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Anyone running SolidWorks on a Mac? 15

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cmm

cmm

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Jan 11, 2002
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Anyone running SW via Boot Camp or Parallels? I notice someone posted this question mid last year. Currently only Mac Pro has a SW-certified graphics card (Quadro FX 4500) as an option, but I'd rather use the cleaner iMac or a Macbook Pro if I could get away with it. The thought of specifying another piecemeal Wintel box at work makes me cringe now that I've experienced Apple. If on SW ran natively on OSX...


Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer
 
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rfus,

Your system spec is very unusual, when you look at the PC market as a whole. (Obviously, it not unusual for a high end CAD system.) You would have to compare it to the Mac Pro with an upgraded Quadro Card. I didn't research those, so I cannot comment. If you built it yourself, did you factor in the cost of the time you spent building, setting up, debugging, etc . . .? I've built plenty of systems, and I actually have enjoyed it. But, it does take my time away from doing other things, and that has a cost associated with it. On high end notebooks, it's a different story. I don't know of too many people rolling their own notebooks.

I don't have a lot of firsthand experience, but I have read that Apple has released it's share of bugs, too. It would seem to be far fewer. All of these systems are complicated, for sure. I expect to occasionally come across something strange. I don't however, expect to be sold a new computer (HP), that contains a new opererating system (Vista), that just doesn't work. When I can't run all of my software (old and new), and it won't even do something as basic as print (with new HP printer), correctly, then my view remains the same. BTW, this same new box and printer runs great with XP Pro.

The best part is that we actually do have a choice!

-Tony Staples
 
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Look at this on the requirements pages of solidworks.com:

"Please Note: SolidWorks 2007 is not currently supported on Apple Mac®-based machines. Please consult your reseller for future updates."

Very straight forward, but do you think the "future updates" part means they are considering/testing it?

I don't think this mention was there before, I guess they must of gotten a lot of questions concerning the new macs. They could not "ignore" it as much as before...
 
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With the advent of BootCamp and Parallels, there may never be a true Mac compatible SW version. However, I believe tech support will have to be provided if or when the popularity of MacTels increases and the customer base demands it.

[cheers]
SW07-SP3
 
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There is a lot of speculation concerning new features in the next major release of OS X (i.e. Leopard), which is due this "spring," according to Apple. Some are speculating that the virtualization functionality of Parallels may be included in Leopard. That would pretty much make it a no-brainer to move Solidworks over "officially" onto the Mac platform. All they would have to do is tweak the code to work through the Video Driver and take full advantage of hardware acceleration.



-Tony Staples
 
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A friend forwarded this thread to me....and reminded me I am a member here.

I use the Mac platform for running a decidedly windows based 3 D printing system. If this sounds like a sales pitch...it isn't. Don't call me. ;-)

I simply like Mac Vs Windows arguments...and I especially enjoy my business runs entirely Mac.

As a Mac user for 10 years I was naturally drawn to CAD applications for Mac.
I use 2D PowerCADD and 3D Ashlar Vellum Cobalt.
Cobalt is dual platform. The files it export to the printer have proved flawless. No problems. I've had zero troubles.

Cobalt screams on the windows side....but because of the new duel core......intel thing....Cobalt does not work nearly as food on the Mac side but that will be changing in a few days.

Here is a movie. If you don't have high speed or upgraded Quicktime....don't try the link:


I run BootCamp because I am told it handles 3D data better than Parallels.

As a Mac user, the worse thing about the process is getting used to the unproductive manner of the windows platform. It reminds me of riding a bus. I feel dirty after using it. I prefer to draw on the Mac side and only use the windows side for printing.

The Mac Mighty Mouse? It has the right click feature...you simply set it in preferences.

Here is a slideshow of a recent 3D printing job.


This video shows my iMac running Bootcamp running a ZCorp 510 Spectrum full color 3D printer:


I should point out ZCorp advised me against going with a Mac and BootCamp.
My vender advised the same thing.
I talked to an Apple Engineer who said.....a mac running on BootCamp in Win Xp- sp2 is in fact a windows machine. Of course it will work!

For you diehard windows guys....my Mac diatribe was tongue and cheek.
;-)

GallupZcorp299.jpg
 
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My issue with getting the Mac for Solidworks is that The Software costs more than the machine. Add to that the maintenance whihc will become a mute point if the issue you might have points to the graphics.

Solidworks told me they have 0 plans to work on a Mac version. It would be a waste of their resources.


I like the real view graphics which do not work on the mac
The 2008 Solidworks will also need specific graphics cards to work. The only mac Graphics card that will run correctly on Solidworks is a $1700 upgrade !

Mac Laptop Graphics are not supported.

Why wont Mac offere the NVidia grapics for their Laptops?
If they did that everything would be great!
 
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pdybeck,

I finally got a chance over the holiday weekend to download and run the benchmark tests. The specific SPEC apc Solidworks 2005 benchmark you listed would not run. When you start the benchmark, it starts by looking for a copy of Solidworks 2005 running on the machine. Since I run Solidworks 2007 SP3, it would only abort with an error message about not finding SW 2005. I don't have an old copy of SW2005, so I could not even rig it up on a flash drive. No dice.

However, the general SPEC benchmark test SPEC viewperf 9 does run, and the results are pasted in here:


---------- SUM_RESULTS\3DSMAX\SUMMARY.TXT
3dsmax-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 9.389

---------- SUM_RESULTS\CATIA\SUMMARY.TXT
catia-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 9.990

---------- SUM_RESULTS\ENSIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
ensight-03 Weighted Geometric Mean = 6.411

---------- SUM_RESULTS\LIGHT\SUMMARY.TXT
light-08 Weighted Geometric Mean = 7.067

---------- SUM_RESULTS\MAYA\SUMMARY.TXT
maya-02 Weighted Geometric Mean = 9.589

---------- SUM_RESULTS\PROE\SUMMARY.TXT
proe-04 Weighted Geometric Mean = 3.629

---------- SUM_RESULTS\SW\SUMMARY.TXT
sw-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 7.545

---------- SUM_RESULTS\TCVIS\SUMMARY.TXT
tcvis-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 1.695

---------- SUM_RESULTS\UGNX\SUMMARY.TXT
ugnx-01 Weighted Geometric Mean = 5.473

There are comparitive results on the spec site. I think this taxes OpenGL graphics more than the CPU. Since the the ATI 1600 card isn't an Open GL card, it's performance is going to suffer due to the software involved. Still, it's comparative data.




-Tony Staples
 
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Tony,

Thanks for doing that. Looks like the performance is not very good comparatively speaking. Could be the OpenGL issue that you mentioned, but I am a little skeptical still. There used to be a site where there were several benchmarks - Star 2.1, patbench, etc... This was discussed over at comp.cad for a while. You could always try running the ship in a bottle test and see what the rebuild times are. This would eliminate openGL and just look at processing, I think...


For everyone else... Here is the link to SPEC viewperf 9 for comparative purposes...


There has got to be a way to benchmark your system more clearly. I would be interested in seeing multiple runs on different benchmarks. Until then, I am still a little skeptical. Thanks for all the time you put in on this thread.

Pete
 
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What is the record for the longest thread? ;-)
I would be willing to bet that you Mac haters out there haven't tried using one since they switched to Intel. Check 'em out. I didn't abandon Windows at home because I wanted a Mac. I hadn't used a Mac since I was a kid. I abandoned Windows because it is broken. After making the switch I was in awe for months. As engineers you will appreciate Macs even more than normal people. Yes, it is a more tightly controlled environment than Windows, but that's why everything works so well. If Apple dominated the personal computing market like they dominate music, then I would be concerned by the closed nature of their platform. But they don't, Microsoft does by a large margin. I wish it would stay this way forever, with Apple (led by Steve Jobs) working to gain market share by innovating. Windows users (myself included, when I'm at work) will continue to struggle and be disappointed. If you think all it will take is a few service packs to make Vista a refined OS, then you've unconsciously lowered your standards. I know I did. XP, fully updated, is light years behind Tiger in every way. You don't know what you're missing. And you don't have to use a one-button mouse.. I center and right click all the time. :)


Chris Montgomery
Mechanical Engineer
 
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Having been with pc's since DOS came out, switching to a non-pc (Apple) would give me a brain hemorrhage. [hairpull3]
Just kidding. I could manage Apple, just choose not to.

Chris
SolidWorks 07 3.0/PDMWorks 07
AutoCAD 06
ctopher's home (updated 04-08-07)
 
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Pete,

I'm in the middle of moving right at the moment. Once I get settled, and I get some free time (yeah, right!), or else I just get exhausted and collapse in front of the computer one evening (much more likely scenario!) I will see about running the benchmark.




-Tony Staples
 
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I've got Solidworks loaded onto a 17" MacBookPro under Bootcamp. It runs perfectly, except Real View Graphics is not available. My main machine is a Mac, but have done most of my CAD on a separate Windows PC desktop. It is wonderful to be able to do everything on a single portable machine.

It's the best of both worlds.
 
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tgmcg,

I couldn't agree with you more. I find I use bootcamp only for running Solidworks, and use Parallels for one piece of old custom software that has to have Windows. Other than that, I just run OS X. I use OpenOffice, which is open source, free, and handles all of my MS Office files with ease. It's a great platform. I've been using this for 4 months now, and there is no way I could go back to just Windows.

If you have a moment, can you download and run the SPECapcSM for SolidWorks 2007, referenced and linked above. It would be good to see the benchmark, and I'm really tied up for the next few weeks with moving. I know I used to have a family, somewhere. I wonder what box the movers put them in!




-Tony Staples
 
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How well does the MacBookPro handle sleep mode when running Boot Camp? Ive used Toshiba, IBM, and HP notebook PCs with graphics cards on a train during my commute. In every case I have to shut down and cold boot every time I close and open the case. I spend 10 at of 30 minutes waiting to boot or shut down. I've been borrowing a MacBook for Word and Excel use lately and it wakes up and sleeps far more reliably. Can you just close the lid and put it in a briefcase, then take it out and open the lid and start working? The Mac is the first Notebook I've used that does this reliably. I can't tell if the hardware in the notebook manages the sleep mode better or if it's OSX that is more stable - then I'm running XP I might expect to see the same delays.

Thanks,
PW
 
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spaceaged,

I will have to test this. I normally don't stay in Windows XP long enough to worry about sleep mode. In fact, the more I use OS X, the more I try to minimize the time spent in Windows. (I guess I'm becoming a Mac zealot! <lol>)

You are correct about the sleep mode. My Macbook Pro is the first notebook I've ever had that does sleep mode properly. It wakes up almost instantly. Everything works flawlessly. The longest time is the few extra seconds it takes to re-establish the wireless internet connection. That typically takes about 10 seconds on mine, after it resumes. I have also had it in sleep mode, on low battery, and it does a flawless auto shutdown as well, once the battery goes critical during sleep mode. My windows machines just pooped out, and would do an auto checkdisk the next time it was powered up and booted, because it had not previously been shut down properly.

I suspect that it's endemic to OS X. I doubt that even with Apple's drivers, that XP will handle sleep mode as gracefully as OS X. However, one test is worth a thousand expert opinions, so I will test this the next opportunity I get.

-Tony Staples
 
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