Smn842

This is not really a specific sales question, more of a comment of why the current CA pricing no longer works for me after 10 years of use and SSA: After a long career in software development from developer to more senior roles I fully appreciate the need for the subscription model for mature software. However the implementation has to be fair on existing perpetual license users and as a DIYer this is where I have an issue after 10 years of using CA software and 9 of those with Chief Premier and SSA. I use Chief for planning the numerous renovation updates to my homes which I mostly complete myself. Until the subscription model was introduced 2.5 years I could justify SSA cost and the fact I could sell the license for a significant sum kept me in the game. However with official license transfers banned when subscription was introduced and the sharp increase in SSA every other year which appears to be moving towards the level or subscriptions, I have to draw the line somewhere. I use many other software packages that have also made the switch to subscription, but these other products have been fair with existing perpetual license users giving them various options and commonly significant perpetual discounts if they switch to subscription. In contrast, CA will not make any statements about the future of costs for SSA relative to subscription and as I expect the next jump in SSA will be next year, it is now time for me to stop my legacy SSA renewals. I will remain using X16/X17 and can even run them in a virtualised environment to avoid future OS compatibility issues (VMs work fine with 3D graphics features these days) with the only internet access being for activation. Hence I can ensure I will be able to use X16/X17 for as long as CA is around for its activation server. I won't be going elsewhere, just not spending any more with CA. I am far from the target user type and the loss of customers like me is probably worth it for CA if they can increase revenue from target customer types, but I would have continued to pay if there was a clear plan such as perpetual discount to subscription rates for legacy SSA users, instead of the stealth SSA increases which are moving towards subscription and far beyond inflation. As I started with HD Pro I can say that's not an option and with about 40 hours use a year spread over at least 6 months the monthly rental option is similarly not viable. It's been great using a professional level application for my DIY renovation projects, but sadly its the end of the line for legacy SSA upgrades for me.

Chief stopping allowing official license transfers when the subscription license model was implemented.

The panel offset feature introduced in X16 is a bodge rather than solution. It leaves problems with incomplete moldings, wall layer/floor finishes leaving gaps (on double skin walls at least) so yet more workarounds required.

With my software developer hat on I can say managing customer enhancement requests is a difficult task. Many requests are poorly worded so its not clear what's requested, many aren't thought out and impossible to do for wider reasons. However there are still many good requests received by software companies and although the largest companies may have legal reasons they cannot comment on them, I've always tried to ensure the companies I've worked for give some feedback of status. This way users know if requests needs more info and having lists of items for voting on can work well for many applications. I had hoped that the switch to subscription would get more smaller items done, as one benefit of subscription is it reduces the need for just larger new and improved features to sell upgrades. Sadly 2.5 years into subscription and there doesn't seem much change on that front. For me, the few hard to work around limitations and the annual cost of keeping my legacy SSA going probably means I won't renew this year as SSA is obviously on a path to reach parity with subscription. As a DIYer not earning anything from using Chief its getting too expensive sadly and HDPro doesn't cut it for me as it lacks tools to work around limitations. Back on topic: For me X17 doesn't have much benefit as ease of use changes don't help when I cannot do things such as control door inset like windows can, but then I am not the target user type/country for the product. The project management changes look good but I also think simple changes such as my enhancement request to show all linked file/image/texture locations for a plan (could be done as a small change to the existing missing files feature) would help users understand where their all the required files,textures etc for plans/layouts are being sourced from as its far from obvious especially for new users.

I have made several minor requests directly in details and chased repeatedly for years (I can say they are minor as as lifelong software developer and software architect) and cannot even get feedback on the enhancement request status. So yes some of us don't just post here and hope.

Software development strategy is decided mostly by market demand and technical/security and similar issues that need to be addressed. Developers rarely get to decide direction other than how to achieve what's been requested or when technical debt requires major architectural changes to the software. Most software developers also love new technical challenges and hence are far from 'head in the sand' types, but that's not what makes a software business succeed.

Not on Windows though: A lot of complex applications have issues with emulation on Windows on ARM and creating a native version to be compile and run well is a lot of work. As a software developer myself I wouldn't want Chief to spend valuable time on supporting another platform that is currently more about battery life and AI than heavyweight desktop applications.

As the OP has just upgraded to X16 it’s on the subscription model with no perpetual fallback. Hence if the subscription is ever stopped and the plan is in X16 format it cannot be opened in X12 which the OP does have a perpetual license to.

Windows has actually supported very long (approx 32K) path lengths for a very long time as NTFS supports it. However to use such long paths instead of the usual MAX_PATH 260 character limit applications have had to use the applicable API version and specific prefix option and this is often not done hence the failures on long paths. Even though Windows APIs have allowed 32K paths for a long time its taken a while for more of its own applications and utilities to catch up and use these features. The same goes for commercial applications where software developers are wary of allowing paths of a length that may then be hard for users to manipulate with file managers, archive tools etc if they don't support longer paths. What changed from Windows 10 is that the need to use special options within applications can be avoided using the registry flag AND if an application has a manifest that indicates it supports this. The reason for this application opt in is that applications could crash with longer paths depending on how they're written if they were forced upon them.

There seems to be a few more stability issues with high end stuff these days as the manufacturers are pushing the limits on every part. I have just built a 14900K and its Performance Active-Core Ratio is 57 and all works fine in Chief with a 3090. Many motherboards also increase the default CPU power limits by default which can be an issue for cooling as well as stability. RAM issues which manifest in all sorts of ways also seems to be a more common issue with the 14900K and certain motherboards (mostly lower layer count ones which affects track length variation) when using higher clocked RAM. I am lucky the DDR5 6400 in that new build is fine with the motherboard and CPU to date and passes full memory diagnostics (MemTest86 as its more thorough than Windows built in check). I didn't risk any faster RAM due to this and diminishing performance gains so I went for a good balance of latency and speed. It's always worth doing a memory check on a new build and I am now doing them every 6 months or so on key PCs after having 20 bits fail out of 128GB in another PC after some time which first showed up due to failed Macrium Reflect image backups as they cause windows to use most of the RAM for file caching.

@Custom_CraftIf not done already please raise this in either Suggestions or email to CA. I've been suggesting door inset control for 5 years but the more people that ask for it the better. Windows do already have inset control and that works for my cases at least, but we do need it for doors as none of the workarounds are 100%

I'm not a Mac user but have you done a hardware test on your RAM? I believe there is a built in test on some Macs at least during boot. Your type of issue is often driver or other software related but I've just replaced some RAM on one of my home servers (not EEC as desktop hardware) as it was starting to have infrequent file corruption issues on very large file transfers. It turned out to be just over 20 bits (not bytes) out of the 128GB was faulty and further testing found just one of the four sticks was the cause. It was only when the OS disk caching used so much memory to cache the error appeared. It's rare to have faulty memory but its worth ruling it out at least as it does happen.

I've had the GPU issue with layouts and several PBRs and first reported that to support almost 18 months ago. For layouts with many PBRs it can exhaust VRAM and freeze the PC until Chief eventually crashes. For fewer PBRs there can be delays and high VRAM use. I didn't get very far with support as once they knew I have two GPUs they said that wasn't a supported configuration. However the problem still occurs even with one GPU so that's not the cause. It appears Chief is holding onto video resources when updating multiple PBRs for layout rendering and it gets even worse if printing it to PDF. I now just avoid a layouts with too many PBRs.

Not if the SSA is on an existing legacy perpetual license as any new upgrade versions are also perpetual licenses according to this post:

Are they on a locked layer? Posting the plan would be the best way to get a quick answer.