Is the current Archicad good enough to come back to?

[Anonymous]

I left Archicad after version 8.0 soured me on it...

I found the bugs hard to deal with and the 8.1 fix didn't really make up for the slow speed on my then state-of-the-art PowerBook. And the awkward 2-d/3-d bifurcation...

But much has happened since then...



1. Does the Maxon Form system really work well? Can you easily make non-orthogonal geometries and wild blobs/shapes, etc? Is it fast enough to go back and forth? Can you go back and forth from Maxon into Archicad and vice versa?
2. Do you still have to work on stairs and roofs in 2-d?
3. Can you make double hung windows in 3-d without having to go through 16 steps to put a lot of pieces together in different views?
4. Is the speed on the Mac acceptable? 2 ghz MacBook Pro? 2,5 ghz PowerMac? both have 2 gigs of ram
5. Does Studios Architecture still use Archicad? If not, what happened?

Do you find it fun to use?

Cheers,
Wm

[Laura Yanoviak]

william235711 wrote:
1. Does the Maxon Form system really work well? Can you easily make non-orthogonal geometries and wild blobs/shapes, etc? Is it fast enough to go back and forth? Can you go back and forth from Maxon into Archicad and vice versa?

Yes. MaxonForm is very powerful, but... there is a steep learning curve.

william235711 wrote:
2. Do you still have to work on stairs and roofs in 2-d?

I'm not sure what you're referring to with roofs, but stairs have not improved since AC8, I'm sorry to say.

william235711 wrote:
Do you find it fun to use?

Yes, absolutely.

[Anonymous]

william235711 wrote:
I left Archicad after version 8.0 soured me on it...

8.0 would have been the biggest upgrade in ArchiCAD's history if it had worked reliably with acceptable performance. Instead it was a near disaster for many of us. 8.1 was an acceptable patch and version 9 was what 8 should have been (plus BIG improvements to PlotMaker.

Versions 10 and 11 are both very significant advances and are dramatically improved over versions 7 (which worked) and 8 (which didn't).

I would not now recommend running any version after 7 on a G4, but I am finding that AC11 is performing very well (better than AC10) on my aging MacBook Pro. I strongly recommend getting back into ArchiCAD. It seems that GS is really on track with significantly improving the program with each release, and from what I've heard about 12 and 13 it looks like this trend will continue.

[Anonymous]

Matthew wrote:

william235711 wrote:
I left Archicad after version 8.0 soured me on it...

8.0 would have been the biggest upgrade in ArchiCAD's history if it had worked reliably with acceptable performance. Instead it was a near disaster for many of us. 8.1 was an acceptable patch and version 9 was what 8 should have been (plus BIG improvements to PlotMaker.

Versions 10 and 11 are both very significant advances and are dramatically improved over versions 7 (which worked) and 8 (which didn't).

I would not now recommend running any version after 7 on a G4, but I am finding that AC11 is performing very well (better than AC10) on my aging MacBook Pro. I strongly recommend getting back into ArchiCAD. It seems that GS is really on track with significantly improving the program with each release, and from what I've heard about 12 and 13 it looks like this trend will continue.

.... and what did u hear ? -...mistirus man 🙂

[Rex Maximilian]

Matthew wrote:
8.0 would have been the biggest upgrade in ArchiCAD's history if it had worked reliably with acceptable performance. Instead it was a near disaster for many of us. 8.1 was an acceptable patch and version 9 was what 8 should have been (plus BIG improvements to PlotMaker.

The reason for this was because the code was rewritten from scratch for the first time since its inception. While this was a dark period for the software, it has been the saving grace of it as well because it has enabled it to be updated to newer versions with more stability and not become bloatware.

Matthew wrote:
Versions 10 and 11 are both very significant advances and are dramatically improved over versions 7 (which worked) and 8 (which didn't).

I'd definitely say 10 was the biggest ever jump from version to version in its history. I've been using it since 3.x and have never seen a greater difference from a previous version. Of course all for the better too.

Matthew wrote:
I would not now recommend running any version after 7 on a G4.

It's fine on my ol', trusty G4 laptop. Not an optimum setup mind you, but fully workable.

And to the original poster... YES! Swicth back now. No joke, it is extremely streamlined now with the consolidation of PlotMaker.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand what is it all about? What was wrong with v8.0? We have been using it with no severe problems. There have been some small issues but nothing that would force us to come back to v7. Seriously imagine your work without OpenGL, and mouse scroll zoom. This two features only increased our productivity like a 200%. No more shortcuts for zooming and possibility to see whole building in real time. 'mon.

[Thomas Holm]

You mean you dind't even implement the free upgrade to 8.1??

[Anonymous]

Of course I did. But it was way later.

[Anonymous]

Miki wrote:
What was wrong with v8.0?

It was better on Windows than Mac, but performance was still poor compared to AC7 and SEOs didn't work on PCs either. There were LOTS of problems with AC8, but I have preferred to forget most of the details. Congratulations for being among the few that didn't have major troubles with it.

[Chazz]

Matthew wrote:
There were LOTS of problems with AC8, but I have preferred to forget most of the details.

After having done lots of updates to AC in the years prior to 8, I casually migrated several seats of the software to 8 at a former employer's. It was a absolute acid party disaster and nearly cost me my job. I still occasionally chat with the principle of that firm and he tells me they reverted to AC 7 and are still on it......

There were lots of serious bugs in 7 but 8 was just unusable.