AutoCAD on Parallels

Are there any AutoCAD users out there that have tried parallels. Does it run well with such graphic intense programs??

 

I'm not an AutoCAD user, but I've tried Rhino3D, an industrial design program (think lightweight CAD). It runs pretty well. The interface is a bit laggy (due to the emulated graphics card, I'd imagine), but it is definately both functional and useable.

 

I currently have AutoCAD 2007 installed and running under Parallels. The performance is acceptable but effects that depend on 3D hardware acceleration are emulated in software or absent. If your work is primarily 2D, you should not experience any degredation in performance as long as you have adequate RAM assigned to the VM. I also have Autodesk Revit Building installed and performance is acceptable on the models I have tested.

 

I have yet to buy my new Mac......should I buy extra RAM in order to run the program smoothly?

 

I've been running Autocad 2002 since the first beta. There was a problem with certain commands (Scale, for example) but it was taken care of in beta 6 (THANK YOU PARALLELS FOR LISTENING AND SOLVING!). I'm using it everyday, with no problems at all.

The one and only difference is that things like zooming in and out are not as smooth as with boot camp or on a PC with a good graphics card. It's purely a visual difference, the speed of use is not affected... am hoping that Parallels is able to drive the Video card natively with future version to take care of this (and allow OpenGL reliant apps to run at full speed) but that's a different topic.

 

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Heck yes.

Explanative answer: Macs tend to come with only enough memory for very basic use. I generally recommend to everyone that they get as much memory as they can. These days, I pretty much won't touch a machine with less than 768 MB in it, and I prefer 1 GB.

Both my iMac and my MacBook Pro are fully loaded with 2 GB.

 

What mac do you have? I'm thinking about buying a macbook and run autocad and revit on parallels.

 

acad

I have run autocad 2006 and sketchup pro though parallels desktop, and while 3d processing is a little slow for both, 2d work and file handling are great (better than running them natively on my Dell at work, which is not a bad system)

FYI, I have a 2.16 ghz MBP with 1gb of ram and a 100 gb hard drive, which seems to be enough for the medium sized files i work with. If you are working with really, really, huge files (greater than about 10 megs), or with extensive 3d rendering, I would upgrade to 2 gb and / or use boot camp instead.

At any rate, i would recommend buying memory in a single so dimm so you can upgrade easily if you wish.

 

JWINS:
I'm interested how Revit is running. Do you have the new beta update of Parrallels? How much ram do you have allocated? thanks.

 

No one uses Revit?

 

Another question...

One of my coworkers just recently installed Parallels and XP on a Macbook Pro in order to use Autocad 2006, but there are always two cursors on the Autocad screen (both the Autocad crosshairs and the Windows pointer)--anyone have any idea why this is happening or how to fix it? Maybe because of the Mac wireless mouse?

 

Autocad mouse pointer issue

Actually, if you uninstall Parallels tools, and then reinstall them again, be sure to de-select the 'mouse sync', and you'll find that the cursor in Autocad is normal again. I have not heard of if and when Parallels will be fixing this bug, but they are aware of it. This affects many different versions of Autocad, even the LT versions from what I hear.

The downside, of course, is that you have to use the ctrl-alt key combo to leave the guest OS and use the mouse in OSX

 

AutoCAD on High acceleration setting

With the latest Parallels build 1910, all of my Windows apps (AutoCAD, MS Office, Google Earth, etc.) run fine with acceleration set to Normal. With acceleration set to High, all still run fine (and faster) except for AutoCAD 2004, which always immediately results in a crash requiring rebooting of Windows. The dialog that appears suggests changing acceleration back to Normal if the problem persists.

Will this problem be addressed by Parallels, or is it something I can fix? Thanks.

(Mac Pro, 3GB, Windows XP Pro)

 

You should check out the "no boot disk" thread. We are now up to four pages, and it seems to be primarily new macbook pro users. I dove in last week, hoping to be able to do my work on one computer while traveling. HA. Now a week sitting at airports and in hotels trying to get Windows XP to install. I have my Autodesk set of disks with me in my bag....

 

i use parallels build 1898. when i m using autocad 2007 my esc button doesnt work. how can i fix it does anyone know?

 

3D Autocad working great

I wrote a thread about my experience with 3D Autocad in Parallels and its working great.
See the thread its called "3D AutoCad & Architectural Desktop 2006 Works Perfectly"
Check it out.

 

I'm no AutoCad power user, I use AutoCAD LT 2004 to check drawings by others, and I find that it runs acceptably under parallels. So far I've had no problems, but I'm not exactly stretching it.

I also use 3D Studio Max, which to be honest struggles a bit. Navigating complex scenes is slow, some textures display poorly and anti aliasing does not work in the viewports, all due (no doubt) to the software emulation of the graphics adaptor. Obviously this does not affect the final renders as rendering is a processor driven actvity. I like the advantage of being able to switch between mac and PC whilst I work, but for complex 3D scenes it's more practical to use either a Wintel box or bootcamp.

However, I would say that a few minor bugs aside I'm very impressed with Parallels. 8/10

 

Using ADT 3.3 and ADT 07

I am an architect and have been using both with XP running on a 17" MB Pro with 2 gigs ram with great results. It seems to handle the 3D models fine, renders in about the same speed as my 2yr old Dell Pent. 4 desktop; (about 3 - 30 seconds slower given the rendering options). There is a very slight lag in the mouse tracking, but most people do not notice this issue. My wife's low end Dell laptop has the same issue. There is a problem with the middle button of a 3 button mouse. It does not work to PAN as it does running traditionally. This is a big pain for me. I use my middle button to PAN and having to type in P + enter each time I do so is annoying. This is a Parallels issue with 3 button mice drivers.. They do not allow you to modify the middle button; or program it. Hopefully this will get fixed. I think there is another way around this if you can find someone who can program AutoCAD's mouse input commands.

 

no problems with middle mouse button for me!

I'm using paralles on my Macbook Pro and a bluethoot logitec mouse... the middle button works just like in a pc. (latest build of paralles and acad 2006)

For the cursor issue... there is a work around: in windows go to the display properties, select the settings tab and press the advanced button... once on the new window select the troubleshoot tab, then look for the hardware acceleration control and select one less than full. This fixes the cursor issue... I been doing great since I discovered thar... good luck.

 

Double Cursor Fix

Thanks for the great tip, flak. It also works in Virtual PC for those with PPC Macs.

(Mac Pro, iBook, AutoCAD 2004)