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3D Studio Max on Mac?

A

Alonzo1

macrumors member
Original poster
Feb 6, 2006
38
0
Now that Apple has unleashed Boot Camp, has anyone run 3D Studio Max on an Intel Mac with Windows? How's its performance?
 
Alonzo1 said:
Now that Apple has unleashed Boot Camp, has anyone run 3D Studio Max on an Intel Mac with Windows? How's its performance?
Click to expand...
Good question. I'd also be interested in hearing if anyone has run Rhino. I love my Mac and I love Cinema4D for animation and rendering, but it'd be nice to use a true high-end NURBs modeller, which Cinema4D is not.
 
Rhino runs superbly however.

Been rendering using maxwell and it's doing plenty fine!

maya also...


r.
 
I just tried 3DS Max 8 on my iMac 20" with 1.5 gig of memory and Windows XP, it runs great and renders fast! :)
 
What about AutoCAD? Has anyone been successful in getting it to run (specifically version 2006)?
 
Max on a Mac

It looks strange, XP on a MacBook Pro (1.5GB)... But Max runs smoothly (so far)! I am not yet impressed with the speed, but I did not do proper tests yet. It seems to be about 10 times faster than on a 5 year old Vaio.
 
L int. said:
has anyone tried SolidWorks yet?

are you guys satisfied with the graphics card (imac & MBP) for rendering purpose?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I run Solidworks 2k5 and 2k6 on my MBP (2gb of RAM) Runs like a champ! My machine has 256MB video memory, which affects how many accelerated windows can run at once.

The x1600 is decent, you need some pretty fancy graphics cards for Solidworks to get realview, etc. (check their site for details)
 
RichP said:
Yeah, I run Solidworks 2k5 and 2k6 on my MBP (2gb of RAM) Runs like a champ! My machine has 256MB video memory, which affects how many accelerated windows can run at once.

The x1600 is decent, you need some pretty fancy graphics cards for Solidworks to get realview, etc. (check their site for details)
Click to expand...


Oh thats good to hear - I want to buy an imac - basically for audio, but 3D should run either...as well as CS3.

I'm afraid, that MacPro + display would be overkill(also for my wallet)... so i can spend the saved bucks on other equipment.

Thanks
 
3ds max 9 on windows xp using bootcamp

runs perfectly fine.. infact even better. renders faster, less hangups etc. I have an intel mac pro Xenon. 7300gt 256
 
Also try Parallels, there is a 30day free trial... not as fast as bootcamp, but 3DSmax is more than usable for simple stuff if you have enough ram. Quite impressive, considering that an app like Maya won't even display objects correctly in OSX on that same machine (I know, it is not supported).
 
I just installed 3dsMax 2008 on my mac book pro, and i have some problems like with the 4 views, i cant see anything what is showing there, somtimes windows background is on those 4 views. Can i be that my computer is to slow for this?
Im using Parallel Desktop..

Andlo
MacBook Pro 2.16 Ghz, 2GB ram, ATI X1600
 
Andlovic said:
I just installed 3dsMax 2008 on my mac book pro, and i have some problems like with the 4 views, i cant see anything what is showing there, somtimes windows background is on those 4 views. Can i be that my computer is to slow for this?
Im using Parallel Desktop..

Andlo
MacBook Pro 2.16 Ghz, 2GB ram, ATI X1600
Click to expand...

You need to set 3ds Max to run in Open GL mode to see the viewports properly in Parallels. In Max, go to Customize>Preferences and click on the Viewports tab. At the bottom, click "Choose Driver" and select Open GL. Restart Max for the change to take effect. You should switch it back to Direct X when running in bootcamp since Direct X mode takes advantage of all the cool real time abilities to display things such as smoke and fire in real time in the Viewport.

The biggest problem I'm having (and this could be a show-stopper for using 3ds Max on Mac), is that my Max license keeps getting corrupted by boot camp. I talked to Autodesk support and they say this is because boot camp significantly alters the boot disk on start up (probably when switching between OSX and Windows). At first, my license got corrupted once every few months, I would ask Autodesk for a new activation code, and good to go. Then it got to be down to a few weeks. Now it's a few days. Autodesk tells me that pretty soon I will need to request a new activation code every day!!!!!

If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them! I'm desperate. Does anyone know if upgrading to OSX Leopard might resolve the issue? :confused:
 
Hi I'm a furnitue designer and work with cinema 4D. I'm not quiet satisfied with the sculpt ability of the program. Could anyone advise me another 3D soft for my mac book pro? Thanks
 
I replied to a post about the licensing issue yesterday and would still like to find an answer. I talked to two friends of mine who are running both AutoCAD and 3dS Max on their Mac Pro's and neither have had any problems. Both of them (myself as well) installed windows on a separate internal drive without the Boot Camp Assistant.

I'm still not sure of the benefits of using Boot Camp with a Mac Pro other than the ease of loading the drivers. As long as you have a recent Leopard Install disc all of the drivers can be accessed without using the Boot Camp Assistant. Does Boot Camp give you some kind of menu while in Windows?
 
McNeckfat said:
You need to set 3ds Max to run in Open GL mode to see the viewports properly in Parallels. In Max, go to Customize>Preferences and click on the Viewports tab. At the bottom, click "Choose Driver" and select Open GL. Restart Max for the change to take effect. You should switch it back to Direct X when running in bootcamp since Direct X mode takes advantage of all the cool real time abilities to display things such as smoke and fire in real time in the Viewport.

The biggest problem I'm having (and this could be a show-stopper for using 3ds Max on Mac), is that my Max license keeps getting corrupted by boot camp. I talked to Autodesk support and they say this is because boot camp significantly alters the boot disk on start up (probably when switching between OSX and Windows). At first, my license got corrupted once every few months, I would ask Autodesk for a new activation code, and good to go. Then it got to be down to a few weeks. Now it's a few days. Autodesk tells me that pretty soon I will need to request a new activation code every day!!!!!

If anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them! I'm desperate. Does anyone know if upgrading to OSX Leopard might resolve the issue? :confused:
Click to expand...

I've been emailing Autodesk for the past 2 days and they have been trying to convince me that 3D Max works fine on Macs. But all I've read so far on these forums is the complete opposite.
 
3Ds Max works without a fault on my iMac. I use 3ds max 2008, got vray too. My mac can run all kinds of autodesk apps. So, 3ds max aint a problem.

I use XP Pro via Bootcamp and osx 10.5.6. btw
 
Yepp.

Yepp... I've been using and it works like a charm. less frequent crashes than a normal PC. though I have MAX 8.1. no idea about the latest version. will post one if i upgrade my software.
 
:)Just the same, even better performance as x86 based Personal Computers.
I've installed one at my MacBook Pro M896, still working so good:D
 
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