SU Pro 2013: Mac... or Windows + BootCamp (or Parallels)?
-
Thanks for the feedback Steve - exactly the kind of info I'm interested in.
@slbaumgartner said:
I have a MBP Retina with Windows 7 running under Parallels.
Close to the setup that I'll likely end up with. Waiting for the Haswell version of the MacBook Pro 13" Retina and assuming that it has a decent graphics setup (i.e. Iris 5100), I'll spring for it — also looking forward to the vastly improved dual monitor support in Mavericks.
@slbaumgartner said:
Since both have issues, your choice ends up being based on which kind of glitches bother you the most.
Seems from what you've said that my best bet is to test both Mac and PC versions of Make and see which glitches on what platform end up bugging me more before deciding which pro license to spring for...
Since most of my modeling will be done at my desk — hooked up to a couple of Dell monitors (U2412M) — the Retina Display issues you describe may not end up being that significant in my case.
Plus, I have to imagine that most of those bugs will get squashed with time — especially since pixel density is becoming a PC issue also, (with the current adoption of high-density displays in ultrabooks)
Thanks again.
-
Q5: SUP licences are either for Windows or OSX regardless of running on the same system, i.e. you have to decide which platform to buy.
Q2: running an OpenGL based modeler as SU in a virtualized OS by using e.g. Parallels DT may lead to slow responsiveness with screen transformations (zooming, rotating, moving etc.) as well as show artefacts for the screen output.
hth,
Norbert -
@sketch3d.de said:
Q5: SUP licences are either for Windows or OSX regardless of running on the same system, i.e. you have to decide which platform to buy.
Thanks Norbert, for your feedback and the licensing clarification... I was afraid that was the case.
The other consideration for running a Windows version under Parallels vs. the native Mac version is that I want to learn rendering once I have my new machine (plan is to start with Kyrkethea and move to Thea when and if I figure it all out). I would imagine that there would be an additional performance hit rendering within a virtual machine - not to mention the higher likelihood of additional glitches.
Will probably end up buying the Mac version - seems less risky overall, even if there are some Windows version advantages that I'll miss out on. Still plan to test both free versions before making the final call.
Thanks again.
-
I would not recommend a virtual machine for rendering, if the boot camp is a option go with that, for example you might have hard time to get CUDA work in VM. Anyhow for Thea or Kerkythea the boot camp is not needed as there are mac versions for both.
-
@notareal said:
Anyhow for Thea or Kerkythea the boot camp is not needed as there are mac versions for both.
Good point. Even if I did my drawing in Windows (whether Parallels VM or BootCamp), I can still render natively in OSX. The two decisions (of drawing vs rendering environments) share no necessary dependency — at least with KT / Thea as the choice of renderer.
Thanks for your thoughts.
-
I'll be interested to hear what you think about using SketchUp on the two platforms.
-
Personally I would avoid VM if program uses OpenGL too, I seen odd behaviour with that. So be it CUDA or OpenGL, stay away of VM. There are good uses for VM, but mainly on server side, testing and so... but for workstation, you really need to know what you are doing if you want to use VM.
-
@dave r said:
I'll be interested to hear what you think about using SketchUp on the two platforms.
I'll definitely report back once I'm set up —though it could be a couple of months still (since the latest rumors suggest a late October launch for Mavericks and it seems likely that the hardware and OS upgrades will be synced.).
@notareal said:
Personally I would avoid VM if program uses OpenGL too, I seen odd behaviour with that. So be it CUDA or OpenGL, stay away of VM. There are good uses for VM, but mainly on server side, testing and so... but for workstation, you really need to know what you are doing if you want to use VM.
I appreciate your advise, especially given your expertise. One of the things that I'll apparently have to pay attention to is the Open GL / CUDA rift relative to the combination of graphics card/render platform (as if there wasn't enough complexity to deal with in rendering already!).
Once I get closer to actually springing for the new computer / SU Pro / render platform I may have some more questions, but for now I really appreciate all the well-informed feedback. Awesome place here!
-
I use windows at the office, and osx at home. I like sketchup better on windows, the material editor is a lot better, and I can have antialiasing on, which can also be done on the mac, via a ruby command, but it is buggy. On windows it works great with my nvidia video card. If those two things were addressed on the mac, I would jump to osx.
One thing the mac does, that windows does not is multiple document windows, on windows you have to launch a separate instance per file. You get used to doing this, but I prefer single app, multiple windows. Also, osx can export png's with transparent background.
The people that develop twilight render helped me with a license for windows, and a learning license for my mac, for the same price.
Layout works great on both platforms, but I prefer to use it on osx, and this is just my opinion, but for example, the colors palette that works terribly on sketchup as a material selector/editor, works great with layout. Also, the mac version supports importing pdf files (also in sketchup if I remember correctly), windows does not. I also like the font selector on the mac more.
I would also advice against running sketchup virtualized. I use autocad, for some 2d stuff, that program seems to work ok virtualized, but sketchup would not run well, esp, open gl.
One thing I wish would improve on osx is more related to hardware, better entry level machines. Apple has moved away from discrete graphics for all entry level hardware, and only offers it on 15" macbooks, and some imacs, but not on their line of macbook air, or mac minis, or even on their 13" retina macbook. Intel graphics are imo inferior to even entry level nvidia cards, esp. for sketchup work.
-
@caronte01 said:
...Apple has moved away from discrete graphics for all entry level hardware, and only offers it on 15" macbooks, and some imacs, but not on their line of macbook air, or mac minis, or even on their 13" retina macbook. Intel graphics are imo inferior to even entry level nvidia cards, esp. for sketchup work.
It's shame indeed... Honestly, if machine needs to be good with CUDA, maybe macbook pro is not the ideal choice as they GPU's have fairly limited RAM (512MB to 1GB). Not sure what's with next Mac Pro, looks like it will have state-of-the-art AMD FirePro GPU cards, so no CUDA there too (from published images it looks like one simple cannot swaps those to nvidia cards).
Advertisement