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Best Macbook for vectorworks?


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Hi there! I’m a university student in technical theatre. We use vectorworks a lot to create plots for lighting. I am now seeing the need to download it to continue into my degree. I have a 2013 MacBook Air and I have a feeling that isn’t going to cut it. So now I’m on the hunt for a Mac that can handle the program... and probably a few more along the way.  Any suggestions? 

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The amount of graphics memory is probably the most important part of computing for Vectorworks, so you need a separate GPU with as much VRAM as possible. Clock speed is more important than cores for the CPU. Make sure you get plenty of RAM, and plenty of hard drive space. The new M1 chips are very exciting but they are limited to only being able to have 16GB RAM. This isn't enough for high end users. I'd hold out until Apple make any announcements about their M2 chips and new line up.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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15 hours ago, Peter Neufeld said:

The new M1 chips are very exciting but they are limited to only being able to have 16GB RAM. This isn't enough for high end users.

 

I guess I'm not high end seeing I'm running a 2015 MBP with 16mb or RAM...

Please don't tell my copy of Vectorworks, it might stop handling 1GB + 3D models I'm throwing at it all the time 🙂

Same for TwinMotion, I hope it doesn't learn of the meager amount of RAM I'm using to create animations 🙂

 

In all seriousness, all of the people I trust with technology decisions have indicated that the new Macs are fine with 16MB of RAM due to their different way of addressing memory and processing instruction.  Benchmarking indicates a significant increase over my current system, yet here I am happily plugging away on my old computer not really needing anything faster.  Working smartly and being efficient with the software makes it faster than any amount of RAM you throw at it.

Edited by jeff prince
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Oh yes I agree and good to see - working efficiently is so important. It does depend a lot on the work being done of course. A lot of users have multitudes of RAM and it's just the 16GB limit that has been pointed out in some other forums as not being enough in spite of the processor accessing memory 5 times faster. Anyway if I was in the market I'd wait. To answer Evie's question I'd say the new M1 13" MBP is going to be fine.

 

Cheers,

Peter

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