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VW12 - The Emperor is naked!!!


Skot

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I know it's sacrilege to make this statement, but VW 12 is a dog.

Hold on there Hoss, hear me out. We are an engineering firm and our drawings are lines and boxes with some shades and fills, nothing more. We have been using VW 8 for years and churning out beautiful drawings, relatively quickly. We don't need a plant tool, a window and door dialog box, collections of tool sets too numerous to understand, etc. VW 8 installed with a couple diskettes, VW 12 took 3 cd's! When I create or open a drawing with VW 12, it takes 3 times as long just to open the file than VW 8 did. Scrolling, zooming, switching between sheets and many other simple functions are demonstrably slower. VW 12 doesn't even save back to 8 so that we can use our current plotter, I have to save back to 10 first, then open it in 10 to save back to 8!?! WTF!!!

I know that there's a ton of people who won't be satisfied no matter how many whiz-bang gadgets you pack into a software package, but what about those of us who want to be able to draw quickly and don't want all that overhead? Nemetschek needs to recognize that at some point the software becomes a burden. The focus of my work is not how well I know all the hundreds of tools that the software has, but to generate drawings as quickly as possible. There is only one reason for me to even have the latest version of VW, and that's to open files from architects so I can get started on my work. From my perspective, I just spent about $15,000 to upgrade all my desktop machines, only to see that final work product is MUCH MUCH slower than the old versions of software and hardware that all work fine and are still in use, just for plotting.

Can you say "Bait and Switch"? That's the mantra that the guys in my office have been saying for the past few weeks now ~ and I'm the knuckle-head who promoted this upgrade! I'm the only guy still struggling to make VW 12 work, everyone else went back to VW 8. Thanks Nemetschek, for turning me into the office idiot! When will we see VW lite? Something with a way to strip down all those extra tools and return to a simple drafting package?

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I think it's unfair to lable VW12 a "dog" just because it doesn't fit what you do on whatever equipment you have. Maybe you could have upgraded just one computer and software to do the converting back to VW8 for the rest of your machines and save some $. It may not be too late to return your upgrade under the NNA return policy.

Here's the paradigm as put by someone else:

New hardware + new software = Good

New hardware + old software = Bad

Old hardware + old software = Good

Old hardware + new software = Bad

The difference between old and new here, of course, can be a couple of years or less.

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Michael,

So how do you label a software product that has a huge hard disc footprint, is a ram hog, forces everyone who uses it to change their workflow, isn't backward compatible to it's own previous versions, and runs slower than previous versions even when it's installed on much faster machines?

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Everything except "runs slower than previous versions even when it's installed on much faster machines" is pretty normal. We call it progress! I really don't use Photoshop7 for much that I couldn't do with 2.

On the speed issue, I'm wondering if your OS is up-to-date and if you are starved for RAM.

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Skot,

This 2.0 GHz G5 Dual/2.5 Mb RAM user agree with you: VW 12 is a dog. 11.5 ran 10-12% faster than 12 on our in-house benchmarking suite of animations and renderings, even after tweaking 12 according to NNA's suggestions to improve 12's rendering performance. Add to that all the rendering bugs we've run into, the incompatible PIOs and symbols, the buggy window and door symbols, the 3D stair bug, "live sections" that are neither live nor true sections, and the workflow disruptions, we'll be sticking with 11.5.

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I'd say it's just like any other NEW software product out there. They all demand a lot, as much as the hardware can give. It's always a game of leapfrog with the hardware and software.

Not sure what you mean by "huge hard disc footprint". VW12 is a smaller (less MB) application than Photoshop and Adobe Reader, Filemaker 7, SketchUp 5, Toast 7, and most of my "i" applications on the Mac (I don't have much else).

Ram is relatively cheap and accessible if your hardware is "up-to -date".

I would say that in most cases it helps everyone IMPROVE their workflow if your doing more than "lines and boxes with some shades and fills".

It IS backward compatble to previous versions, just not that far to v8.

Is it really running slower doing "lines and boxes with some shades and fills'? What's a much faster machine?

I can understand the frustration when expectations aren't met especially after spending a lot of bucks and you're under a lot of pressure at the office. It just don't think Vectorworks is the goat here. I think you personally may be better off with your previous set-up and just need to find an easier and less expensive way to get files in v12 back to v8.

I have a freind who's business is in film, doing corporate films, independant, weddings and the like. On a Mac, he is perfectly happy with the old system OS9 and the software versions that work with that. As soon as you upgrade one piece of the pie, for the rest of the pie (or eaters) to be happy, the rest of it should follow suit.

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Skot - If you have been using VW 8 for this long then your habits as to where tools and menu items are located will be well and truly ingrained. You will be using the program intuitively, rarely having to think about what does what, and where it is located.

The interface changes with VW 12 will require you to learn new habits. Having to think about where tools and menu items are located will take a bit of time. This will takes your focus away from what it is you are doing, and I suspect it is this that is causing your perception that the program is slower for your 2D work. Getting used to the new interface and where things are located will take a bit of time, but I am sure that once you have learned the 'new habits' you will find that your 2D work is just as quick. With the simpler interface and organisation + additional capabilities you should be quicker. The efforts you put into learning the new interface will bring rewards - just give it some time.

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Well, there still is the base version of VectorWorks. That one doesn't come with loads op PIO's. Anyway guys, I think you're willfully overlooking a couple of things. I'm going to mention two of the most important changes.

(1) change of internal precision. This happened when they went from 8 to 9. The result to some people was that their file sizes doubled and that their machines all of a sudden performed twice as slow. However, this allowed for the DXF and DWG exchange we have today. In 8 this exchange wasn't worth a dime. I prefer a good exchange, and so should you if you are an engineering firm.

(2) viewports. That too increased the file size and slowed down the program. But what you get in return more than compensates the disadvantages. With Sheet layers and viewports we finally have a decent page layout system which is, by the way, not only fully compatible with ACAD but which is also better than ACAD's.

I think you should look deeper into what 12 has to offer you. Just try zooming in and out while you have a heavy 2D-drawing open. You'll see that 12 performs much better than previous versions.

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Lines and boxes drawing won't be an issue either on VW8 or VW12.

Up to date software will require an up to date machine.

I did a test..converting a complex 38 acres basement drawing from VW12 to VW10 to VW8.

The result is..VW8 is bloody stupid SLOW and only can hold for less than 30 munites. Purely unstable to hold on a big size of file.

So..Boxes and lines drawing shouldn't be a problem for VW12.

Test on;

G5 Quad + VW12

G5 2.0 Dual + VW8 ( run on classic mode )

G-Pang

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BaRa,

We started with MC4 on a PowerMac. That program was great! Is the ability to open other file formats crucial? Yes, absolutely. Is it asking too much for a rapid 2D program? Apparently.

When I opened an older 8 file in 12, it more than doubled in size by merely saving it.

I know you think 12 is great at zooming, now try scrolling!

I don't know about your office, but I don't have time to learn a new software package in the hopes that it will speed up my workflow. My experience so far is that VW 12 is much slower and no one in my office is willing to waste anymore time trying to figure out how to make it go faster, or relearn how to use the software. It almost seems as though Nemetschek failed to do serious usability studies when they put this out, and then they want to charge a bunch of money for training courses!

There's some writing on the wall. It may be small print now, but...

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"but I don't have time to learn a new software package in the hopes that it will speed up my workflow."

Then you picked a bad time to upgrade a dozen (or so) work stations. The complete re-design of the interface is no secret. I've known about that since it came out.

And that's why I haven't gone to 12 yet. I just don't have the time to learn it.

You should have been prepared for this. Jumping 4 full version numbers in any software is going to create some problems.

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Skot,

Although your computers are not at the bottom end of the spectrum, the PB and eMac are not ideal due to the limited RAM and processor speed.

However.....I think you may also be experiencing a slower "feeling" due to the fact that you have also made the jump to OSX (I assume that you were running VW8 under OS9 in Classic Mode). Many of our customers reported this when moving from OS9 to OSX, yet were willing to make the jump for the stability and other improvements. IOW, it may not be VW that feels slower, but your OS instead....

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Skot

If you've been using this product since MC4,surely you've seen it evolve into a more complex, 3D app.

(It almost seems as though Nemetschek failed to do serious usability studies when they put this out)

The end user bears some responsibility in deciding whether a product suits their needs. NNA offers full refunds - a rarity in the software world.

What problems are you having with scrolling? I am working with a 15MB, 3D model and can zoom & scroll fine.

Increasing file size is just a fact of life with all programs.

If you feel that you were misled or cheated by NNA, then I would suggest that you demand a refund from their sales dept. You certainly have every right to complain here, but I'm sure how that will help.

GH

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Peter,

I made several inquiries of the sales folks about the ideal platform before we bought new computers. I was told in no uncertain terms that they didn't recommend hardware. They told me about minimum requirements. When I asked them about the eMacs in particular, I was told that those machines were more than adequate. I also got the G5, just to have an extra fast workstation. I don't see an appreciable difference between how fast VW 12 runs on that machine from the eMacs.

We went from VW 10 to 12 on the Powerbook. Very comfortable with OS X, but 10 was also less than complete. I didn't notice as much of a slowdown with 10.

George,

Unfortunately, the end user isn't the only person who has a say in this discussion. I must be able to read files from other people. That means very limited options, surely you realize that.

As far as scrolling, it takes almost a second per screen refresh or something like 10 seconds to scroll across a whole drawing depending on how zoomed in I am.

I certainly never said that I felt cheated, but definitely mislead. Demanding a full refund doesn't fix the problem. It only exasperates it.

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