Revit Architecture on a Mac?

[Barry_W]

Has anyone had any experience of running revit on an Apple mac using Parallel Desktop. We currently have a mac based network in the office and aree using Vectowroks but are considering changing to Revit to improve interoperability with consultants. However as we quite like having a mac based system and are keen to keep it if possible.

The sort of machine we were thinking of getting to run it on would be the 27" imac upgraded to a intel i7 with 2Gb graphics card and 16Gb of RAM. Most of the jobs we work on are smallish but we do ocassionally score a decent sized one. The largest to date is a 32000sqM clinical services building for a public hospital..

[alan.quinn]

I have no personal experience with running Revit on a MAC, but the following link may help:

http://revitclinic.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/09/im-a-pc-and-a-mac.html

Thanks for posting,

[RJAVHH]

I have an older Macbook Pro which I pushed to 6MB of RAM (even though officially 4MB is supported).  It has the latest version of Parallels on top of the Lion OS.  On the Windows side through Parallels I installed 64-bit Windows7 and Revit 2012.  I do feel that Revit 2011 was less tasking on my machine and I was able to work on it more efficiently.  I have noticed that 2012 weighs a little more heavily on my laptop but it all still runs fine.  (If I am truly honest, it is probably time to upgrade my Macbook Pro.)

All being said, the machine you describe with Parallels and everything in 16-bit mode will work very well for Revit.  For even more "punch" you can use BootCamp, but i.m.h.o. very few would experience a notable difference.  I have always preferred having both OSs running so that I can take screen shots and work on my class write-ups and presentations on the Mac side.

Your post was from a few months back.  Still, I hope this offers some insight.

[Barry_W]

Slight updte for anyone else thinking of running Revit on a Mac.

We are now running Revit on the imac as specified in the original postthrough parallel desktop. Interestingly it is only possible to assign a maximum of 50% of the machine's RAM to windows, but with 16Gb total this equates to 8Gb for Windows. We haven't attempted to work on anything huge but it all seems to work just fine.

I't would probably be a good idea to install windows on a separate partition through bootcamp. Then when there isn't enough grunt to run revit through Parallels you have the option of opening up through bootcamp.

[michael.kravit · Accepted solution]

My office has Revit Architecture 2012 and AutoCAD Architecture 2012 running on 27" iMacs i7, 3.4 Ghz, (8Gb Ram) with 27" Thunderbolt monitors (Dual Display Config). Parallels 7 is installed running in Coherence Mode. The really cool part is that it runs seemlessly and fast and no one even realizes that they are running in a Windows 7.

Our experience is that it runs as fast and as smoothly as on a PC. We did change the keyboards function keys to operate like a PC for ease of use.

Hope this helps.

Mike

[gkeehn]

Now that it has been more than a year since your comment on running Revit Architecture 2012 and AutoCAD Architecture 2012 on a Mac with Parallels 7 in Coherence mode, do you have any other comments good and bad about running these and other AutoCAD products on the Mac.

Also do you have any recommendations on set-up steps or minimum memory that you would recommend for running these products?

Have you tried 3D Studio on the Mac as well?