Upgrading to ArchiCAD V13

[Anonymous]

Well my support subscription invoice has just arrived so with the current state of the economy I had to check, Is the upgrade to version 13 worth me having.

I checked with my reseller who said the only thing he can tell me is that ArchiCAD 13 will have better team work. That would be fine if I was a large practice, but I am not. So for now ArchiCAD 12 will do just fine and I can save the money.

Unless there is a significant improvement in the tools why bother?

[ares997]

...

[Karl Ottenstein]

oreopoulos wrote:
... and charge for accessing the GS servers.

Just to clarify that point ... and not to diminish your, or others', unhappiness or outrage:

There are no GS servers, much less any 'service' that Graphisoft charges for related to the new TeamWork.

The cool thing about the BIM Server (a software module) is that you do not even need a dedicated server computer. The software can run on a workstation, a spare computer with a user-OS, or for larger groups on an actual file server with a server OS. During testing, Erika and I both connected to a BIM Server installed on an old computer at a Graphisoft employee's home which was playing video for his child at the time. Reservations, send/receive, messaging, etc worked well!

Karl

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
There are no GS servers, much less any 'service' that Graphisoft charges for related to the new TeamWork.
Karl

As i was not interested in TW2 , i just speculated, that it would be something like google/wave (wave goes a lot futher, and does not require reservation for simultaneous editing of documents) , but after seeing the videos, i see that its something much simpler than wave. Nice ofcourse.

It would help tons big firms.

But is something that i really dont care. I am not trying to be negative, but come to my position. Paying for absolutely nothing at all. TW2 could be a separate addon like MEP. Sell it separatelly. But i get nothing else is ready to give to us.

What would you do if you were me. Be pleased?

[Anonymous]

Djordje wrote:
only to cry that the new upgrade is worthless. For EVERY upgrade (see oreopulos).

I wont get personal. Instead of telling stories for bad wolves, can you please explain to me, how a single office user will benefit from this new release?

If you were a single office user, would you buy this upgrade and if yes why? (i dont have the option not to buy since i paid by subscription a year ago).

So instead of pointing to bad guys and telling stories about a stupid guy shouting out for no reason , like i am a mad man, i am waiting for a concrete logical answer. (i am waiting to hear the story, from a man that things that EVERY release is fine and we get what we deserve)

[owen]

ares997 wrote:
Do you guys know the complexity in coding for MAC.

Not from personal experience, but from what i hear & read it is no more difficult than for Windows .. in fact some say it is much easier. ArchiCAD actually started out on the Mac back in the early 80's ..

ares997 wrote:
I'm glad Graphisoft hasn't pushed out some junk in a box and said it's here. I would rather wait another couple of months to have something that is going to pound the crap out of everything I have ever experienced.

I live in hope that we will be waiting only a few months for a 64bit OSX version but experience tells me it shall not be. I imagine we will only see a 64bit Mac version once Apple finally does then inevitable and declares Carbon officially end-of-life. I really would not be surprised if that doesn't happen with 10.7 ... 10.6 seems to be all about setting the foundation for a solid 64bit future and Apple have been subtley and not-so pushing people towards the 64bit capable Cocoa API.

[owen]

Karl wrote:
During testing, Erika and I both connected to a BIM Server installed on an old computer at a Graphisoft employee's home which was playing video for his child at the time. Reservations, send/receive, messaging, etc worked well!

Now this really is the biggest thing to have happened to ArchiCAD in a long time. I would even go so far as to drop my '64bit' comment from the quote on the GS Homepage (GS seem to have taken no notice of it anyway).

If TW2 works over such distances using standard domestic broadband speeds then this really will eliminate one of the major performance headaches experienced in large teams and open a whole new world of possibilities for long distance collaboration. I really do think for many practices this alone would be worth AC13.

Karl - as 'broadband' is a pretty loose term depending on whom you talk to do you mind indicating what sorts of bandwidth you guys were dealing with whilst getting acceptable results?

I've heard the US Gov deems anything over 700KB as broadband, and the Aust Gov calls it at about 1MB. Both of which are laughable given I have 26MB connection here in Berlin for 15 Euro per month with unlimited data. Friends in the US had Verizon FiOS which was something like 50MB.

[Anonymous]

oreopoulos wrote:
If you were a single office user, would you buy this upgrade and if yes why? (i dont have the option not to buy since i paid by subscription a year ago).

For me, just the automatic 'soft' insulation feature is probably worth the £500 subscription fee alone. Our buildings are absolutely stuffed with insulation, in both internal and external walls. It is a major maintainance issue (AKA a PITA) to keep every single plan, section and detail all up to date when the 2d insulation is drawn over the top of the 3d walls.

The annotation and dimensioning in schedules could have saved me a great deal of manual work, and also helped prevent co-ordination problems that occurred when the windows had to be manually drawn, separate from the model.

I've noticed that there is even a boundary contour control options for elevations/sections now. If this actually works like I think it should, this alone could save heaps of time.

Over the course of a year you only need to save a couple of dollars/pounds worth of time per day (5-10 mins?) and the subscription is paid for. Can you not see yourself saving that amount of time with the new features?

I'll fully admit there are many things that are still absent from ArchiCAD (I don't think anyone would deny that), but adding 64bit support and teamworks 2.0 in this release should make sure ArchiCAD is still competitive and relevant in the BIM market for years to come. They had to do it sometime or they'd be left behind.

The introduction of 64bit could also be a sign that they are thinking of introducing true freeform modelling into ArchiCAD in the future. Polycounts and file sizes will increase massively, so 64bit will be the only way to cope with the memory demands. I don't think they have the resources to implement 64bit support and freeform modelling in one year, so one has to come first!

[Karl Ottenstein]

owen wrote:
Karl - as 'broadband' is a pretty loose term depending on whom you talk to do you mind indicating what sorts of bandwidth you guys were dealing with whilst getting acceptable results?

I've heard the US Gov deems anything over 700KB as broadband, and the Aust Gov calls it at about 1MB. Both of which are laughable given I have 26MB connection here in Berlin for 15 Euro per month with unlimited data. Friends in the US had Verizon FiOS which was something like 50MB.

I'm jealous ... maybe I should move to Germany, or find the FIOS coverage map!

I have basic DSL (1.5 mbps download, 900 kbps upload - so maximum 150 KB/S down and 90 KB/S up) in the foothills outside Bozeman, Montana; within the city radius, higher speed are possible. Erika, in Los Angeles, has a cable modem with something similar I think. (We did various tests between each other as well.)

The slower of the client or server (and the links in between) would be the limiting factor, of course, and as I recall, the fellow in Budapest had an even higher speed connection at his home, leaving me as the "weakest link". Everything was completely acceptable. I can talk about some very specific issues once 13 is shipping (and I am released from NDA).

Within a local network, the performance and functionality are stellar of course. But, things are fine for collaboration with my basic DSL speed.

Cheers,
Karl

[Rakela Raul]

the US is way behind in internet speed, there are 10 nations (at least) ahead of us

[Anonymous]

The news that little bandwidth is needed to interact with a TW2 server when accessed over the internet may sound impressive, but leaves me with more questions than answers:

- Initial opening must continue to be be 'slow' (comparatively) as the whole file must be downloaded(?).

- How are libraries handled? Can the 'core' libraries be loaded locally to avoid extra network (internet) traffic?

- Most important: Now GS has encouraged the use of net licenses in large offices, do we all need to go back to individual usb dongles to work remotely on a TW2 project - or is there more to come from GS about how licenses are handled? (A la revit electronic keys that can be emailed etc?).