Will ArchiCAD have a future?

[Anonymous]

the topic is a partly answer to Mac Pro or Vista for AC and driven by a pain i feel for years and yes, the topic is discussed over and over in this forum.

i don't understand what's the buzz here: "which from the top workstations would be better?"

NONE

i'm not with archicad from the very beginning, it think it was 6 or 6.5.
sure, every next version up to that point has been an improvement. like 7 to 8.1 or 8.1 to 10. anyway- every version was developed in name of TOOLS we use in managing the project- and here we see a small change in actual way how the architects think and create architecture (except for using software for creatting bubble-architecture, and even here the solution within ac is external- maxonform:). things have become better, but..
but i just don't see (am i blind?) that the ac has been developed in the means of hardware specs, thus giving room for these software tools to work smoothly and delivering top experience. macs & pcs has grown, emmm... SIGNIFICANTLY over last 8 years.
the marginal upgrade in tools isn't reflected in upgrade how ac works with your hardware. archaic code.
i just can't stand the attitude from GS here. i mean the lines "we have to revrite code. it's huge task". no doubt it is.
archicadwiki techsupport

• no multithreading
ok, they say it's "partly". why?

(..) ArchiCAD will not be a fully multi-threaded application at any time soon. This is partly because re-writing the ArchiCAD code to support multi-threading is a huge task, and there are areas where it would not cause a dramatic performance increase. Graphisoft will focus on the areas where multi-threading brings the most benefit.

thus you don't need octocore (or even quadro) mac pro "at any time soon", because it's a big job for them. (if i think that ac on 8 cores would use 1/8 of the resources available- ).
• max 4bg ram
well, and if more is in your system, it craches. you have to use the terminal to switch off the "unneeded" ram. ^£%^$£%$
• 32 bit
nuts

Transferring a 32-bit application to 64-bit requires reprogramming even the most basic functions in the software, therefore the change to 64-bit in business softwares will happen at a much slower pace than the rapid change from 32-bit processors to 64-bit processors in the Personal Computer (PC) industry.

so mainly they are basing the answer once again on excuse, that it requres recoding ac + on a bad market practise "aww, the other business software developers are also slow on this". sorry, but that doesn't apply to other apps i use, ie, c4d, maxwell. yes, they are a different profile, but- whatever harware resources i give them- it's been effectivelly used. and that's the reason they REALLY are top software solutions. and the argument that archicad has 100x more lines of code can't be an argument.

and with the upcoming ac11... they've spent another year on writing code which sooner or later must been rewritten. with the intoduction of windoze vista more and more consumers will upgrade to 64bit systems. mac users are there already (+leopard will also be a push to abandon old g4 boxes (multicore g5 pros are still more than great)).
graphisofts advertising and managment has been pretty good, but they now have to consider answers to "i got top vista pc/i got the new mac pro octocore, but my ac isn't getting faster".
they can choose to lie about ac beeing top level software.
they can choose to get more unsatisfied customers by telling true "yes, we have worked only on tools, forgetting about cpus, bits and rams".
they can choose to sit down and rewrite ac12 as multithreaded, 64 bit application, which would give them further enormous room for implementing top cpu&ram intensive tools. those who would still use 32bit computers will have their maximum ac11 version. if he GS says "we don't have that much programmers", then it's simple as it gets- AC DOESN'T HAVE FUTURE. it's a fact. like the latvian saying "ko nevar celt, to nevar nest"- you can't carry what you can't lift.

i hope someday new ac version wouldn't be a hotfix for the previous one.

i'm sorry if i touched some of GS staff personally. i understand that you work hard, but, in my opinion, only such critism would maybe produce not only thoughts about brighter future for all of us, but you will finaly sit down, say "ok, this is the point we stop. and open new page for starting to code the real future AC version. yes, we trash the 20 year old and so beloved code, but that's the only way we can do it". ACT, please, ACT NOW! and take your time, i can live with 32bit AC11 if you state that there will be ac12 after 1.5years costing more, because you had to pay more programmers. i will buy it and bring flowers.

[Laura Yanoviak]

I've seen many of these surveys, and they're all over the place. The question is, who was surveyed and how was the question phrased? How "scientific" is this survey? I attended the AIA Convention in May, and in many of the sessions they asked for a show of hands of people actively using BIM -- maybe 6 hands out of a thousand went up. In Denver, I know of many firms "using" BIM, but very few using Revit as their primary CAD application. My experience speaks louder to me than any "survey".

[Richard Morrison]

Peter wrote:
It is not as if these figures were supplied by Autodesk themselves either. It feels like it's a pretty independent survey of software usage. The one thing I can't work out was if the survey was mainly from the larger practices or if smaller practices were equally represented.

It would also have been interesting to see the breakdown of usage for each continent. I would hope to see that ArchiCAD usage to be much higher in Europe!

There are a lot of unknowns in this survey. How many respondents? (50 or 1000?) As I recall, this magazine is fairly pricey, so it is likely to be mostly circulated at large firms. Was it limited to one response/firm? You get 10 people at a large Revit firm answering, and it will skew the results. Further, it seems to be an English language magazine, so I suspect the results are heavily weighted towards the UK. Without knowing more about the survey protocol, I would be disinclined to give it a lot of credence.

[Anonymous]

I think the interesting part of the discussion relates to the marketing strategy that Nemetschek will take with AC, as there is no evidence yet of any change since the acquisition. Once we see something from them, I think questions/discussions about their direction and intent of the software in the marketplace can become more clear.

[Laura Yanoviak]

LINZ wrote:
I think the interesting part of the discussion relates to the marketing strategy that Nemetschek will take with AC, as there is no evidence yet of any change since the acquisition.

Yes -- it is curious. You would think that even if they are hesitant to assist in the software development (for whatever reason), at least there would be some (if not a lot) of marketing support.

[Djordje]

Peter wrote:
I found an interesting article in the online version of Building Design. In a software survey they found that ArchiCAD usage at a disappointing 2% , whilst Revit is at 16% somehow!

How did that happen? ArchiCAD has been going for decades, Revit has been under Autodesks wing for 4 years or something.

Are you sure that those are actual USAGE numbers?

Revit has been under Autodesk since 2002, that's six years. Conseqently, the full force of Autodesk marketing was behind it. I don't have to mention Graphisoft's lack of the same, worldwide.

Back to the topic - A LOT of licenses of Revit are sold as Plus, or something like that (in Europe at least) where for 5% more you get AutoCAD and Revit, but can use only one at a time.

Autodesk also claimed lots of ADTs sold, but few were actually USED.

And then back to the second point: ask Graphisoft US why after more than 20 years less people know about ArchiCAD then about Revit after 6 years.

[Dwight]

That would be bacause AutoDesk can place full page back cover ads in Cadalyst magazine with two soccer/football players kicking a cabbage.

"Don't use the wrong tool!!"

[TomWaltz]

Laura wrote:

Shivang wrote:
and use or success in Architecture means No. of Projects.
I think ! correct me if i am wrong.

Yes -- "Using" and "completing a project with" are two different things.

Not always. Do you consider how they use it or how they complete projects?

A company could use Archicad heavily though schematic and DD, then do a split 50/50 of details in Autocad and details in Archicad. That's not completing a project in Archicad.

It's possible to use Archicad to do all 2D projects. That's completing a project in Archicad, but is it really "using" it?

In these two situations, the company's using it but not completing projects in it gets more benefit out of Archicad. The bigger question: Does it matter?

I think too many people get hung up on "pure BIM" or too excited about how they use a single tool throughout their organization. At some point, if you are highly profitable using 4 different programs to get projects out, who cares if you combined them all instead of using one tool only?

[Karl Ottenstein]

Karl wrote:
Yes, you will see 12 take full advantage of all cores at certain peak periods.

I've been doing some testing and thought I should qualify this earlier post. I do indeed see all 8 cores on my machine busy once in a while over the entire process of generating a section/elevation for example. Not necessarily a 'peak' period - but certain subtasks.

Based on the speed-ups that I've seen, and the benchmarks by Ben and others, a dual core or quad-core machine is probably the best bang for the buck for AC 12 unless one does a lot of rendering/multitasking/etc. (Artlantis will take advantage of all cores all the time during preview render as well as final render, for example. So, working in Artlantis is definitely faster with more cores.)

Karl

[Anonymous]

This is how I see it. Less firms with Archicad=Less users of Archicad=More pay for proficient users of archicad. Simple. I'm looking at the numbers and it's high time we realize that this will not be the big program in the future. Wishing away facts never works.

[Bricklyne Clarence]

Jacob wrote:
This is how I see it. Less firms with Archicad=Less users of Archicad=More pay for proficient users of archicad. Simple. I'm looking at the numbers and it's high time we realize that this will not be the big program in the future. Wishing away facts never works.

....another way to phrase that equation would be thus:

Less firms with Archicad=Less users of Archicad=Less licenses sold=Less resources/funds for R & D for future versions= Less competitive and powerful program

.....which ultimately restarts the cycle once again. A vicious self-devouring cycle. Yet for some reason GS seem not to be able to make this link between their marketing strategy, Public relations mangement and operations, and, their long-term goals to the viability and survival of their product in the coming years.

There's a certain sense of complacency and obstinacy that seems partly grounded in the belief that having survived for this long (when other pretenders have come and gone but yet when they really also had no serious competitors up until now) along with the fact that they are the only serious offering for a Mac-native BIM application, then they don't really need to fix what isn't "broken", in their opinion, nor adapt their strategies and operating procedures to an ever-changing competitive financial climate. Both of the aforementioned beliefs may hold true for the present (Actually only the latter, Revit pretty much nullifies the whole 'only-game-in-town belief), but will not hold so, for much longer in the future; especially once Autodesk realize that Macs may be becoming popular enough to warrant investing in a Mac-native Revit version, at the very least.


You're right in that wishing away facts never works, but sadly, nor do logic and rationale on these boards where GS is concerned most of the times.