I am a long time PC user who is considering switching over to Mac. The majority of my work is rendering and from all I have read Mac's are very good for graphic/visual user. Is there anyone out there who is using Mac to run SolidWorks and if so can you tell me if you experience any hickups.
Thanks!
Anna thanks for your input. I am working on a laptop, I create large format stills and spend anywhere from 2 to 5 hours per rendering (depending on the amount of detail). The specs are below;
Processor & Memory:
Drives:
Graphics & Video:
Yes, your computer is not up to the task being a laptop.
You really need to get a workstation/desktop computer with the new Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge cpu's.
Boxx Computer or Xi Computers are good companies to work with to get a high end workstation for rendering.
If you want to see the difference of what a higher end system can do for you send me an e-mail at anna@renderbay.com. I will be happy to do some test renderers for you on one my dual socket Xeon render nodes. It will give you a good idea of how much time you can save.
What version of SolidWorks are you using?
Cheers,
Anna
Here is a good thread to read on computers from Charles Culp.
https://forum.solidworks.com/thread/55131
Cheers,
Anna
SW 2012 SP3.
Thanks for the advice!
I work with pcs and macs and macs are just not designed to supply that graphics power needed for rendering. As far as I know, p360 relies on CPU+GPU to render and when we install windows on macs there is very little access of the gpu. This results in painfully long render time and not so good results.
Also, you get more for your money if you go to PC in terms of hardware. MACs are only good at .... I actually do not know what they are good at. I personally own 2 macbook pros and I am allowed to say that.
Tushar.
Tushar,
PV360 is a cpu renderer. It does not use the graphics card when rendering out buckets. My render nodes on my render farm do not even have graphics cards installed.
Bunkspeed Shot, Solid Edge and Catia Live Render are gpu based renderers using the Nvidia Quadro Cuda cores to process the image.
Cheers,
Anna
Ohhh, didnt know that.
I need to be careful about what I post.
Thanks. :-)
Its realview, I was thinking.
Anna is absolutely right about the CPU being used as the renderer (Ref: Photorealistic Rendering Using SW and PV360 step by step, page 15, edition 2011)
Rendering performance is a function of CPU speed, cores and cpu architecture. The newest cpu's from Intel with the highest clock speed and the most cores will get you the best rendering performance.
MAC's are nice machines but are not spec'ed with the lastest and greatest Intel cpu's, so will suffer from overall rendering performance for the price you pay for them.
Are you looking at laptops or workstation?
Are you rendering animations or large format stills?
What are your current computer specs?
How much time do you spend waiting for renders per day?
Give us a bit more detail on your rendering projects and we can offer some advice on hardware selection.
Also in a bit of blatant self promotion. I run a SolidWorks render farm and offer compute time to customers. http://www.renderbay.com
Cheers,
Anna