Mac V's Windows

[Flair-Studio]

19 hours ago, Jeff Prince said:

I sold mine this year and instantly regretted it.

Gave mine to my daughter she is still using it for homework stuff 😀

[Jeff Prince]

2 hours ago, MMGD said:

I’m a garden designer but getting increasingly larger projects. And now preferring to do concept 3d Visuals in VW rather than outsourcing to Lumion etc. I may delve into TM at some point.

I’m a landscape architect and I do very large topographical models with many buildings and 100s of plants on occasion.  I also do very detailed landscape and pool design regularly.  I frequently use Affinity photo on the Mac and iPad as well to touch up renderings or draw illustrations.  You will be very happy switching to a Mac if you value very high quality on screen graphics.

 

 If you get an older Intel mac, make sure you have a dedicated video card with 8gb RAM, at least 32 MB of system RAM, and a SSD that is 2TB or smaller (smaller is faster for built in Apple SSDs typically in older models apparently).  

i’m  running 72GB RAM currently and it is very handy for rendering while doing something else in another app since VWX doesn’t make use of all the processor cores during rendering.  I also have a retina display on my 2020 iMac and hope I never have to go back to a PC grade display for creative work, the difference is huge.

 

 

This machine, or any of the 16” MBPs with 32+ GB RAM,  would be really nice:

https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/product/FNWA3B/A/refurbished-16-inch-macbook-pro-apple-m2-max-chip-with-12‑core-cpu-and-38‑core-gpu-space-grey?fnode=3d60e03aceb22b6a0502153498be84e667b94389fb9c33885362b1290030686717944dc5cf49b61cbb91b24ba85bbad6162b810cc79847d4ead2876ac597894906d7b6f78a2c55e1806435d46cf65acb

Edited September 15 by Jeff Prince

[Tom W.]

1 hour ago, Flair-Studio said:

Gave mine to my daughter she is still using it for homework stuff 😀

 

Somehow my daughter's ended up with a better Mac than me 😆

 

But I have to say, despite how 'old' my iMac is it does really well as far as I'm concerned. I have an extra 4K screen, loads of apps open at once, two web browsers with multiple windows/tabs, often 2.5GB VWX files, etc + all seems fine to me. I will need to upgrade at some point - maybe a M4 Studio next year - but I am prepared for the earth not to move when I do so...

[Jeff Prince]

On 9/14/2024 at 9:54 AM, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Don't get too hung up on RAM.  Unified RAM behaves differently as in you need less, but you cannot add more.  I only have 18 GB on my current M3 Laptop.

This is bad advice as @MMGDintends on running multiple high resolution monitors.  RAM is very important in that case and 32GB + is the minimum recommendation for graphic pros.

Edited September 15 by Jeff Prince

[Jeff Prince]

23 minutes ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Contemplate what you don't see in this model.  2000 toilets, 3000 sinks, water coolers, etc., they are all behind these walls.

That sounds impressive and all, but if the objects or their influence aren’t visible in the scene, they aren’t calculated in the rendering…

 

Still, RAM matters for those who run multiple monitors, multitask, or run complicated models (that stadium isn’t really complicated).

 

by the way, you tagged someone who hasn’t participated in this convo for a few years…

Edited September 15 by Jeff Prince

[rDesign]

35 minutes ago, VIRTUALENVIRONS said:

Need to have some RAM, but for 99 percent of Vectorworks users over the next decade, 32 will be plenty.

According to Vw’s KB article on Vw2025 System recommendations (arguably more relevant than C4D & UE) : 

Quote

High-end Profile (macOS):

64GB Unified Memory (M-series) / 12GB VRAM or more is recommended when using multiple displays or a 4K or higher resolution display.
 

Mid-level Profile (macOS):

32GB Unified Memory (M-series) / 8GB VRAM or more is recommended when using multiple displays or a 4K or higher resolution display.

 

Edited September 15 by rDesign

[MMGD]

3 hours ago, line-weight said:

My strategy has been for a while to buy macs second hand. The price you pay can be significantly less than what you'd pay new, but macs tend to be pretty reliable and keep on going for quite a long time, so my perception is that paying the premium for new is not necessary.

 

Don't dismiss the mac mini. Obviously it depends what you want to do in Vectorworks but unless you want to do a lot of rendering, a fairly modestly specced mac will be perfectly capable.

 

I'm still running fine on one of the first generation M1 minis. 16GB of RAM. I work with 3 monitors. I do, sometimes, run into memory issues but only when dealing with unusually (for me) large files and doing certain operations. Day to day, navigating around quite complex models in shaded view works completely smoothly. I don't think I've ever noticed any significant fan noise coming from it (I have with earlier mac minis). For sure, when I next replace the computer I'll be aiming for quite a bit more RAM but at the moment the memory issues are more of an annoyance than a major issue.

 

On the question of desktop vs laptop, isn't it the case that you pay quite a high premium for that portability, for similar specs? As I already have my monitors & keyboard etc and work in such a way that my setup isn't really portable anyway, I tend to stick to the desktop path. An option worth considering is the combination of a mini/studio with an ipad. I've been considering getting an ipad pro to let me be more portable, that could also function as an extra screen/drawing tablet while at my desk.

You’re right about portability and a bit of a premium to pay for this. I wasn’t looking for a laptop but desktop but now this discussion has raised how good the MBP are it’s got me thinking. 
my laptop bought 6 years ago has managed upto vw23. But I dare not put vw24 on it as it won’t cope. 
a recent trip to London and working on the train meant I had to convert files to vw23 version. And back and forth afterwards. And lost some time. Which is making me realise a MBP laptop would probably be a good investment. Maybe studio another day. 

[line-weight]

@MMGD I don't know if things have changed in the past couple of years since I was looking at this last, but there are a few things to look out for as far as external monitors (specifically their resolution/size) are concerned, when you're dealing with MacOS. I found this article helpful the last time I was working out what monitor to get.

 

https://bjango.com/articles/macexternaldisplays2/

[Ross Harris]

Take VW's system requirements with caution... They relate to vectorworks only and don't factor anything else in your workflow that may suck up ram with VW open and actively used - browsers, acrobat, twinmotion, etc.I'd take a system recommendation and double it.

Go big with ram. It's never wasted; unfortunately with apple. Ram and hard drive size is a rort.

Edited September 15 by Ross Harris

[MMGD]

So I'm going to go for a refurbished MBPro and save £500 over new.  I use a vertical mouse with pc at moment due to shoulder issues a couple of years ago.  What do VW users use as mouse with the MBP laptop?

[rDesign]

6 hours ago, MMGD said:

What do VW users use as mouse with the MBP laptop?

Not specific to MBP mice, but here’s a fairly recent thread discussing this:

[Side note, I use a Logitech G502 mouse with the third-party mouse utility SteerMouse.]

 

Edited September 16 by rDesign

[zoomer]

^ I updated that thread according to my Logitech Software/Drivers experience ....

Edited September 16 by zoomer