Chief Architect almost non functional on brand new ASUS Vivobook S15 Laptop

[AdamEdgar]

Hi guys,

I purchased this laptop thinking it would run chief architect, however, as soon as i open any 3d camera, its almost non functional but i cant seem to figure out why?

 

Take a look at the resource usage in image its practically using nothing compared with what the system has available and yet, in the screen on lhs, once i open a 3d camera of any kind, i cannot do anything at all...there is zero functionality...all i can do on the windows machine is go into task manager, select Chief Architect > "end task"

 

Task Manager System resource monitor with 3d camera open

 

Tas

 

 

What i do get is the following error when i run Chief Architect

 

 

 

system specs

 

 

Chief online help 

 

[DRAWZILLA]

Looks to me like you need a better graphics card. never heard of yours try an RTX card.

[AdamEdgar]

oooh...i think i found the problem...Snapdragon processors arent supported

 

Thing is, HP, Asus, Lenovo...these laptop manufacturers have been running these processors since 2018...thats 6 years!

 

 

Snapdragon isnt a bad processor...this is a gaming laptop...it should run Chief architect...so obviously its a software engineering issue in that Chiefs programmers havent got up to speed yet....even after 6 years!

 

 

[AdamEdgar]

Im a little annoyed to be honest.

[AdamEdgar]

[AdamEdgar]

[AdamEdgar]

[AdamEdgar]

even macbooks use this architecture in some models

 

[AdamEdgar]

Vectorworks, a competitor to Chief Architect is ARM compatible...see below

[AdamEdgar]

ah this might be a workaround? Autodesk, like Chief doesnt support ARM but it can run via a  virtualisation or emulator...(such as VMware)

 

[PitMan71]

This is great information. Thanks for sharing. Sorry that you are having issues, tho. I know that has to be frustrating. Hopefully you can return the laptop and get what is needed. Good luck.

[Michael_Gia]

12 hours ago, AdamEdgar said:

Im a little annoyed to be honest

 

As much as I would like to jump on the Chief bashing train, if you look into it there are is a ton of software that wont run properly on windows/arm configuration.  

Look at the Surface Pro and see all the complaints surrounding that half-baked idea from MS.

arm/snapdragon are there to compete with the macbook's dominance in laptop portability and is intended for people who's software demands are at most the likes of microsoft office, email and Teams. 

It's for folks who like to sip bubble tea in a coffee shop cross legged in sweat pants all day and pretend they are busy.

 

For portability I was looking into the Dell Latitude 7350 with the detachable keyboard in order to replace my useless ipad. I need something when I go on site during construction.

the 7350 at least has an intel core ultra processor which should run Chief and the built in graphics should also do some lite PBR albeit slow.  I'm used to slow PBR on my Macbook anyway, lol.

 

 

 

[Smn842]

On 5/3/2025 at 1:28 AM, AdamEdgar said:

Vectorworks, a competitor to Chief Architect is ARM compatible...see below

 

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.

[AdamEdgar]

27 minutes ago, Smn842 said:

 

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.

 Desktop PC's seem to me to be increasingly replaced with laptops and mobile tablets...lots of designers are doing this and have been for some time.

 

Look at the reason why snapdragon started enterring into the laptop market via HP, Lenovo, Apple...these are not small companies or unknown platforms. 

 

If macbooks are running ARM BECAUSE it is more efficent for battery life +performance (because we know that mobile devices have no option but to compromise between time between charges and performace.

 

I think software developers need to recognise the market and adjust their philosophy and therefore programming accordingly. This isnt earbashing for the sake of it, its earbashing developers who may have their heads in the sand on architecture thats now been out for at least 6 years on some big name platforms.

 

The world is in a big transition into more energy efficient technologies...computing is not immune to that fundamental change. ARM is claimed to be more energy efficent.

 

For me, i need a system that is mobile and efficient but capable.

 

The thing is, its significant i think that Vectorworks runs natively on ARM since 2022 (thats 2 years ago).

 

[Smn842]

4 hours ago, AdamEdgar said:

I think software developers need to recognise the market and adjust their philosophy and therefore programming accordingly. This isnt earbashing for the sake of it, its earbashing developers who may have their heads in the sand on architecture thats now been out for at least 6 years on some big name platforms.

 

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.