Autodesk Inventor

[#1]

Hi all;

Anyone on this forum using Inventor in this way? I'd like to get some comments on the speed of Inventor using it in a virtual environment. Also, is it 'easy/pain free' to switch between the virtual environment (Windows) and the Mac desktop (to access mail or whatever)? I've used VirtualBox before on a Linux box before so I'm familiar with a virtual environment, but I don't know Parallels. The latter is officially supported by ADSK (http://usa.autodesk.com/products/mac-compatible-products)

Also, is their direct communication between Inventor and the hardware (specifically the graphics card), or does it go through a software layer?

Thanks,
wh

[#2]

I am running Paralles 5 and windows 7.  The problems I have had have been with the resource hunger of windows 7 and have had to turn Aero off to make it work well. It does otherwise work very well within Parallels.  Switching from the Mac to the virtual machine is easy and quick - no more than launching an extra application.

My machine is a MacBook Pro (Laptop) with 8 gig of ram and an Intel i7 chip.  I shut the mac applications down as I have max resources set to the virtual machine.  This is fine because I have Outlook on the VM as well as Internet explorer.  When Autocad is running on my Mac my Mac is a windows machine.

I would really like Autodesk to offer Inventor Suite as a Mac Native product.  

Doug

[#3]

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whunter wrote:
 the speed of Inventor ... and the Mac

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I don't know anything about Macs, but I saw Kevin Schneider running on a Mac at AU 2009.  He said it was the fasted notebook he could find for running Inventor. http://au.autodesk.com/?nd=class&session_id=5457

[#4]

We have 2 Mac Book Pros running Inventor here, but we are running windows 7 under Bootcamp. From what I have heard, parallels limits video capability.

[#5]

Hi, I was wondering if you would care to update us on your situation of using Inventor on a Mac. Specifically, have you run into limits in the size of assemblies or complexity of objects?

Thanks,

JON

[#6]

We have not had a single hardware related issue. If i could change 1 thing it qould be to up the RAM TO 16 Gbs (instead of 8) a i have some assemblies that take ~8 Gbs just to open. In fact we have been so happy with them, we now have 7 MacBook Pros and 1 Mac Pro.

[#7]

Thanks for the update! I have been wanting to buy a mac and now I am feeling better about the idea. Is the speed comparable to laptops running nvidia QUADROm cards? 

Do you happen to use a 3D connexion Space Navigator? I'm wondering if that 3D mouse will work well too.

Thanks,

JON

[#8]

Perhaps a better follow-up question would be: How many parts are in the assemblies that require 8gbs of memory.

Thanks!!!

JON

[#9]

Would you happen to know where Kevin Schneider was getting those benchmarks to claim that macs were the fastest for running Inventor Fusion? I am really looking to get a mac, I just need some more info..

Thanks,

JON

[#10]

The video seems comparable and we are running 3d connexiOn controllers.

The assembly in question is a 35000 component master driven assembly.

Not sure what Kevin was referring to...