappier even in a VM than 2014.

Edited by highpass
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Here's some further findings on Mountain Lion in a VM for running unsupported versions of Vectorworks.

Parallels Desktop 9:

+ Vectorworks runs fine. OpenGL support

- No drag & drop functionality

VMware Fusion 6:

+ Drag & drop works

- No OpenGL support

VMware Fusion is a no-go, currently.

Edited by highpass
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

UPDATE:

Vectorworks 2014 was tested with the very last build of OS X 10.9 before this release version and no issues were found. It will get another round of acceptance testing with this release build to see if there are any issues, if there are, they will be corrected via a service pack.

No word on Vectorworks 2013 and the older versions for now, I will however say confidently that anything incompatible with 10.7 or 10.8 will also be incompatible with 10.9. This chart will be updated once we get the test results back:

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/1...List+2013-09-17

As for the slowness some people are seeing, I get none of it when running it natively at default settings on either of my two main machines. The reports on the forums overall seem split, which means we have to narrow down the issues on individual machines that are behaving slowly.

There are a lot of users calling in that have video card issues however, even some of the more powerful cards from only a few years ago have issues in OpenGL, but as long as you aren't trying to force Vectorworks through an Intel embedded card or a card with outdated drivers (on Windows) then normally we can get you up and running if you contact tech@vectorworks.net

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
UPDATE:

, but as long as you aren't trying to force Vectorworks through an Intel embedded card

does this mean that the Mac Mini isn't supported?

It isn't officially unsupported but I would advise strongly against it. It is possible to do basic 2D drafting on it, but the performance will be poor. We had great results with the Mac Minis that ran a GeForce 9 series card, but unfortunately once Apple switched them to the Intel ones (I assume to keep costs of the entry level Mac lower) they were no longer acceptable for heavy 3D modeling in my opinion.

More detailed info can be found here as well:

http://kbase.vectorworks.net/questions/1139/Video+Card+%7B47%7D+Graphics+Card+Guidelines+for+Vectorworks+-+9-17-2013

Edited by JimW
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It isn't officially unsupported but I would advise strongly against it. It is possible to do basic 2D drafting on it, but the performance will be poor.

I'm currently running OSX 10.9 with a MacMini 2012 2.6 GHz i7 with 16GB ram and I'd have to say that apart from one VW2013 file that locks up the system forcing a hard restart I've had a lot of success running VW2014 so far -

imo basic 2d drafting is setting the bar way too low for this machine

Edited by bcd
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I am following this thread with interest. I am currently running VW2010 on a R-MBP running 10.8.5 and it is the most stable system I have ever run VW on.

I also had to run VW in a virtual machine a few years ago, because we were running VW12 and I had a Mac that was not downgradeable to an OS that I could run VW on. It was a very frustrating process that makes one despondent about the software upgrade freight train that we are all on.

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee
I am following this thread with interest. I am currently running VW2010 on a R-MBP running 10.8.5 and it is the most stable system I have ever run VW on.

I have had a few reports of Vectorworks 2011 not launching on OS X 10.9, but nothing specific about 2010 so far. If I get any feedback I will let you know!

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Nemetscheck should give us updates for 10.9 at least of 2010 versions it's not fare

Unfortunately it is out of our hands, once Apple decides to deprecate components of their OSes that Vectorworks requires, we would need to rebuild the software practically from scratch to correct the incompatibilities. since this was already done with the currently supported versions of Vectorworks, repeating it for older unsupported versions isn't viable.

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If you don't have problems then great, I simply don't advise it for users that haven't bought a machine yet.

I'm waiting for the new mini to be upgraded to the haswell Chipset which AFAIK will have the HD5000 graphics chip. Considering that Apple sell OSX with their hardware mac versions of software should include hardware and software support, no?

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  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

I haven't had the chance to experiment with the HD5000 series yet. The best results we have had so far with integrated cards were with the HD4000 series however, so my best guess is that it will be an improvement.

I would have to test it in real-world environment before I gave it my personal approval, you never can tell just from spec sheets these days.

Edited by JimW
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Wanting to be a cutting edge guy that I am, I downloaded Mavericks yesterday, which went seamlessly, but then today noticed that VW 2011 would not even begin to open....which is not the best thing for me as I work for and with many other designers and architects....who use different versions of VW. Then I opened a file in 2014, and was stunned at how friggin clunky and slow it worked when rotating and manipulating items. I am a very long time user and Trainer and very up to speed with the program, so this is not something I am just making up. I was just shocked at how horrid it was. I would have thought for sure that Nemetschek would have tested the program ad infinitum with Mavericks as it has been coming for a long time now. Perhaps that is not the way it works...but....right now, if possible I am going to sprint back to Mountain Lion if possible. I suppose that will be a bit of a debacle coercing my Macbook Pro to go backwards like that....hmmmm

Be warned before taking the leap to Mavericks....

It will turn your VW life upside down at this juncture seems to me.

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