Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted May 21, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted May 21, 2014 Thank you, I try. There are many things that can benefit from improvement and I will get all your feedback where it needs to go and attempt to get as much pertinent information back to you as I can. Quote Link to comment
willofmaine Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 It is unlikely you would notice the difference between the D500 and the D700 in Vectorworks. Currently both are massive overkill. Again, you'd notice the wallet ache mostly. "Currently," but what about in the long term, say, five to eight years? Clearly Vectorworks, in recent years, has noticeably increased its demand for more powerful graphics cards. Given that trend, is the D500 such "massive overkill" that it's highly unlikely the D700 would ever make sense for Vectorworks? If given a choice, would the money be better spent on 32 GB of RAM (for the sake of Renderworks) than on the D700? Or is 32 GB of RAM even excessive, without more cores, such as 8 or 12? Thanks! Will Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted June 19, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted June 19, 2014 ONE D500 or D700 will make sense very soon, but we don't currently support SLI/Crossfire (what you need to utilize two graphics cards at once) and I don't see that happening very soon, as for most users it would not be beneficial as it is in say, modern video gaming. For the next 2-3 years id say the 32GB of RAM would benefit you more than a D700. I wouldn't attempt to guess at anything past 5 years since the tech industry changes so rapidly and fundamentally now. For instance, 8 years ago was a world before smartphones. Quote Link to comment
Dillon Posted July 9, 2014 Share Posted July 9, 2014 I've read this thread a couple of times as well as doing other research. And I still don't quite have the answer about iMac vs. MacPro. It sounds like a highest end iMac (i7 processor and the NVIDIA GTX780 graphics card) may outperform the low end MacPro (four core with AMD D300 graphics card) at this point--except maybe when rendering with Renderworks. But if VW starts using multiple cores this fall, is that going to change whether the MacPro is worth the money? Dillon Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted July 9, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted July 9, 2014 Graphics card doesnt matter for Renderworks renderings. More/faster cores will improve Renderworks speed. So if the higher end i7 in the high end iMac has more/faster cores than the low end Mac Pro, then yes it would render faster. But if VW starts using multiple cores this fall, is that going to change whether the MacPro is worth the money? Renderworks already uses all your cores. Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted July 15, 2014 Share Posted July 15, 2014 (edited) does anyone want to write a script that zooms in and out, selects all, moves left 100ft then back and maybe a few more things? i am getting a new mac and want to do a video that has the side by side comparison look with maybe a timer in each corner. i just want to test the general 2d environment for now. Edited July 15, 2014 by digitalmechanics Quote Link to comment
Diamond Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Hi Jim, When Vw couples screen redraw with the graphics card, I imagine the second GPU would still be helpful in driving a 4k display? One card for the display, one card for Vw? Or is the second card unnecessary for that as well? Thanks. PS Are retina graphics coming any time soon? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted July 28, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted July 28, 2014 When Vw couples screen redraw with the graphics card, I imagine the second GPU would still be helpful in driving a 4k display? One card for the display, one card for Vw? No. Unfortunately that logically SEEMS like how it would work but in practice, regardless of the application that isn't how it is. An application would have to specifically support multiple GPUs which I have not yet seen any mention of in improvements to Vectorworks. Also, the OS cant choose to split functionality across multiple cards truly. Normally using more than one card involves using them together acting as one card in either SLI (Nvidia) or Crossfire (AMD). PS Are retina graphics coming any time soon? Yes. Quote Link to comment
Diamond Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Hi Jim, I seem to remember watching parrots of an Apple WWDC 2014 session regarding how the GPUs are broken up "Harnessing the Power of the Mac Pro with OpenGL and OpenCL". It started to put me to sleep, but I had thought it did matter what port a screen is plugged into, depending on the software requirements. I will go back and watch as a reminder. Having been almost exclusively a PowerBook/Macbook Pro user, am keen for the possibility of moving to a serious workstation. Am commonly modelling huge sites in Vw, and getting into C4D/After Effects. Obviously more processors are generally more important for these apps, than multiple GPU's, but an iMac seems like a short term fix. iMac hardware (generally higher end laptop spec) is simply not the server grade stuff that the Mac Pro is. Also seems wrong to throw out a monitor (as part of the iMac) every three years or so. Maybe the speed jumps we all desire, just aren't there at the moment. We have the top of the line iMac in our studio, and besides very large OpenGL and Renderworks renders, it doesn't seem much faster than my 3 year old MacBook Pro. Maybe that is because the i7 in my MBP is very capable. But the biggest issue I out of memory challenges, and they happen equally on both machines. Looks like I will be waiting until Vw can use all the memory it can, and until then my MBP will do just fine. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted July 29, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted July 29, 2014 Mainly it's Vectorworks catching up. Once it has caught up it will be ahead of hardware for quite awhile, but at the moment hardware has outpaced what our software can take advantage of. Quote Link to comment
Guest Jim Kelly Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 I seem to remember watching parrots of an Apple WWDC 2014 session WWDC would be a lot more awesome if it were put on by parrots. Quote Link to comment
Diamond Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Ha! Good one. I crack me up! Confounded auto correct on the iPad. I am sure I meant parts. But if you did want a travelling circus with any announcement, I think you need to look into the competition. Quote Link to comment
JP Architect/Build Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Jim W- Please give us your latest advice on Upgrading to a MacPro 4 Core (or 6 Core) vs the Highest end IMac? Using VW Architect Thanks, Jim P. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted September 15, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted September 15, 2014 (edited) GPU usage will not change this version, so the previous tips would still stand. The only real difference is that now the large amounts of RAM available on both models would now be used, however if you are just using Architect with no Renderworks, most like you would not benefit much from more than 16GB of RAM unless you were working with extremely large or complex files. Edited September 15, 2014 by JimW Quote Link to comment
jkibbe Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 I will tell you that I purchased a New Mac Pro 6-core, Xeon E5, 3.5 GHz with 16GB RAM. This is SEVERELY FASTER and more stable with Vectorworks than my maxed out 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680! I create and import intense models from places like Turbo Squid, I also make very high renders. The new Mac is setting me free and rendering at a fraction of the time. I will post back about how VW 2015 reacts with it. Quote Link to comment
dtheory Posted December 4, 2014 Share Posted December 4, 2014 Hi jkibbe, Any updates or additional commentary re: how you are doing with your Mac Pro? Might be helpful for those of us considering a purchase.. Quote Link to comment
dtheory Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Anything to add re: your Mac Pro experience? especially performance or issues with VW 2015. Thanks. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted January 23, 2015 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 23, 2015 I don't know about him specifically, but everyone who could take the cost of the latest Mac Pro has reported loving it to death. I sadly have to work with a machine designed for mere mortals, but some of my coworkers have and adore them as well. Quote Link to comment
CipesDesign Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 No issues with the machine. It's awesome. VW's, and everything else, is MUCH faster. VW's still behaves oddly sometimes, which in my experience is par for the course... Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 getting ready to order Mac Pro currently i have 1TB and use up just under 300GB so i was worried about getting the 512GB any comments? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted January 30, 2015 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted January 30, 2015 Storage shouldn't be a problem, if you really get tight on space, you can add external drives to keep the stuff you don't need to access on a daily basis. Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 Just to throw in, I did a lot of screen renderings in RW on my 6 core nMacPro. There are so many renderstyles beside C4D GI and Raytracing, and threads in VW, that work single core only. Considering that, for VW CAD and RW Rendering, the new Retina iMac i7 295X would be the better AND faster Machine ! (With a sharper screen btw) So it should not get hot or loud in VW, just avoid Fusion Drives or rotating 3.5" HDD's that will get warm. But if you use additional professional Rendering Software and hope for better ATI OpenCL acceleration in the future, The nMacPro with D700 (!?) will be fine, unimpeachable and super quiet. Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 thanks for all the feed back. my method ever since the Mac mini came out was never to pay for a built in screen and just upgrade the machine every year or 2 while selling the old one. no screen means easy to ship on eBay Quote Link to comment
jkibbe Posted June 5, 2015 Share Posted June 5, 2015 Getting back to everyone about the Mac Pro, very sorry for the delay. It is an amazingly fast computer and I have no regrets spending the money! I no longer have to wait through the night for renderings compared to my last 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core with a Nvidia GeForce GTX 680! There are minor glitches with VW 2015 but I really don't see them relating to the Mac Pro. All things considered, I highly recommend this Mac. Quote Link to comment
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