why vectorworks?

[bubbalauren]

I work for a small-sized architecture firm in California, and we are considering upgrading from PowerCADD 2000 to Vectorworks. Should we do it, or stick with PowerCADD and upgrade to PowerCADD 6? My fear is this...

We currenly use OS9 platforms, on 800 MHz PowerPC G4s, with 512 MB of memory. Are these machines going to be capable of handling OSX and Vectorworks? Our one machine that has OSX is very slow with PowerCADD 6 (while the OS9's with PowerCADD 2000 are far speedier).

Vectorworks claims it's minimum system requirements are OS9.2.2 (although there is a note at the end claiming that they "recommend a significantly more capable machine than is described by the minimum requirements"!!! How much "significantly greater" do these machines have to be?!!!

[Travis]

VW seems to be a little faster under 9.2.2 than OSX on the same machine. However, the additional functionality of OSX has convinced us to use it even on the G4 machines we have. However, our G4s used for CAD are running at at least 1.25ghz rather than your 800mhz. From our own experience, I wouldn't recommend OSX on an 800mhz platform?especially in a professional environment, running CAD-level programs.

512MB of memory is plenty if you're not trying to render in 3D. Otherwise, I'd suggest at least 1g.

I've never used PowerCADD, so can't compare. Wouldn't trade VW for any other CAD software I'm familiar with, for whatever that's worth.

Recommendation: Compare VW features to your needs. If they fit, try upgrading one of your 800mhz machines to 1.25mhz (or faster) and increase RAM to at least 768mb. Then you'll have one machine to use for rendering and as a benchmark to decide when to upgrade or replace the others. (CPU upgrades are less than $500 and take about 10 minutes to install, RAM even less--we've done these upgrades on three machines without a problem; they continue to work right alongside the G5s.)

Good luck.

[Petri]

A G4/800 will be fine for most tasks, especially with OS9 or Classic. At present OS X makes VW quite slow, but hopefully the next release of OS X fixes at least part of the problem. I run VW under Classic in my G4.

[Kaare Baekgaard]

I have run VW 11 on a 450 MHz G4 with OS 10.3, while my regular PC was down, and I had with very few speed issues. With VW 11 you can batch renderings and do them at night.

Also I found that with very complex geometry, it helps to turn the objects into symbols. For some reason symbols update faster on the screen, when they are moved around.

After a period of transition, I believe you will bless the decission to switch to VW as one of the best, you have made.