So I drank the Apple kool-aid long ago and have been in the Apple ecosystem. For the most part it has been great with very little hiccups. I have been through the struggles of having to run Parallels and setting it up just to be able to run DataCAD while I run MacOS in the background (2nd monitor). As of late, I have noticed that DataCAD has been bogging down a bit when I am zooming in or out, or when I have some larger files open. (I do feel like I am putting more and more info into the drawings - so I understand that could be part of the reason). It got to the point though that I went into Apple to see if there was actually something wrong with the computer, as it wasn't always just DataCAD that gave me an issue. After running various tests and finding out everything is ok, we started digging into DataCAD and some of the other programs I use.
While going over the specs/system requirements, the Apple Genius noted the first line in the "Notes" section of system requirements that states "... DataCAD runs as a 32-bit application on 64-bit versions of Windows." The genius stated that that there is my problem. The 32-bit application will be bottle-necked with the amount of RAM that it can access. So my laptop having 64GB of RAM isn't the issue, he said. I could have 128GB of RAM, and I would probably still have the same issue.
So is this true that DataCAD is stuck as a 32-bit application? Is there any reason it can't be 64-bit? Doing some google searching, it states that with a 32-bit application the max RAM it can access is 4GB. Whereas 64-bit theoretically could be up to 16 million TB. So why is it recommended to have 16GB for better performance, per the system recommendations? Is that so 12GB of RAM can be allocated to the rest of the computer? I haven't searched deep into the forums, but is there talk or rumors of going to a 64-bit application. I am sure going to ARM is out of the question, but that sort of seems to be the trend of the future (I think).
While I don't necessarily want to move on from the CAD program I have been using for upwards of 16 years, I also don't want to be pigeon-holed or limited as to what I can or cannot imagine, draw, and notate because the program is maxed out.
While going over the specs/system requirements, the Apple Genius noted the first line in the "Notes" section of system requirements that states "... DataCAD runs as a 32-bit application on 64-bit versions of Windows." The genius stated that that there is my problem. The 32-bit application will be bottle-necked with the amount of RAM that it can access. So my laptop having 64GB of RAM isn't the issue, he said. I could have 128GB of RAM, and I would probably still have the same issue.
So is this true that DataCAD is stuck as a 32-bit application? Is there any reason it can't be 64-bit? Doing some google searching, it states that with a 32-bit application the max RAM it can access is 4GB. Whereas 64-bit theoretically could be up to 16 million TB. So why is it recommended to have 16GB for better performance, per the system recommendations? Is that so 12GB of RAM can be allocated to the rest of the computer? I haven't searched deep into the forums, but is there talk or rumors of going to a 64-bit application. I am sure going to ARM is out of the question, but that sort of seems to be the trend of the future (I think).
While I don't necessarily want to move on from the CAD program I have been using for upwards of 16 years, I also don't want to be pigeon-holed or limited as to what I can or cannot imagine, draw, and notate because the program is maxed out.
Mark Bell likes this
I AM CANADIAN