Dec 03, 2015 The day has come–officially! You can now run Autodesk Revit, fully supported on your Mac, and stay in your Mac! Different Forms of Native. For many people in the global architectural industry, the desire to run Revit on Mac computers has been all consuming. Depends entirely on the project size and complexity. With a fairly recent mbpro parallels 4 or 5 with winxp should work fine, provided you have at least 4 gb of ram. However, once the project gets too big or too complex, revit will slow down significantly. Unfortunately, there is no golden rule as to where the magic barrier is where a revit.
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Hi All,
Well I made the plunge and changed my work computer from a Lenovo laptop with Win7 to a new MacBook Pro with Lion and Win7 (using parallels). I'm still in the setup phase and it has been a learning experience. I've made the switch as a learning experience. I've been a part time Mac user for a few years (my wife has one), so I wanted to see 1st hand what all the fuss is about. Some things I really like other things can be frustrating. Is is frustration because it is different from Windows or is it Mac pushing its agenda, not sure.
Anyway, my first question to the community is how are people using the Magic Mouse with Revit. I find the lack of middle mouse button some what frustrating. I know there has to be some way to improve the navigation, so I'm here to ask the experts. Any advice?
Thanks in advance,
Q. Why run Autodesk Revit on a Macbook Pro?
¹ Learn more about using Autodesk Revit or Autodesk Revit LT software with Boot Camp, part of macOS that enables you to install and run Microsoft Windows (and Windows-based applications) on a Mac® computer or with Parallels Desktop, a system utility available from Parallels, Inc. That allows you to run applications in each operating system. Revit using Bootcamp As many have known for years, for running Revit natively on Mac hardware, booting directly in to a Windows partition is the best in terms of performance. That is to be expected.
Answer: I like the MacBook Pro hardware, which is the main reason why I also want to run my primary professional applications on it. In fact, I 'run' Revit on my MacBook Air as well; read on...
Revit using Bootcamp
As many have known for years, for running Revit natively on Mac hardware, booting directly in to a Windows partition is the best in terms of performance. That is to be expected as you are simply using the Mac hardware as a high end PC. You however give up the Mac OS X goodness in doing so.
Revit using Virtual Machines
My article will focus on this section as I have done some research on the subject, and have results to share. My users 'need' to use Macbook Pro while traveling (for some Mac native apps) and also have to run design software (AutoCAD & Revit).
First thing to consider is the specs of the MBP you would select for this purpose.
I recommend buying the 15” MBP with a 'Discrete Graphics' card.
These models also have larger L3 cache, and Revit performance is sensitive to its size. You will also take advantage of the better specs running Revit using Bootcamp.
For our virtualization setup, I went with VMware Fusion over Parallels due to a slight edge in graphics performance.
How To Revit On A Mac Software
Hardware considerations:
- Max out the RAM to 16GB when ordering the MBP
- Get the MacBook Pro with discrete video card - only available on 15” models with the Radeon R9 (2GB vRAM)
- For models with IG (integrated graphics), do consider the fact that the Video RAM will be taken out from the physical RAM. So, if you allocate 8GB RAM to the Virtual Machine, plus 1GB Video RAM, you have effectively taken away 9GB from the 16GB RAM (leaving only 7GB for the Mac OSX side!)
Virtual Machine settings:
- Allocate only 2 CPUs to the VM (For the most part, Revit only utilizes a single processing core at a time, though there are some tasks where multiple cores could be utilized).
- Allocate a max 50% RAM to the VM (8GB, if physical RAM is 16GB)
- Similarly, allocate a max 50% Video RAM to the VM
- For running 3D programs in the virtual environment, use DirectX (10 or 9) from the 3D acceleration menu, and install the VM Tools in Windows OS.
Note: see Parallels Performance Recommendations
Revit in the cloud (accessed via web browser)
Using Fra.me technology, you could access any Windows application running in the cloud from multitude of devices capable of running a modern browser.
The download speeds were amazing, since data exchange is directly between Frame and Autodesk servers. I was able to install Revit 2017 (without the Medium Material Library) in under 6 minutes!
Fra.me utilizes virtualization technology in the cloud and the VM's are running Windows Server 2012 R2.
My verdict after a quick trial - it's very doable, if you are well served by a high speed connection.
How To Run Revit On A Mac
Do a trial, and when you are ready, do pick a pricing plan which allows for GPU usage to run Revit.
Run Revit using Remote Desktop (RDP)
This is a best option for me since I love to travel light. I just carry my MacBook Air and use the Microsoft provided 'app' Remote Desktop. If the wireless connectivity is sufficient, I can easily remote into my workstation and utilize the Revit installation remotely. Since I have the office VPN setup, I can do the same when outside the office.
Do remember to carry at least a standard two button wheel mouse, no matter which option you pick for running Revit on a MacBook Pro!
In all of the above scenarios, consider the licensing costs. Both Windows OS and Revit license will be needed in Bootcamp, VM and Fra.me options.
How To Revit On A Mac Download
The RDP option will not consume any extra licenses... Best of Luck!
How To Install Revit On Macbook