Autodesk on Mac

[Kirk0007]

LTRFTW here.
I'm going off to college this fall, and buying a 15" MacBook Pro. My question is really about software: I do a lot of work in Autodesk Inventor and 3DS Max, but neither program is available for Mac as far as I know. At least, not natively. I've come across three solutions that could solve this and allow me to run the Autodesk stuff I want — Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and BootCamp — but I don't know which one would be best for my needs. For CAD software like this I want as much graphics and processing performance as possible, though I would really like to keep Windows windowed if I can. That's why I was leaning away from BootCamp, but I'm open to suggestions.
Thanks for your time!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If you want the full CPU and GPU power, Boot Camp is your only option, but I could also use some older 3D Studio Max version inside Windows inside VMWare Fusion and even load a highly complex model (DS9 by Jörg Gerlach) into it and use the viewports quite well.

Booting Windows on the Mac

 

[Kirk0007]

That guide was very helpful, thanks.

 

[SuperCachetes]

You will not get maximum processing power running through a VM, but you will likely get "enough."

I got tired of dealing with Parallels upgrades so I ditched it and only run AutoCAD through Boot Camp now. I miss the convenience of the VM sometimes, but I have never needed the juice you might to run 3DS.

There are Mac-based software clones for AutoCAD, but I doubt there are for Inventor etc. And I doubt Autodesk is going to cater to Mac users for either of the programs you mention.

Pains me to say this, but it sounds like you are entering a Windows-centric software environment. I think you have to ask yourself how often you're going to be in that environment, determine what you're going to ask of your machine, and consider if an MBP is really the right tool, all things considered.

 

[someoldguy]

Go with Boot Camp . I've been running versions of AutoCAD (2006 , 2010) , and Inventor ( v.10 and 2010) using Boot Camp for several years and have had no problems .They run as they should , plus there's no parasitic load from whatever virtual machine running in the background to slow stuff down . Just make sure that if you decide to wipe the Boot Camp partition , you use the file transfer utility to get your authorizations moved beforehand . Load up on memory if you can .