Steve-C

After working with the Mac Mini for a couple of days I sent it back. As much as I love the Mac OS, their renders don't even come close to a decent windows machine with dedicated graphics. I suppose the M4 Ultra might come close when it is released next year, but I can't see spending $5k for a computer that may come close to the renders I get from a Windows system half the cost (or less).

Are there any resources for importing these textures? All of my imported materials have been 2D, but now that the image quality of CA on a 4K monitor is so good, the lack of pbr is becoming more noticeable.

I just got the Mac Mini M4 Pro yesterday. I was optimistic that it might have enough power to be my main rig, it's close but I will likely trade it in on the M4 Ultra Mac Studio next year. The only reason I bought it was because my video card (4070Ti) crashed in my Windows machine. With that said, PRT image times have been around a minute like Michael said, but I almost never use that feature. I too prefer Mas OS to Windows.

2 hours ago, DBCooper said:

 

Did anyone ever report this to Chief?  If not, you might be waiting for a while.  I kinda doubt they are going to put out any more updates for X16 this late.

 

I was hoping there was an option already built into the current version that offered a way to shut it off. But, considering the lack of responses I guess such an option does not exist.

12 hours ago, mtldesigns said:

@Steve-C I totally agree with you and I said the same thing just a couple days ago.  This thread has a small video to explain what we are talking about.

Sorry I missed that thread. Your video is a perfect example of why I hate it so much. I guess we are both still waiting...

5 minutes ago, GeneDavis said:

Are we talking about the centering axis which appears when we click the centering tool after selecting an object?

Correct. I've had a rare occasion where I could have used corner centering but in the meantime it's driving me nuts trying to center items on a wall.

Is there a way to disable this nonsense? On the rare occasion that I need it I can enable it again, otherwise it's extremely annoying.

Holy cow is this a massive improvement! The ability to break the room box and the presence of wall thicknesses is something I feel like I've been waiting for my whole life lol.

On 11/15/2023 at 2:41 AM, Rich_Winsor said:

I'll probably get lambasted for this but I have never

understood why Chief insists in devoting  so many

resources catering to such a small market share. 

Doesn't make sense on any level to me. 

 

I used Windows machines for the first 10 or 12 years that I used CA (started at version 10). For the last 8 or 9 years I have moved back and forth between Windows and Mac mostly staying with Mac. For my workflow if has proven to be the best option. I don't use RTR and likely never will. I'm solely focused on construction docs because I do a lot of them. I do send exterior 3D images to clients but that is the extent of my dive into that realm, and the MacBook does an exceptional job with those. Editing in 3D is smooth as well. I don't have time to do high end interior or exterior images and I prefer it that way.

I have a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. I originally purchased it for travel and meetings, but it has proven to be a very reliable full-time machine, even with two 32" monitors connected to it (one is 4k). I'm considering an upgrade to the Mac Studio M2 Ultra mainly because I want to add a 3rd monitor for my library (M1 Pro only supports 2 external monitors). I currently use the laptop monitor for that but find myself squinting to find items. Plus it's about time to upsize my storage (yes I know this can easily be done with a Windows desktop). I may hold out for the M3 Ultra but I doubt it will provide a huge advantage over the M2 in my workflow.

As for the Mac OS, in my opinion it is light years ahead of Windows because of it's integration with my phone, iPads and other devices, and support is outstanding. iCloud storage has been the most reliable of the cloud storage services I have used (and I have tried several) which adds even more value to the integration aspects of Mac. The annoyance of Windows software updates is legendary, not to mention graphics card updates, crashes and other Windows annoyances that left me feeling alone when problems arose. The fact that it is open source sometimes creates grey areas when it comes to support. With AppleCare you call one person (in this country) and get the problem resolved quickly. If they can't resolve it remotely, they will pay to have the device shipped overnight to repair it. The last time I had to do that the turnaround time was literally 2 days. They repaired it the day they received it and shipped it back that same day. That is a huge value to me.

I've had this problem before. I had create a CAD detail from view then export and it seemed to solve the issue.

Has anyone else upgraded Mac OS with external monitors? I'm running an M1 laptop with 2 external 32" monitors, I don't want to have this same issue.

11 minutes ago, rgardner said:

@Steve-C (Steve Price) is there and does great work!

I'm actually in Southwest Georgia, but thanks for the kind words.

When this happens I close the plan and quit CA. When I reopen the plan my toolbars at the top are usually unchanged, but the side toolbars get crammed down to the bottom and I have to move them back up. And yes I do use dual 32" monitors, they are identical brand and resolution.

I was really hoping this latest update would have resolved the disappearing toolbars, it did not. Anyone else battling this? It seems to happen 3 or 4 times a week, typically when I change views.

On 7/31/2022 at 6:00 AM, UpNorthBuilder said:

How much memory are you running on your MacBook?  I'm debating whether or not the upgrade from 16gb to 32gb is necessary and worth the additional money.

I'm running 16gb. But to be fair I never expected my MacBook to be anything other than a meetings and travel computer. It runs so well that I now use it exclusively. I would have upgraded if I had known, though I can't imagine it running any better than it does. You could get the M1 pro setup with a 1tb drive, the 24 core gpu and 32gb of RAM, those upgrades are $800 which puts you only a couple hundred under the upgraded chip with similar specs. That considered you may as well get the M1 Max setup which comes with a 1tb drive, 32gb of RAM and a 32 core gpu.

I use the heck out of hotkeys. Once I committed to that practice probably 15 years ago, it cut my design time down considerably.

I got some lame excuse from tech support about it being an iCloud backup issue. Seemed like they were reaching for straws because that doesn't even make sense.

I posed this question before but I never got a response. Hopefully we will get an answer soon.

On 5/2/2022 at 1:03 PM, avstudio said:

I just purchased an MacBook Pro with the M1Max chip. I just downloaded X13 and it runs fine.

I've been using Chief for less than a year and haven't had any issues.

I am just stating to experiment with PBR. The PBR seems to work but it does not support all the features on the PC version that are shown in the Preferences for the Video Card

That's a little disappointing, although for my purposes I don't absolutely need "super realistic" renders.

I hope that CA will provide more support for bettering PBR for Mac users.

You need to download X14 beta, it's specifically designed to run on Apple silicon and it's the most stable beta CA has ever released in my opinion.

I have 2 of these that I absolutely love. BenQ Monitors The clarity seems much better than 2.5k would suggest, and they are relatively inexpensive.

I've been using CA's X14 Beta for 3 days with ZERO issues! I've done everything from room boxes to final layout and have not had one problem yet, just hope I'm not jinxing myself

The fact that they have a version this stable for their first attempt on a new platform is really impressive. Well done CA!

Has anyone had any issues with the native Mac M1 version?

On 3/27/2022 at 11:06 PM, rgardner said:

Looking at monitor options for my studio I ordered.  Are you running twin 4K 32” monitors?  Do you like the 4K for everything?

I'm actually running twin 2.5k Ben-Q monitors. They seem to be less taxing on the graphics performance of the systems I've used over the years. 

So Scott, any chance X14 runs on an iPad?

1 hour ago, para-CAD said:

I spent WAY too much money last year to get a 3080 Ti from Micro Center just to try it out.  It's not something that benefits my plans-for-permit business.  I'm sure its great for sales people, but my clients are mostly builders looking for plans that work and get through the permit office as prescriptive as possible.

 

I just want a stable app that doesn't crash at random times.

Same here. On a side note, I have not had any issue with crashing. I'm running the baseline MacBook pro 16" with the M1 pro chip. I have it hooked up to two 32" monitors and it runs like a champ. What's crazy is I can do that for hours on battery power and it barely gets warm. It's light years better than the last generation MBP which would not even run an external monitor without the power source plugged in and would scream bloody murder with two monitors.