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    System choice; to Mac or not

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    • B Offline
      bertb
      last edited by

      Hello everybody, I'm back after a busy summer.
      In the mean time my notebook (Vaio AR21, 17", 18 months old) broke down, GPU problems ; rows of pixels down;bad or no service; on my officeI have a desktop of 5 years old, 24" monitor and hardly any problems, Normally I use to work in a combination of SU and Autocad and, if needed some rendering programs, very easy under WinXP but now considering a switch to Mac.
      My work is architectural and my SU files are between 8 and 12 Mb; rendered in Podium or (happy with it) LightUp.
      Question 1: Now buying a Macbook Pro ,15" for working on the road, giving presentations (comparing with my 17" now ), working on the office with a 24" monitor is a good choice to get use to the MacOS ?
      Question 2: If 1. goes well, buying a MacPro for the office with the best specs I can get (see Hardware etc in this forum) and so change the complete system for an affordable budget in a couple of months?
      Question 3. I'm used to have Autocad open all the time using SU, due to quite complex plans I have to look at. As Autocad doesn't run directly on MacOS and I dont want to switch through Parallels or Bootcamp how do you guys a. import DWG or DXF files in SU? Do you convert all plans and use them in Vectorworks? As you will have noticed I am not very experienced but did mana untill know.
      All of your advises, warnings and opinions are most welcome.

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      • G Offline
        gwtcoombes
        last edited by

        I moved over to mac about a year or so ago and have loved it! But I will try and help you with your questions;

        1: Yes working on a 24" is a good choice and if eventually only use the mac then I'm sure you can connect it up for more eye friendly working.
        2: If you have an experience with building a computer, or at least a screw driver, I would look into which of the specs can be bought for a cheaper price. 99 times out of 100 you can by cheaper RAM off another trusted website for a fraction of Apple's price. Also its not always necessary to have all the apple branded hardware.
        3: Wether you run windows or mac os x on the macbook pro it will still run a lot better than using any pc in my opinion. And if you also look, I'm sure one of the two (parallel/bootcamp) will run in a smaller window within the mac os x. and so you can still run Autocad.
        To answer your question on importing into SketchUp, I create a layer of 2d plans and import all the plans into this, deleting on the way the information that has been imported but isn't of any relevance. Once all the plans are imported and in the right positions in reference to each other (more than one layer may be needed if there are a lot of plans) you can then start tracing around and start to build up the model. There is no need to use VectorWorks usually.

        Hope this helps...

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        • bigstickB Offline
          bigstick
          last edited by

          I switched to the Mac last November (specifically for testing Podium on the Mac) and after an uneasy settling-in period I'm very happy with my MacBook Pro. It runs XP reasonable well under VMWare Fusion, but SketchUp is slow. VMWare Fusion supports multi-core processors for Windows, whereas Parallels doesn't, but this isn't the only consideration when you choose which to go for.

          In my office in the last month I switched to OS X with an 8 core Mac Pro with 8Gb of RAM. Nice and quick, but as always with a really good spec, you expect everything to be instant, and it's not ๐Ÿ˜‰

          I use Podium and SketchUp happily, with Vectorworks. The latest version (2009) supports drag & drop import of AutoCAD and SketchUp files. I have imported AutoCAD files into SketchUp on the Mac without any problems. In the office my Mac is one of only a handful in a predominantly Windows environment. Everything is networked and Entourage works really well with Windows 2003 server. Actually networking generally is problem-free. With Podium, SketchUp and Vectorworks, I have access to most things I need. The problems I have had relate mainly to lack of Photoshop plugins. Things like Redfield's Seamless Workshop don't work on OS X, and there are a few other little utilities that I miss.

          All in all, OS X has worked really well for me. Podium v1.5 was significantly faster on OS X than Windows. Until multi-core v1.6 beta was released, the fastest render times were with MacBook Pros, even competing against custom-built powerful desktop machines. Podium v1.6 for OS X will be out soon, and I'm hoping that it will exhibit the same superiority in terms of speed that v1.5 did.

          In conclusion, for me it's all good, and not having to worry about viruses and spyware is brilliant!

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          • H Offline
            Hazza
            last edited by

            When I was looking to buy a new laptop last year this is what it came down to:

            1. $4000 Apple running Ubuntu Linux
            2. $2000 Dell running Ubuntu Linux
              It was not a hard decision.

            See all of my SketchUp models here.

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            • B Offline
              bertb
              last edited by

              Thanks for your comments; it helps me in my decision to switch.
              Just this remark :
              [quote="bigstick"]. It runs XP reasonable well under VMWare Fusion, but SketchUp is slow.
              Has anyone any relevant information how quick SU runs on the new Apple MacbookPro 15"
              Would be very interesting to hear
              Bert

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              • sketch3d.deS Offline
                sketch3d.de
                last edited by

                a Dell Precision M series notebook w/ fastest dual core CPU, 4GB RAM, a 'Quadro FX' GPU and Vista w/ XP downgrade is currently the best system for running SU (and AC too), at least if you wanna have a mature OpenGL support of the video sub system.

                hth,
                Norbert

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                • bigstickB Offline
                  bigstick
                  last edited by

                  @bertb said:

                  Has anyone any relevant information how quick SU runs on the new Apple MacbookPro 15"
                  Would be very interesting to hear
                  Bert

                  I meant that SU runs slowly under VMWare on the MBP. The OS X native version of SketchUp works perfectly well. It's fast enough for me and I work on some reasonably-detailed models. I wouldn't go back to Windows by choice, and I have far more experience with it than I have with OS X.

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                  • bigstickB Offline
                    bigstick
                    last edited by

                    @hazza said:

                    When I was looking to buy a new laptop last year this is what it came down to:

                    1. $4000 Apple running Ubuntu Linux
                    1. $2000 Dell running Ubuntu Linux

                    Why on earth would anyone want to buy a Mac to run Linux? The point about Apple MacBooks, is that they are much higher quality machines from what I have seen compared with other laptops. Compare the Sony Vaios instead for example, hideously expensive, awful support, and not a great deal of performance for the money. You pay for the style and quality.

                    With Apple machines, you pay for little touches like good battery life, the Magsafe power connector, isight camera, slim elegant case, great screen 802.11n wifi, slot-loading dvd combo drive, great battery life, lack of noise, great illuminated keyboard, lack of viruses, lack of spyware, double-tap right clicking, 2 finger scrolling, no driver problems etc. Yes they are more expensive, but if you want quality you have to pay for it. Comparing it with a cheap poorer quality machine is pointless. You can always find something cheaper. It's like comparing a Hyundai with a Lexus.

                    My machine is slim, light, fast, quiet, and a pleasure to use. it is by far the best laptop I have ever used. I chose to pay 20-30% more, but I think it's worth it.

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                    • H Offline
                      Hazza
                      last edited by

                      @bigstick said:

                      Why on earth would anyone want to buy a Mac to run Linux?

                      They wouldn't, my primary OS is Linux and I detest Windows but I do use it when I have to. I was looking to buy a Mac as an alternative but not at that price.

                      See all of my SketchUp models here.

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                      • thomthomT Offline
                        thomthom
                        last edited by

                        FYI> If you plan to render models from SketchUp you'll have more options if you're on a PC system.

                        Other than that, it's all a matter of what you prefer.

                        Thomas Thomassen โ€” SketchUp Monkey & Coding addict
                        List of my plugins and link to the CookieWare fund

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