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AutoCAD for Mac 2024 Gains Native Apple Silicon Support
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Yeah, all very good and all, but there are still a ton of processes related to AutoCAD that still run on Rosetta:
Autodesk today announced that the updated AutoCAD 2024 and AutoCad LT 2024 software for macOS is able to run natively on Apple silicon Macs for the first time.
Optimized for both Apple silicon Macs and Intel Macs, the updated AutoCAD software will bring performance improvements to those who have M1 and M2 series Macs. Autodesk says that the native Apple silicon support can increase performance by up to two times compared to the non-optimized 2023 software.Other new features include Markup Import, Markup Assist, Smart Blocks Placement, Trace Updates, and more, with full details available on the Autodesk website.
Article Link: AutoCAD for Mac 2024 Gains Native Apple Silicon Support
Hate to say it, but I use a PC for the arch rendering with twinmotion - its vastly better with the path renderer and a 4090..... also Revit. The mac studio is great for everything else though
I wonder if or when Bentley OpenRoads will gain Apple Silicon support. Bentley is the main competitor to AutoCAD for engineering and design applications, especially for civil engineering applications. I am an OpenRoads user and live in a Windows world.
Do you interact at all with your customers with your models? I was wondering how well that works.
Wow, that's something I missed. That is hilarious, but I don't hate it. Wish more devs did weird and interesting things with it.
Rhino is fantastic. It's a little more "loosey goosey" than some of the other CAD programs. Instead of ensuring everything is mathematically correct and checks out every step of the way like Solidworks or Fusion360, the idea is logic and numbers disappear so you can focus on making something as beautiful as possible, and then spend time at the end to clean things up.
With coworkers yes, all the time. I send them a link to the design I'm working on, and they can view it in great detail. They don't need a license either. Here is a quick example I just drew up. Standard zoom/pan/rotate commands with a 3 button mouse. The trackpad also works. (Only works properly on a computer browser, not mobile, due to the touch input. For mobile, you would need the free app to spin it around properly)
Link to Mac128 I drew:
Onshape
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No, they were asked specifically to show it, so that when it actually gets announced, people will already be ready for it. Very clever strategy by Apple.
Actually it did a lot of nice things that buttons simply can't do as well. I could adjust volume and screen brightness instantly and with fine control that buttons cannot match. Simply touch the volume button and swipe. Touch the brightness button and swipe. And it was very simple to move those buttons if you didn't like their placement. With hard-coded function keys, I can do none of those things. When I reviewed PDF files and selected text, I'd have a nice collection of color swatches there in the Touch Bar, waiting for me if I wanted to highlight. Few apps made use of it, yeah. But few make use of function keys. And in my view, the hard-coded function keys are trash. No competent designer assigns important functions to a key with no mnemonic. "F4"? What's F4 supposed to be? How are you supposed to remember it? Will the next app use F4 for the same function? Now, you might have an F4 or whatever and like having it available. But you're definitely not in a position to call anything to do with UI "trash" if you'd champion clunky nonsense like that.
For a 4 digit yearly subscription price I would expect that it should adapt to Apple silicon.
I hate subscriptions. I hope one day some enthusiast create similar software for free. Like Open Office.
I hate subscriptions. I hope one day some enthusiast create similar software for free. Like Open Office.
I had a touchscreen PC laptop and the only time I ever used it was for a customer demo of software I had written.
Otherwise, the screen is too bouncy to make it really useful. It's not ergonomically very sound either because you have to lift your arm off the table to touch the screen.
What might make it useful is if the iPad Pencil worked with it. Fingertips are far too imprecise.
Otherwise, the screen is too bouncy to make it really useful. It's not ergonomically very sound either because you have to lift your arm off the table to touch the screen.
What might make it useful is if the iPad Pencil worked with it. Fingertips are far too imprecise.
Oh please. As a daily CAD user, I can attest that using two hands on the keyboard is the absolute MOST efficient way to use AutoCAD. No need for a mouse at all.
🤣
Man I remember how rough things were in the early days of the transition.
I was a super-early adopter with an M1 16GB mini in December 2020 and I ran After Effects on it for a year, on Rosetta 2.
It was horrid, but I stuck to it.
Nowadays I'm on an M1 Ultra and I'm delighted to see that ALL processes in activity manager are M1 Native.
That said I rember the days of waiting for apple silicon releases and forums surfing.
I was a super-early adopter with an M1 16GB mini in December 2020 and I ran After Effects on it for a year, on Rosetta 2.
It was horrid, but I stuck to it.
Nowadays I'm on an M1 Ultra and I'm delighted to see that ALL processes in activity manager are M1 Native.
That said I rember the days of waiting for apple silicon releases and forums surfing.