topic Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false in Modeling

AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

rm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:24:01 GMT

Im confused, I just read the AC 14 brochure on GS website, and it reads "Boost your BIM performance with multiprocessor support, 64-bit BIM Server support on both Windows and Macintosh and 64-bit support on Windows."

So 64-bit is ONLY available for the MAC OS server? What the heck, I thought AC 14 was supposed to be 64-bit support for the Mac as well? Macs are using the same Intel processors as Window machines these days.

Mac version AC users, always a bridesmaid, never the bride!

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:34:44 GMT

It seems that they just couldn't get the 64 bit Mac support done in time for the 14 release.

There is an announcement of an early test version here.

It is not recommended for production but I am using it for some one off rendering and so far so good.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

rm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:45:37 GMT

Thanks Mathew,

I guess I will wait for AC15, you know - so it will be on par with AC14 Windows version

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Rob — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:16:20 GMT

Just mind you that 64bit will not make AC necessarily faster. Also AC itself will occupy more memory as it uses 64bit pointers and code adjustments to 64bit. In other words under 64bit AC communication with processes is more 'wordy'.

Only benefit you will get is possibility to use more memory than 4GB.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

rm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:42:24 GMT

Hey Rob,

what little I know about 64-bit processing is that it "grabs" and processes input from each action on the computer much faster than a 32-bit path. Consequently, generating a complex model view and or building section should be much faster on a 64-bit application than a 32-bit.

But what the heck do I know - I design buildings not computers or software.

I guess part of the rub here is while I recognize GS probably has twice the Windows based clients over Mac based....the application started on the Mac, was there by itself until I believe version 6 and now it seems over and over the Mac clients get to ride the back of the bus when it comes to feature sets.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:25:26 GMT

rm wrote:
I guess part of the rub here is while I recognize GS probably has twice the Windows based clients over Mac based....the application started on the Mac, was there by itself until I believe version 6 and now it seems over and over the Mac clients get to ride the back of the bus when it comes to feature sets.

Hi Robert,

Not your fault for not "living" on this forum - but this issue was talked to death a year or two ago. So, you're coming to the party talking about something that is ancient history to most of us.

In the long threads of complaints and responses from Graphisoft, including some info posted on their web site and Wiki, they explained that this is not their fault, but that of Apple and it impacted not just Graphisoft but almost every other major software manufacturer with a large, established code base.

The short story is that Apple supported two libraries (API) to write software for the Mac: Carbon and Cocoa. They began implementing 64 bit versions of both and assured developers that both would be supported - so developers with existing Carbon code (Graphisoft, Adobe, etc) simply began migrating to 64 bit Carbon. Then, Apple changed their mind and dropped 64 bit Carbon like a rock. Everyone was required to switch to Cocoa - which meant different system calls and switching programming languages for parts of the interface (from C++ to Apple's Objective C). HUGE work. Adobe only just now, with CS5, released a mostly 64 bit suite.

Graphisoft has released a completely 64 bit Cocoa BIM Server with 14. They have released - via the thread that Rob gave - a 64 bit preview version of 14. And, 14 itself has had all dialogs / user interface elements completely reprogrammed with Cocoa - which has several advantages talked about in other threads. There is every reason to expect that 15 will be completely 64 bit.

As Rob points out, there is no reason to anticipate any huge speed improvement from 64 bit, although certain parts will be faster. The main thing is that much more memory can be addressed, and so much larger models can be accommodated. For years, Mac OS has been able to address more memory than Windows in 32 bit as it is. For more info than you probably care about, see this:

http://www.archicadwiki.com/64-bit

The short story: if you are getting your work done, then 64 bit really doesn't matter.

Cheers,
Karl

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

rm — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:43:21 GMT

Karl,

Thanks for that very thorough explanation! Your right, I don't live here, I started a new business 2 years ago so I have not visited the forum lately. I guess I should have spent a little time searching before posting....my bad.

I have a fairly large school project I am modeling and I am shaking some of the cobwebs loose in AC brain. I probably will be posting questions / comments for a while that most vets here will read as "so yesterday" of an issue.

I hope I don't embarrass myself too much

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:47:34 GMT

No worries, Robert. It has been good to see you back here. 😉

Cheers,
Karl

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 00:15:13 GMT

As Karl has mentioned, the 64 vs 32 bit subject is old news. So is the multi-core and "speed" subject, ...I think.

(I don't live here either, nor have I been doing much production work 'til this recent Recession, so I'm very cold on AC and am force feeding myself on digital drafting again, after a number of years.)

As I'm in the market for a new Mac, and see the offerings for up to 12 cores, I would like a general update on the matter. And some advice.

Does AC benefit by the multi-cores and more RAM, now that the world is 64 bit? Surely AC 15 will make Mac owners happy in this regard, ...right?

-JS

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Laszlo Nagy — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:43:21 GMT

The AC help files usually contain the info about where performance improved.
I have just quickly collected what is there:

AC12:
Multi-core processor support. With ArchiCAD 12, multi-core
processors becomes the recommended and standard platform
for higher performance computing. Areas that will see
noticeable improvement include navigation and 3D model
generation including sections and shadow casting.

Lightworks rendering also utilizes multiple processor cores.
(Just don't set antialiasing to "Best").

AC13:
Performance of TW2 has been improved dramatically over TW1.

AC14:
Faster Generation of Door/Window Schedules
Faster Library Reload
Faster IFC Handling

Actually, for AC13 and AC14 it doesn't say how much of these improvements are due to multiprocessor support so I don't know.

With 64-bit you will use practically as much memory as you want.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 14:55:05 GMT

Jay wrote:
As I'm in the market for a new Mac, and see the offerings for up to 12 cores, I would like a general update on the matter. And some advice.

Does AC benefit by the multi-cores and more RAM, now that the world is 64 bit? Surely AC 15 will make Mac owners happy in this regard, ...right?

-JS

What you need depends on the size of the projects you do and how much you need running at one time.

I do VERY large projects on my 2 1/2 year old, eight core, 2.8GHz Mac Pro. I have 20GB RAM (and thinking of upgrading further) mostly because I run multiple apps and OSs (via Parallels) simultaneously. I am still very happy with the performance.

I can also work on most of the same projects on my year old Mac Book Pro which has a 2.8GHz Core2Duo and only 4GB RAM.

I've known quite a few to be happy with the 27" iMac.

I haven't needed to know much about PCs since Apple's switch to Intel allowed me to cut my computer purchases in half.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Karl Ottenstein — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 20:46:21 GMT

I would second Matthew's comments. In particular, the 4 (virtual) core 27" iMac is an excellent value for ArchiCAD.

This recent BareFeats article notes that the new 12 core units aren't that advantageous (cost vs performance) even for those things that are highly multithreaded.

IThe only thing that I run that uses all 8 cores 100% is Artlantis, and it really makes a difference there.

See:
http://www.barefeats.com/wst10c2.html

Cheers,
Karl

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

owen — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:15:51 GMT

Outside certain stages of the 3D Window / Section / Elevation rebuilds the performance of ArchiCAD is still very much driven by the speed of a single CPU - i.e the old clock speed wars still remain valid for AC.

For this reason I think you will find that an i7 iMac @ 2.93Ghz will actually perform just as well as - if not better than - a Mac Pro for most tasks outside certain stages of model rebuilds.

I pasted together some benchmark results for the latest iMacs and Mac Pro's (no 12-cores though). The results are very, very interesting i think. The Cinebench and Mathemetica tests show the performance of multi-cores, whereas the rest of the tests generally show performance you can expect from the vast majority of applications, relevant i think for non-3D activities in ArchiCAD.

A spec'ed out 27" i7 iMac with 16GB RAM and an SSD is a very good machine for ArchiCAD and it will cost you less than 50% that of a Mac Pro with similar specs outside the CPU.

I use one myself and am very very happy with it. We are also starting to recommend these systems to clients as standard workstations rather than Mac Pros.

cheers,

owen

PS. I am working on a 40+ story commercial high-rise with a detailed model (uncompressed TW2 file size is ~1.0GB). The 'Out of Memory' Error is an all too frequent occurance and so a true 64-bit Mac version cannot come quickly enough. It has almost prompted switching everyone over to Bootcamp partitions to run the project in the 64bit Windows version.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:03:11 GMT

we know a few people running ArchiCAD on the 4 core, 27" iMacs & they are all very happy.

For ArchiCAD at the moment, i would say they would be your best value for money..

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:09:12 GMT

I recently set up a few new 27in i7 quad-core iMacs for some AC13 and AC14 users, and they've been very happy with them.

With the i7 CPU option and a pretty stout video card -- ATI Radeon HD 5750 w/1GB of VRAM (GDDR5) -- they have plenty of horsepower.

You can get them with an i5 processor, but the i7 does hyperthreading (HT), where each core is seen as two "virtual cores" each running its own threads simultaneously. Snow Leopard is HT-savvy, as are recent versions of ArchiCAD. So I'd say the $200 option to upgrade from an i5 to an i7 is worthwhile.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 19:41:50 GMT

CCarter wrote:
I recently set up a few new 27in i7 quad-core iMacs for some AC13 and AC14 users, and they've been very happy with them.

With the i7 CPU option and a pretty stout video card -- ATI Radeon HD 5750 w/1GB of VRAM (GDDR5) -- they have plenty of horsepower.

You can get them with an i5 processor, but the i7 does hyperthreading (HT), where each core is seen as two "virtual cores" each running its own threads simultaneously. Snow Leopard is HT-savvy, as are recent versions of ArchiCAD. So I'd say the $200 option to upgrade from an i5 to an i7 is worthwhile.

yes they ones we had a play on were i7s. i7s laptops are fantastic for AC also.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Andy Thomson — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:42:09 GMT

Re: With the i7 CPU option and a pretty stout video card -- ATI Radeon HD 5750 w/1GB of VRAM (GDDR5) -- they have plenty of horsepower.

Have you had any issues with OpenGL (3D Window madness) with these cards? It seems a problem that used to plague users on a generation of white iMacs has come back to haunt us...

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Karl Barker — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 20:18:59 GMT

I have just recently gone from a 2.4 core2 20" iMac to a new i7 27" imac with the standard graphics card.
Definitely goes a bit quicker, especially with 14.
Now and then the 3D window goes funny and turns black still.
I suspect this is an issue with 14 as it happened on the 20" as well, but on a far more regular basis.

I do however think that AC14 has an issue with memory. although it could be the OS. (snow leopard) AC14 tends to hog memory and not clean itself out. In the plan window, I find that it can leave items in place when I move them or delete them. Rebuilding the window does not get rid of the residual object, line or wall. I remember this happening with AC12 I think. I tend to have to restart archiCAD every now and then to clear out the memory. Seems to do the trick. Just means that if I take a lunch break, it is worth my while to close down AC before lunch and restart it after. No need to restart the computer though.

Re: AC 14 Mac addition not 64-bit yet / true or false

Andy Thomson — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:35:45 GMT

Apple suggested software update to 10.6.5 - problem went away - for the moment...