Ironcad On Mac!

[Doug Gower]

10 minutes ago, dleczynski said:

today i install ironcad on macbook keep fingers crossed!

Hi Dariusz,
Are you using M1 Macbook? Good luck! Let us know how that works out.

[dleczynski]

bootcamp wants over 70GB of disk space and I have 128GB so I have no resources. It is not easy to do a bootcamp. IRONCAD from woodlab wants 15GB of resources and has no place to work. not today

[Bernd Meißner]

Well, installing IronCAD on a Mac using Bootcamp is - from a technical point of view - running it on Mac/Intel hardware, but not running it on a Mac (OS). I've been using IronCAD (Inovate) on an old Mac Pro for several years , running in Bootcamp/Windows 7-64 Pro. It worked fine until version 2016 or 2017 or so, but then it became increasingly unstable with the last couple of versions, I guess mostly due to graphics card issues with the old Mac hardware. And then there's the old Windows version, too, which is highly reliable and stable on its own, but only with older software written for this version…

With an 128GB drive I wouldn't even think about installing Bootcamp and IronCAD. No way this would work, hosting two operating systems including applications. A 500GB drive is minimum for that (also think of the large swap files created when using some applications).

I have migrated my main IronCAD installation to a "real" PC now, where it works fine with current versions. I also have a later (2015) MacBook Pro running Windows 10 in Bootcamp, on which I could test IronCAD, but haven't done yet.

Bernd

[Bernd Meißner]

Update: I've installed IronCAD 2021 on my MacBook Pro (2015). It works, but the graphics performance is extremely poor, no matter which graphics mode is selected. When trying to pan or orbit the screen content, it takes about 10 seconds before the screen even starts moving. I'm not sure why it's so bad, and I'm not sure if there's anything that can be set to improve it. These are the the hardware + Windows specs:

[Bernd Meißner]

Update #2: Doh! Installing a correct and current Bootcamp driver for the Radeon graphics card does wonders! Performance is now fine, screen content can be moved and rotated quickly, even with large assemblies.

That's good news :-)

Bernd

[Josh]

Hello! Just installed on an Apple silicon M3 Macbook with Parallels + Windows 11 and... it works! 

Had to change graphics driver to OpenGL2 instead of DirectX, but nothing else was needed.
(Menu>Options>Rendering>Driver Type)
 

Note: I only just tested this, threw in a few parts to see if it could handle them and all worked fine. But I haven't done sustained work where I assume there might be problems floating around different areas.

[Tony Helinsky]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:31 AM, Josh said:

Hello! Just installed on an Apple silicon M3 Macbook with Parallels + Windows 11 and... it works! 

Had to change graphics driver to OpenGL2 instead of DirectX, but nothing else was needed.
(Menu>Options>Rendering>Driver Type)
 

Note: I only just tested this, threw in a few parts to see if it could handle them and all worked fine. But I haven't done sustained work where I assume there might be problems floating around different areas.

Hi,

Thanks for the update.

Do you have any new findings to report on ?

I assume you are running this on Windows 11 ARM version ?

Thanks

Tony

[Bertrand Kim]

In recent years, there have been many innovations in the ARM architecture, and now, when considering performance alone, MacBooks no longer seem to offer poor value for money anymore as Spencer said IMO lol.

The overwhelming battery life and power efficiency compared to the same level of performance have become a "wall," except for program compatibility.

Currently, using IronCAD on my laptop (Surface 8 Pro) for professional purposes is a bit of a stretch, so I'm using Moonlight or Parsec to remotely connect to my office computer, which is much smoother than working on the Surface.

If I hit my carrier's speed limit, Moonlight is slightly more stable, and I used it under a 3Mbps limit, but it was perfect. Parsec is a bit unstable below 3Mbps (It was a perfect at 5Mbps). As long as the internet connection quality was good, I could enjoy Path of Exile with either program in an environment similar to Native.

I have decided to purchase a product equipped with Snapdragon X Elite for my next laptop, and as soon as I discover any issues related to the emulator, I will use Moonlight or Parsec to remotely control my office computer.

Kim

[Josh]

Yep I have been shocked by battery life on Macbook Pro, I never even think about carrying a charger with me. Easily get more than a day of working without a charger.

Last computers have been a Surface 8 Pro, HP ZBook laptop workstation, and Dell XPS, all of which got a few hours of battery life when doing anything powerful. Always had to carry a charger with me and look for power points. Every program I use now works on Mac except IronCAD, and you don't have to deal with Microsoft being terrible at quality control with bugs on everything they do. 

Using IronCAD in parallels still works but there is enough latency for it to be annoying, so I miss being able to instantly open it up and design things happily. Now it's more of a process which is less fun.

All the MCAD systems out there are still based on such slow and boring fundamental methodology, always start with a sketch, minimal re-use of geometry. I sometimes wonder how many times across the world people have manually made a cylinder by sketching and extruding a circle. So much geometry we use has been built before all over the world, it's insane that CAD still lives in the era of doing everything from a sketch. 

Mac compatible IronCAD would make me very happy, and also probably open up a nice new market for IronCAD (less MCAD on Macs, no SolidWorks, more and more PC market share is now Mac). It would take a lot of investment and courage to take that leap though, the code base likely needs a refresh at this point so is likely to be a worthwhile investment on both Windows and Mac.

[dleczynski]

Ironcad+woodlab on mac. We use two drive