will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

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Habitat
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will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by Habitat »

work well with v carve pro?

will i be sorry i switched from windows to mac regarding vectric v carve pro?

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jfederer
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Re: will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by jfederer »

You will need to run VCarve on Windows within a Virtual Machine such as Parallels. Vectric products are Windows-only. Others make that work, I personally don't consider it a worthwhile effort. I've used Mac, Linux, and Windows. To each task, the correct tool.
Joe Federer

www.fabrikisto.com incl. Tailmaker software
www.federer.ca

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adze_cnc
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Re: will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by adze_cnc »

Since you have Windows one added cost to running VCarve under a virtual machine is averted—that of acquiring a copy of Windows to install within the virtual machine.

What might also be a limiting factor is that the video under the virtual machine might not be able to run as hardware accelerated leaving the video rendering up to a slower software renderer.

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rink
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Re: will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by rink »

Good afternoon.
Summary:
It works fine, take the plunge.

Details:
I’d been using Windows PCs exclusively since about 1983. In June ‘22 I got a MacBook Pro 14-inch with M1 processor and 32Gb RAM. Overall, converting to Mac is the best tech decision I ever made. And now that Excel for Mac’s Power Query has finally been beefed up to match the Excel Windows version, all is right in the universe.

Anyway, to run VCarve, I purchased and installed a Parallels subscription to run a virtual machine. I then purchased Windows 11 to run on that virtual machine. I then installed my existing VCarve Pro subscription on that virtual Windows machine. Result: it works just fine.

There are a few very nit-picky little things that are slightly different when running VCarve this way. But they are so minor that I can’t actually call any of them to mind at the moment. Oh, one thing is…when you select an object in your drawing and press the Delete key, nothing happens. You have to press Cmd+Delete, same as in the Mac Finder window when you want to delete files. No big deal.

As mentioned by adze_cnc, the toolpath simulations do run slower than on a native Windows machine, and a little choppy. But it’s not a big deal. I’m a hobbyist, not a business, so small things like the slower simulation is of no concern to me. And really, it’s not materially slower anyway, at least for me.

I do a lot of thing on a computer. I run other CAD programs as well as photo and video editing, spreadsheets, other types of graphics, etc. VCarve is only one of those many things and it’s the only thing I have to use the virtual Windows setup for. It frustrates me that Vectric doesn’t offer a native Mac version (and I’ve been almost ridiculed on this forum for even suggesting such a thing) but this workaround works just fine.

Go Mac, you’ll never look back.

Sorry for the long post.
Thx, rink.
I want to be unique like everyone else.

wb9tpg
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Re: will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by wb9tpg »

I had a mid2015 MacBook with 16gb. I do a lot of laser tool paths and some would never finish calculating. I tried both Parallels and VMware Fusion with no success.


I just switched to a windows 11 PC with 32g and an AMD 5700 processor. Those toolpaths take almost 5 minutes but they do complete there


I’m doing some complex stuff and it’s taxing Aspire
Gary Mitchell
Kentucky, USA

NewAtThis
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Re: will a mac laptop configured with all the bells and whistles hardware wise

Post by NewAtThis »

Alternatively, if you still have the Windows machine, connect to it from the Mac using Microsoft Remote Desktop allong your network (wired or wireless), but you will need a Pro version of Windows software.

I use this method to connect my Mac to my Surface Pro, which is permanently located in the workshed and connected to my Stepcraft CNC. That way I can run Vectric on my big screen but still control the CNC from the Surface Pro. I share files across both machines using a NAS.

Hope this helps.
Be wary of taking the advice of someone who thinks he knows what he's doing, and don't listen to me!

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