Is anyone out there running AutoCAD\Microvellum on a Mac (with Parallels\Boot Camp)?

Parallels 3, MBPro 2.16GHz Core2Duo, 1.5GB RAM. Works fine for me. Any specific question(s)?

You will find manty posts on this...  Just go to the search bar and type in Mac and you will get multiple hits.

richard15:

Parallels 3, MBPro 2.16GHz Core2Duo, 1.5GB RAM. Works fine for me. Any specific question(s)?

How is your AutoCAD 3D performance? Do you have smooth orbiting with 3D solids/ working in general with 3D solids? Does AC & MV lockup and\or crash frequently? Thanks for the feed back......oh one other question do you have to run with boot camp for jobs that are complex and need more processing power?

Adam Dirig:

 Is anyone out there running AutoCAD\Microvellum on a Mac (with Parallels\Boot Camp)?

If Boot Camp is used, your question is the same as asking: anyone running AutoCAD/Microvellum on a Dell? I'm not making fun. All Boot Camp does is assist with partitioning your hard-drive and provides the option to choose your operating system at startup (OSX or Windows). My point is that you're running Windows natively and it simply becomes a question of preferred hardware specs at that point.

We have AutoCAD 2008 and Microvellum 66 on a 24" iMac running Windows Vista and a 17" MacBook Pro running Windows XP. We bought "genuine" copies of Microsoft Windows and it runs the same on these computers as on any other machine with the same or similar specs.

Parallels, on the other hand, is "hardware emulation virtualization software" and operates differently. I haven't used it so can't really comment, but your machine's performance must be taxed because you're running one operating system within another, plus the emulator, and then launching whatever app you want to use. I wouldn't recommend this route if you're buying new equipment. Vista+AutoCAD+Microvellum is enough of a demand on processing and memory.

I haven't tried Boot Camp in awhile, and when I did - I did not have Microvellum installed. But yes, rivendellwood is correct - Boot Camp just makes your Mac partitioned so you can boot into either Windows or OS X. In OS X, you could load up your Boot Camp partition inside of Parallels. I did this when I had Boot Camp installed a year back or so and it seemed to cause Windows (inside of Parallels) to go into 30-day activation mode because it saw the Parallels machine as a "new computer" and deactivated itself. But, when I booted back into Boot Camp, all was well.

I've noticed that Parallels boots windows a lot faster than natively (probably because the virtual machine requires minimal drivers compared to a "real" machine and I/O and IRQ/ACPI requests aren't as hard for it to acquire compared to a real machine) and some actions are faster, but in general - AutoCAD in "coherence" mode in Parallels is a little choppy when running a command (line, copy, any command). 3D mode (solids and orbit) in AutoCAD does however seem to be smooth - unless of course you're moving an object from base point to wherever - then it's choppy as said above. 

In AutoCAD 2005, there was an issue while in "coherence" mode in parallels that if I opened properties on something it would cause Parallels to crash - but it worked fine in "window" mode. AutoCAD 2007's properties works fine in parallels in "coherence" mode but active commands cause the cursor/crosshair to become choppy.

No matter what, there's tradeoffs. Ultimately, I would not run AutoCAD in Parallels except for testing purposes (snapshot manager is useful) or in a crunch when no "workstation" computers are available. It would be better in "native" mode and in that case - you might as well get a HP or Dell with similar hardware specs (Core 2 Duo) and pay less money.

Although it is nice that when Windows blue screens or just crashes that OS X is still chugging along...