Steve-C

1 hour ago, Chrisb222 said:

 

Haha, I was looking at those recently too. They have better architecture than the Mac Pro tower, but I understand they're revamping the pro tower for this year.

 

I use a humble late-14 i5 Mac Mini. It runs X9 just peachy, even (2) 24" monitors with OOB video.

Yeah, I'm curious to see what they do with the Pro. The "trash can" design was cool but it was lacking in upgradability.

Here's a modest upgrade for ya Scott! 

I use a MacBook Pro so I doubt you would see any better performance from my rig.

On 10/25/2017 at 7:45 PM, AndyGump said:

I never realized there was such a thing.

 

Andy.

Neither did I. And here I've spent the last 11 years trying to figure this thing out 

It might have to do with force touch. Prior to force touch things were quite different. Every time I get on my wife's 2012 MBP it drives me nuts trying to remember which gesture did what. As far as I know the touch gestures now are universal. The only setting I'm aware of is control of the mouse scroll sensitivity in preferences, which is a great feature.

On 10/4/2017 at 9:16 AM, NRST8TRKR said:

Just raising the roof isn't going to help if the ceiling isn't raised. That is where you will get clearance for the doors.

Have a great week,Ken

This!

My garage door guy says he "prefers" 9'-3" clearance for and 8' overhead door but he has squeezed them into a 9'-1 1/8" high ceiling. Most 9' ceiling homes have at least a 3.5" drop at the garage floor so this is usually not an issue. However, if the roof is an 8/12 or better your soffit will be right at the door trim. The best way to overcome this is to raise the heel height on a truss or set the rafters above the ceiling joists.

Next time try using a manual roof return. Auto roof returns can be temperamental. I opened the plan and changed the 2D wall color (cause the baby blue was making my head spin) and the roof return corrected itself.

I'm using my new Macbook Pro exclusively now (see specs below). I run it on a 32" monitor at the office and take it with me whenever I travel. It is super convenient to always have everything with me.

Is any one else experiencing this? See the attached images. They are the exact same camera view, lighting, settings, etc but the shadows are drastically different. I'm getting this same result on every plan but only today discovered that it was related to the terrain. I've tried changing the material, even completely removed the texture but had no positive results. It's almost as if I'm getting significant reflection from the terrain but I can adjust the material enough to make any difference.

On 7/23/2017 at 11:47 AM, Kbird1 said:

I use the BenQ 32" BL3200PT have done for 2 years , it is a great monitor , in fact I just got a 2nd with a bunch of visa Rewards Points. Color is excellent

just funnily enough DON'T use the CAD/CAM mode , it is horrible colour wise, but I can post User Mode settings if you buy one. Benq has a newer Model

now which is why I was able to get a 2nd at a reduced price ,but at least here , I still see it available occasionally.  It is 2560x1440 or QHD resolution , I found for me that 4K meant many things were too small but that was 2 years ago and Win10 and many programs have likely updated since then.

 

http://www.benq.com.au/product/monitor/bl3200pt/specifications/

 

This is the newer Full 4k  model

http://www.benq.com.au/product/monitor/bl3201pt

 

found some Oz pricing ($499 lowest) if you can find one in stock... which is about the same as here

https://www.staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=Benq BL3200PT&spos=5

 

just ran into another post , Steve-C is using the Benq with an Imac here

 

 

Yes that is the BenQ monitor I have and it is an excellent monitor. I have run my Macbook pro on it as also and it does admirably consider it has integrated graphics. I'm about to purchase the Kaby Lake Macbook Pro with the Radeon 560, I'm sure it will be quite an improvement.

1 hour ago, basilbabaa said:

 

Yeah, I saw that.  I was hoping for  new Mac Pro also, and...  last I checked Apple stopped making monitors.  I have 2 Thunderbolts and like them because they are very bright other 3rd Part things I've looked at even in 5K just don't have the brilliance.  Plus I;d feel weird about having a 5K iMac Pro and a Thunderbolt next to it....  as rumored  I wish Apple would make monitors again to match their hardware...

They've been touting an LG 5k monitor that's getting marginal reviews. I'm like you, I wish they still made their own monitors.

6 hours ago, basilbabaa said:

I am a Mac user for 8 years now, and so sticking with the Apple EcoSystem for now, but, I want faster walk-thru renderings and ray-tracing.

 

I currently use X9 on a

 

MacBook Pro4 Core  (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013)

2.6 GHz Intel Core i7  16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M

w/ attached Dual Thunderbolt Monitors

 

I am considering a fully maxed Mac Pro if I can think I can get a 35-40%+ improvement in rendering performance over my current laptop for walk-thru's and raytracing.

 

So my questions:  

1. (8) 3Ghz Cores or (12) 2.7Ghz Cores?
2. 16, 32, or 64 GB (does memory impact rendering and ray-tracing?)
3. CPU or GPU

in ranking order which of the above has the greatest impact in rendering and ray-tracing for how that the current Mac version of X9 is built.

 

Is it worth maxing out a Mac Pro? Can a currently maxed iMac sufficiently perform in comparison to potential diminishing returns of moving further on to the maxed out Mac Pro?

 

Thanks.

iMac Pro comes out later this year. https://www.apple.com/imac-pro/

I have the same issue on my Windows 10 machine, and it's pretty spec'd out. My MacBook Pro loads in no time. I did create a few more folders for specific items and it seemed to help, but still a noticeable lag.

Thanks Richard. I remember that thread from a few months back but a search did not bring it up. Has anyone heard if legacy shadows will be brought back?

Why did they get rid of this in X9? Is there a setting to get better quality shading than the image attached? I've got hardware edge smoothing set to "high". I've also experimented with bloom and ambient occlusion with very little results.

Wow! I guess folks will do whatever it takes to meet egress codes 

Try recessing the door

On 1/18/2017 at 1:11 PM, Richard_Morrison said:

Wow, I've never heard of a framer who wanted center dimensions They all seem to want dimensions to faces so they don't have to do any math.

This! Heaven forbid these guys have to add or subtract 1 3/4" or 2 3/4"! 

I've noticed more crashes on my Windows machine than my Mac which is unusual. However the auto archive function has worked on both. I had one instance recently where a crash occurred about an hour into an elevation plan. I constantly save plans but didn't think to save the camera view and you guessed it.... camera view was lost, my fault. Just a reminder to others, save your elevation windows after the first line is drawn! :-)

I use auto exterior dimensions and max out the reach under defaults, otherwise you'll be doing more manual stuff than necessary. Interior auto dimensions are a nightmare, I tried it a few times and never looked back. I would say 80% to 90% of my dimensions are done manually. I personally round to the nearest inch on most of my dimensions but I occasionally drop to 1/2" depending on the situation. That would clean up some of what you are seeing. You may also want to reduce the number size to 4" or 5", you're currently at 6". I would also recommend setting your "locate objects" default for openings to center rather than sides. My personal preference is to use a slash at 3" rather than an arrow, it saves room on those close dimensions.

I've done this as well, huge time saver. Since I fully committed to this a few years back it has cut my design time by at least 25%.

Thank you sir! Figured it was simple but that was almost too simple. I should have figured that one out on my own. Thanks again!

Is there a way to adjust the darkness of the shading in an elevation view? I tried adjusting the light intensity with no result. This particular plan has a fairly deep front porch and the walls seem to get lost because they are all shaded. I could lower the angle of the light source but then I lose much of the shading effect on the gables and overhangs.

Now thats what I call a room addition! It makes the original house look like a storage shed. Nice work.

On 3/4/2017 at 8:36 PM, dshall said:

I gave up using the Magic Mouse and now use a hard wired Logitech mouse.

 

i am not sure if we are discussing the same issue.

It's a subtle lagging of the mouse pointer that has bugged me since the Mac version of CA was introduced. For me turning off the crosshairs resolved the issue. I hate the magic mouse, in fact I hate any mouse on a Mac. The "accelerated pointer" software they use drives me absolutely insane. I only use the trackpad. Even when hooked up to my 32" monitor I use the Magic Trackpad.

On 3/4/2017 at 5:51 PM, JMorelli said:

X9 seems to have fixed this problem, AND I can have my crosshairs on

Nice! Have only downloaded X9 on my field measuring machine but really have not had time to work with it. I'll be curious to see how this works.