solidworks on parallels (thoughts so far)

F

freddie

Bit poster
Hi guys after browsing through this forum and the web for the last few days i have been unable to find the answers to my questions. Could you guys help me out with a few answers before i make the leap to mac!

1.
Will Solidworks run ok with a max of 10 -15 components? mostly furniture pieces ( i am currently on a P4 with 512ram and a regular graphics card) so not used to blazing speeds!

2.
What are the render times like in your experience?

3.
I am not thinking of buying until Leopard comes out, so do you think the situation with Parallels will be better by then?

thanks a million for your time
look forward to reply s
freddie
 
Please answer to the point

mattfreeman said:
parallels makes pc's seem more reliable than macs.

Parallels is nothing but crashes and kernel panics.
Click to expand...

This is plain wrong. Parallels works for me, and it does not crash nor panic.

Any comments on the actual question?
 
I use Parallels 3186 with XP SP2 on 400+ part assys on a MacBook Pro (including assy drawings) with 2 Gig ram all day long. I have roughly 1350 meg set for parallels and the video option set at 16 meg ram. Models open just as fast as if I were in Boot Camp but of course there is a pretty substantial video speed hit when rotating models that size. I try to work in smaller bit sized assys to help. I have found it extremely stable and I work under parallels when ever I can. I expect OpenGL support soon (that is the rumor at least) which will complete the package. As soon as that extra 1 gig of ram my Mac will hold drops from $800 to some where around $400 I'm going to get that too. I am going to Leopard after it has been out for 6 months or so...I can't afford to be a beta tester for parallels while they work out their Leopard bugs.
 
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Thanks guys thats great news. Should easily handle my solidworks needs. What are render times like? I will more than likely wait till leopard comes out, who knows what good stuff will be added by then. Any more comments will be great appreciated

regards
freddie
 
I'm using a Mac Pro w/ 2 gigs of ram and SW is a complete dog with Parallels. I think it would run better on my kids computer.

This wouldn't be so bad if SolidWorks wasn't a SUPPORTED application of Parallels, but it IS A SUPPPORTED APP!

I guess Parallels means it "works" if the program launches and doesn't immediately crash. Well if that's the definition of working, I guess I'll just nap all day at my job while SolidWorks is "working".
 
It sounds like if you are just doing simple products, and your current computer isn't cutting edge, then you should be okay.

I haven't had any problems with very simple products in SolidWorks, it's obviously not like native, but it works well enough on Parallels 2.5.

I don't render in SWX often; I usually export a Maxwell file and render in OS X, so cannot comment on that.

If you have a file that you'd like me to open and give you some time estimates, feel free to PM me and we can talk off line.
 
Dexter,

Although I can appreciate your point of view and do agree that using SW on Parallels is an acceptable solution for simple products, it's really not the point I was trying to make.

My point is that Parallels has listed SW 2007 as a supported app in their documentation, yet the program doesn't work under hardware OpenGL. I was FORCED to pay for the upgrade if I wanted to evaluate the performance of SW on Parallels. This is my gripe.
 
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