Steve-C

I suppose I should use this opportunity to give some props to the developers of CA as well. They have done good job of improving the efficiency of the program.

Yes it's Iris Pro. Integrated graphics have made huge strides in the last few years. Obviously it's still better to have a graphics card but it's not as critical an element as it used to be. My Sony touch screen has built in graphics and a dual core processor and it runs pretty well too. Of course I mostly use if for inputing field measurements but I have built 3D models with it.

I was posting in another thread earlier about Mac's and PC's and I decided to revisit something that has bother me for years; the jumpy Mac pointer. I felt this deserved it's own thread because it is rarely mentioned but I know the problem exists among other Mac users. I've owned a few Mac's and PC's over the years and this is one issue that has plagued me on Mac's (iMac and Macbook Pro). I've (sort of) gotten used to it but I wished it would just work better. Well, I have good news and bad news, the good news is I finally figured out the problem, the bad news is you will have to turn off your cross hairs. I just figured this out this morning so time will tell if I can get used to not having the cross hairs, but man it sure is nice to have a smooth pointer again!

cweber, I am currently using last years Macbook pro 15" i7 2.2 ghz processor with no dedicated graphics card and it runs admirably. I picked it up mainly to have a decent machine for travel but it worked so well that it's my main rig now. I even run it on a BenQ 32" 2560 x 1440 and it still runs like a top. The advances in hardware and software over the last 3 or 4 years have been nothing short of amazing. As recently as 4 years ago you could never walk in to a Best Buy and pull something off the shelf that ran CA efficiently, now you could easily do that. With that said, I plan on upgrading to the new Macbook pro this year if for no other reason than to have a larger drive. The system I bought last year only has a 256gb drive which was fine for a travel machine but not my main rig. When I do upgrade I will very likely get the lower end model (2.6ghz i7 with the 450 gpu) mainly because it will be light years faster that the system I'm already happy with. To clarify, I almost never do any ray tracing. If I do I will use my Windows desktop rig mainly because of the cooling capacity. I mostly do residential home design, my largest plans come in around 7000 to 8000sf under roof but most are under 5000 with an average file size under 15MB. If you are doing larger commercial projects you should consider going with the 2.9ghz processor and the 460 gpu. Also, go with at least a 512gb drive, they are nominally faster drives but worth the upgrade. As a rule I try not to let my drive get more than 50% full, advice I got from a friend in the hardware design business. Also worth mentioning, the speeds of this year's SSD's are insane! Another Mac advantage in my usage experience is Finder verses Windows Explorer. Finder is much simpler to organize than file explorer in my opinion. Why Windows hasn't added the ability to tag folders after all these years is beyond me. That is my most used feature in Finder. Anyway, hope this helps.

The real issue is that I like using two finger scroll on every other app but CA. That particular gesture is horribly glitchy on my Macbook. However, pinch to zoom in and out is as smooth as butter, even better than Windows with a mouse, go figure. As for the scroll bars I never use them anyway, I was just responding to some previous comments, but thanks again.

Nice option but it sucks if you are back and forth between CA and just about any other app. Guess I could just keep that window open. Helpful info though, thanks.

He's right, toggled on there are still no scrolls on screen full time, if fact I'm not really sure if there is even a way to use the scroll bars on a mac. I just did a hotkey for "pan window" and I just drag my way around the screen. That has worked out pretty well for me, mainly because that's what I do on my Windows machines.

This has been an issue for me for some time now. I bought an iMac 2 or 3 years ago and I tried several different mice, some wired and some wireless with no positive results.I ended up selling it to a relative mainly because of this one issue. I also notice it on my Macbook Pro but it's only when using CA. I've never experienced this issue with any Windows machine. I would love to see this issue resolved or at lease get some input as to what settings can be changed to alleviate the problem.

Fusion drive is ok but I would go all SSD if I could afford it. Most people can deal with a 512gb SSD on their laptop if it's not their main rig, unless you use it for heavy media use.

Integrated graphics processors are getting better all the time. If you are not planning to do a lot of intensive 3D models then a dedicated card is not as important as it used to be. I have a Macbook pro and a Sony Vaio Duo, neither have a dedicated card and both run admirably in 3D. With that said my desktop rig has a GTX 980Ti card and it smokes both laptops obviously, but I can still be fairly productive on either laptop w/o the dedicated card.

Ditto. Huge help when zooming in tight on detail drawings.

I would be interested to hear if tech support resolved this issue. I've use CA X7 and X8 on two Macbook pro laptops and when I use a mouse it's very jerky, the trackpad however is smooth as silk. Fortunately when I'm on the Macbook I'm more inclined to use the trackpad anyway but I don't really have a choice in the matter because of this issue. I have no trouble with the mouse on any other application, only CA. This is also one of the reasons I bailed on my iMac a couple of years back.

Try this LINK By the way, you can get to the Nvidia control panel by right clicking on your desktop. On the drop down menu choose CA.

I've been using CA for 10 years. I had my 1st set of working drawings within a month. Looking back compared to what I turn out now they were crap. It probably took me 2 years before I was proficient with the program but probably 4 or 5 before I really mastered it. Those first few years were difficult because I would run in to situations that I could not resolve without help. Now when I run into an issue I can usually figure it out on my own because I've learned enough about the program to understand how it thinks and what causes certain problems. Occasionally I still need help from tech support but that is rare and usually ends up being a software problem that gets resolved. With that said I would have to give it a 10 as well but it's worth the effort. One piece of advice I would give anyone learning CA is to use the hotkeys. Figure out your most used commands and create your own hotkeys. I've probably cut my design time in half over the years by using this one feature.

I added the crop tool to my perspective view toolbar, it saves a little time.

Figured I would update this thread for the benefit of those who are research junkies like me when it comes to computers. I bought a 15" Macbook Pro recently and many of the issues I had before are no longer a problem. pdf file sizes are larger than my Windows machine but only by maybe 25% to 50% which is nothing compared to the 5 to 10 times larger it used to be. Still not a fan of the color wheel selector vs. the Windows grid color selector but I can live with it. One thing I've noticed with the Mac is the cursor seems a little shaky, nothing major but it's just not as smooth as it is on Windows. I really wanted a Windows laptop that was a decent screen size and portable but after getting an Asus Zenbook Pro that had fans running non-stop and an ultra light dual core unit that lacked power, I decided to pull the trigger on the Macbook. Still a bigger fan of the Windows interface but it's hard to deny what Apple can do in the world of lightweight laptops.

Many thanks!

Prior to X8 this camera view had a fixed point that stayed put when zooming or rotating. Now it seems to jump all over the place, so I'm constantly going back to plan view to center the camera in the plan. Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere?

You should probably get with tech support on that one. By the way, I assume you meant your file was 10MB not GB. Most of my pdf files are usually in the 300KB to 500KB range but I had a Mac for a while that would pump out 5MB to 10MB files nearly every time. Drove me nuts. Wonder if the issue with Mac is similar to the problem you are having.

Are you using a Mac? They tend to create very large pdf files (for whatever reason).

I use Google Drive and One Drive on all 3 PC's with no problems (I also have Carbonite on my main desktop rig). Just keep your files on your dedicated documents drive and copy files to the cloud drives. What I love about One Drive is that when you have Office 365 you get an entire TB of cloud storage. I've linked my phone to back up all my pics on that drive. Works like a charm.

PC is better for me personally. Like Ray mentioned, you will get differing opinions. I've used both extensively and they do differ in some areas concerning the interface. PC version fits my needs better.

Do you check alignment over wall below? Agree with Michael, different color walls sometimes have that effect in elevation view.

Negative. The monitor was $500 and worth every stinkin' penny!

I agree with Perry, pretty good choice for the $$. Those of us that seem to live on the computer tend to over-spend. The Puget Spirit desktop rig in my signature was about $2600 but it is ridiculously fast.