AutoCAD for Mac

[#1]

Evening everyone. My first post here so I want to start off on the right foot.

I am just about to commence learning AutoCad. I am going to run through the Lyndacom AutoCad DVD Tutorials and I am also going to enrol in a City & Guild accredited course.

I am an avid MAC user and all the computers in my office and house are Macs.

I know that there now are MAC versions of AutoCad and I was excited to see them.

HOWEVER

The Lynda.com DVD and no doubt my upcoming course will be using the windows platform.

What I want to know is should I Bootcamp my MAC PRO (late 2008) to run windows?

Or can I get away with using a proprietary fix such as Paralels for mac e.t.c

Or even pick up a CHEEEAP second hand windows desktop and install purely for the purposes of CAD?

How hardware intensive is the software in it's 2d form?

I hope that someone can assist and point me in the right direction this early in my career.

Regards

LB

[#2]

Hi LB,

Parallels Virtual machine with 2Gb of RAM (for 32-bit Windows version) is enough to run AutoCAD for Windows.
BTW: there was a special course at Linda.com about migrating from Windows version of AutoCAD to Mac version.

Maxim

[#3]

cheers maxim. when yoy say will run, do you mean comfortably? Will it be nic and snappy? I've got 8gb of ram installed. If I go down thisroute I am pretty sure I can allocat the required Ram to parralels and sacrifice the native mac programs.

I dont mind allcating more as i will only need to use Parralels whn I am using AutoCad.

[#4]

Which graphics card do you have on your Mac Pro? And is it Mac Pro or MacBook Pro?
If you have fast modern graphics card - AutoCAD runs smoothly even with 1.5 Gb of RAM.

Maxim

[#5]

It is a Mac Pro. http://support.apple.com/kb/SP11

The Graphics card is : ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256 MB

I'll install paralels and CAD now and giveit a shot.

Thanks Maxim.

D.

[#6]

Hi,

I have the same Mac Pro at work, but soon after purchasing I upgraded graphics card from factory default ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB to ATI Radeon HD 4870 512 MB (for now there are newer cards). With this card I have no problems at all.

Maxim