Minimum Mac requirements

[Jensk]

Hi, we run about 80 Archicad licences and now are in the process of upgrading our iMacs.   Can anybody advise us on the best type of Macs that will run AC as well as Twinmotion, Photoshop, Luminon and other processor/RAM draining software?

[rm]

I guess the question is will you be upgrading to Intel Macs or M1 or M1x Macs?  Specifically if you need to run Lumion, you need to run Intel Macs so you can run Windows 10 via Bootcamp. 

Twinmotion is another story.  While there are many features we like about TwinMotion, one issue/problem we have running TwinMotion is too little GPU.  TwinMotion constantly freezes/crashes for us.  We have seen this complaint by many other Mac and Windows users.  So if you need to run TwinMotion, make sure you have the fastest GPU you can get for your Macs.

We run Archicad 24 /25 on newer Intel Macs.  Frankly, it runs pretty fast on all our Macs, even with really complex models.  If you are installing newer Intel Macs or M1 Macs, I dont think you can go wrong speed wise on any Macs running Archicad.  But you do want to get Macs with at least 16MB of RAM, we like to run 32MB, especially because of running Boot Camp / Windows / Lumion, 64MB would be even better.

Hope that helps!

[Jensk]

Hi Robert,

Thank you for the insights.

It seems we here on the southern tip of Africa are still operating in the dark ages when it comes to having the latest Macs on offer.  16" MBP's not available yet, and I am not sure if in the US, the 'standard' Mac range is also limited to two machines - if one wants more RAM or larger SSD, these are special orders with an up to 8 week waiting period.  It also seems we can only expect the new 27" iMacs in March next year.

Thanks for the recommendation about the RAM. 

[Laszlo Nagy]

As far as I know, Apple is announcing new Macs this coming week. Hopefully, it will include more powerful Apple Silicon (M1) Macs with more RAM that are suitable for Archicad with medium and large projects. You might want to wait a bit with those purchases so you have more options to decide on:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/macbook-pro-2021-every-rumor-weve-heard-ahead-of-tomorrows-apple...