ClockWerX Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Hello Everybody, The company I am working for works presently with VW 9.5.1 on a Mac G4 867 Mhz. It just runs fine but there is no extra space left. We use Mac OS Classic 9.2.2. Now we intend to upgrade to VW 11 latest version and Mac OS X also the latest version. Can you tell us if the Mac G4/867Mhz together with Mac OS X and VW 11 will run smoothly? We fear depending on the post regarding this subject, that our Present G4 Mac will be too slow. Thank you very much for your reply and have a nice day. Friendly greetings, Chrissy Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 OS X is going to make things a lot slower. I have two copies of my VW 9: one that runs under Classic, for actual work, and another that runs under OS X, for mainly generating PDFs with Jaws PDF Creator. Even simple things, like saying 'Select all', are painfully slow in OS X and you definitely don't want to have any imported images in your files. Quote Link to comment
ionw Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 I think I found a semi-solution to this problem. It seems it is the video card. a year ago our office bought the high-end 2.0 Ghz G5 for some FormZ work. It came with the 9600 XT ATI Video Card, I don't recall all the specs, but suffice it to say there was a faster card out there, the 9800. So here was a dual 2.0 Ghz G5 1.5 Gb RAM and a 128 Mb Video Card. Fast forward a year, I just took possession of a current base model 1.8 Ghz G5. This is the "constrained" model, only expandable to 4 GB RAM, no PCI-X cards etc. Why is this exciting you may ask? the answer is this, I took the $500-$1000 I saved, spent $350 on 2 Gb Addt'l RAM, and $330 on a top of the line ATI 9800 XT Special edition video card, that has a much faster processor on it and 256 Mb RAM. In VW 11 this machine is more than four times faster than the other G5. they are running the exact same OS, and are similar in Applications etc. Things that took 20 seconds on my old computer (not the other G5 a dual 533 G4) are nearly instantaneous, and operations that were minutes long only take a few seconds. We have a set of civil improvement drawings that repeated zooms on the 2.0 Ghz machine took 30-45 seconds take 5-10 on this machine. I think it has everything to do with the Video card. I don't feel like swelling ATI's pockets, but getting the fastest card for your current mac may make a bigger difference than a new computer. worth a try especially if you have a try before you buy place... just a thought. Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Ion; My biggest speed complaint is how slow the OIP is. I routinely enter data and tab through fields faster than the OIP can handle. The result is constant errors and frustration. What is your experience with the OIP relative to your new video card? Has the card made a significant difference in the speed of the OIP? Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Petri; It has been my assumption that programs running under Classic will run slower. Are you saying that VW runs faster under Classic emulation than under native OS X? How exactly do you have this set up? Quote Link to comment
ClockWerX Posted October 4, 2004 Author Share Posted October 4, 2004 Hello all, Thank you very much for your replies on this subject. I will show your replies to the company I am working for. In the meantime, your reactions are highly appreciated. I wish you all a very nice day and all the best. Friendly greetings, Chrissy Quote Link to comment
ionw Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Henry, the only part of vectorworks that hasn't responded to the Video card that I can find (after a week) is the headings in the Door and window OIP. once the topic has expanded, the updates I make in the various fields take place almost immediately. our reeference notes that are symbols with associated text fields update as fast as I can select them, using tools that I get ahead of like the offset tool where I lose one or more of the numbers that I enter because the computer is lagging behind doesn't happen. So far the VC has made VW a responsive program. If anything new pops up I will let you know Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Ion; Thank you for this information. It makes me want to run out and buy a video card. I am using a 466mhz G4. Buying a video card sounds a whole lot easier than getting a new computer. I wish that NNA would validate this info. Based on your experience, the slow performance would relate to screen redraw I believe. Would be nice if NNA could say, yes that is true; that a faster card will speed up the OIP. Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Ion; Thank you for this information. It makes me want to run out and buy a video card. I am using a 466mhz G4. Buying a video card sounds a whole lot easier than getting a new computer. I wish that NNA would validate this info. Based on your experience, the slow performance would relate to screen redraw I believe. Would be nice if NNA could say, yes that is true; that a faster card will speed up the OIP. Quote Link to comment
ionw Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Kevin a.k.a. Henry? no idea where that came from... sorry. I think I remember reading somewhere that OSX has put more and more responsibility on the video card for screen redraws and the like. that would include changes to windows, any window not just the document window. One of the things i am going to do in our office is test the base Nvidea card, the ATI 9600 and the 9800 that is in the machine currently. I will let you know how it turns out. Quote Link to comment
APE Design Ctr Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Apparently the newest OSX (Tiger) coming out (I think next Spring) is supposed to take more advantage of the 64 bit processing, even if the app is not programed for it. Also, I am sure that VW will be updated to work better with the G5s. Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 4, 2004 Share Posted October 4, 2004 Thanks Ion; I did some looking and found this Macworld article on OS10.2: http://www.macworld.com/news/2002/08/16/jaguar/ Quote: "...Quartz Extreme -- One of OS X 10.2's key features is Quartz Extreme, a concept that can be difficult to understand and even harder to see when you're running the OS. Essentially, Quartz Extreme is a technology that off-loads most of the burden of displaying your Mac's interface to the Mac's dedicated video processor and video RAM. However, this technology works only on systems with an Nvidia GeForce2 MX, GeForce3, GeForce4 Titanium or GeForce4 MX card (AGP version, not PCI), or ATI AGP Radeon card, with at least 16MB of VRAM. This means that Quartz Extreme will work with all current Mac models, as well as most Macs released in the past year or so. It's hard to know whether Quartz Extreme is running on your Mac, but you can find out by popping in a DVD movie and then adjusting the volume or pulling down a menu. If you can see through the transparent object to the movie playing behind, your Mac is using Quartz Extreme. Granted, seeing through menus into DVDs isn't much of a feature -- but that's not why Quartz Extreme is important. By using your video subsystem to composite all the different objects on your Mac's screen, the technology allows your Mac's main processor and memory to concentrate on other tasks. The result is a system that feels more responsive, especially when it's busy with other tasks. When we had lots of applications open in the background, there were far fewer spinning cursors in OS X 10.2 than there were in OS X 10.1..." End Quote I tested my computers as explained in the article regarding menu transparency. Sure enough, my 466mhz G4 did not pass the test. The menus were opaque. I may just get a new video card and see how that helps if any. Quote Link to comment
Hugo Posted October 5, 2004 Share Posted October 5, 2004 I'm using Vectorworks 11.0.1 on an iBook G4 with a 933 Mhz processor and the program runs definitely fast. No speed problems. Quote Link to comment
Petri Posted October 5, 2004 Share Posted October 5, 2004 quote: Originally posted by Kevin: It has been my assumption that programs running under Classic will run slower. Are you saying that VW runs faster under Classic emulation than under native OS X? How exactly do you have this set up? VW runs a lot faster in Classic mode, not quite as fast as under 'real' OS 9, but still heaps faster than in OS X. OK, I have only a G4/800 with 768 MB of RAM, but with OS 9 that had plenty of power. So, I made a copy of VW 9 (application itself) in the VW folder and in 'Get Info' ticked the 'Open in Classic Mode' box. Quote Link to comment
Kevin Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 Thanks Petri; I did not know that you could do that. I will give it a try. Quote Link to comment
Chris D Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 Our office has made the mistake of buying eMacs....and you can't upgrade the video card on an eMac. We have over 40 VW users, mostly on eMacs, which were fine for VW10...but not good enough for VW11. The only upgrade path is to throw all of these computers away and buy new. Adding RAM makes little difference. Quote Link to comment
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