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.

[Dwight]

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

Karl

But energy saving users are advised to hold off on cooking dinner until after 7PM to prevent the coal fired generators from starting up.

[Anonymous]

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.

I'm starting to feel a bit worried. I always believed the figures were similar?

See here in the 'World Architecture 100 2008' edition, page 40-41

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/hybrid.asp?navcode=2067

I wonder if AC12 will help the numbers? There still seems to be 49% flatcadders to convert!

Article attached below.

[Anonymous]

Second page attached for those who are interested.

[Shivang Rajvir]

Its very simple when you get a floppy drive free with your newly brought 8X Super Sensitive Multi Layer DVD RW; you can not count it as increase in Floppy Users.
Can you ??

[Anonymous]

Shivang wrote:
Its very simple when you get a floppy drive free with your newly brought 8X Super Sensitive Multi Layer DVD RW; you can not count it as increase in Floppy Users.
Can you ??

I agree. From my understanding, Autodesk gives Revit to every firm with an Autocad license as a means of promotion. I think a better indicator of usage would the number of projects completed using X software package. What is a bigger concern IMO is the massive marketing ability of Autodesk. It's not unlike the hold Microsoft has on, say word processing. OpenOffice is an interesting idea - giving away software for free. I wonder if Nemetschek has considered a similar strategy for cutting Autodesk off at the knees. Maybe they should have a free version and a pay version, not unlike Sketchup and the Pro version.

[Anonymous]

Shivang wrote:
Its very simple when you get a floppy drive free with your newly brought 8X Super Sensitive Multi Layer DVD RW; you can not count it as increase in Floppy Users.
Can you ??

Yes, but this is a survey of architects and what software they use, not what software they have in a box in the store cupboard given to them at a large discount!

[Shivang Rajvir]

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

[Laura Yanoviak]

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.

[Shivang Rajvir]

Agreed.
Completed Using......................

[Anonymous]

Not wishing to labour the point, but if you were filling out a survey of what software you used to make a living, ie architecture, and you had a copy of Revit, had used it for ten minutes and not liked it, then done the rest of your projects for the whole year in 2d AutoCAD, would you then go on to enter Revit as your main software of choice?

Surely it is irrelevant if they have 'completed' a project or not. (What does 'completed' mean anyway? I use Photoshop and Word in 'completing' a project! Does this mean I can't say I use ArchiCAD as my main software?) The people surveyed that voted for Revit clearly felt that Revit was the main software they used in the practice. Is that not a reasonable assumption to make?

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!

Anyway, regardless how you actually interpret the results, the results are still slightly un-nerving in terms of whether are we being left behind using a niche product that wont natively communicate with the 'dominant' software that every one else is starting to use.