Don't buy a Mac because there's no grasshopper?

Hey Guys and Gals,

I'm looking into new computers to buy for gradschool, and I'm all set to switch to a Mac, but the ONLY thing keeping me from it currently is the current inability to use grasshopper in OSX. I use grasshopper nearly all the time in my designs, rarely a project without grasshopper, so Im worried it may be annoying switching between boot-camp and parallels or something whenever I want to run rhino with grasshopper. I would hate to spend so much money on a mac and basically have it running windows all the time.

I'm wondering how anyone with a mac uses grasshopper. Are you constantly switching OSX and Windows, having to save files and then move into the other platform or how do you make it worth while for the hastle?

I've seen discussions going back to 2009 about grasshopper beta for OSX, but David has said all resorces are put on the Rhino 5 release so they havent concentrated on the OSX version yet.

Should I just buy a PC (for half the price) and wait another 2-3 years to buy a Mac, assuming that there will be a grasshopper for mac by then?

Advice on your experiences are appreciated, thanks.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on March 4, 2012 at 9:05pm

I am a mac user. I have bootcamp set up with windows 7 on my MacBook Pro and couldn't be happier. Yes, on one hand I am switching fairly often, and it's quite possible that I actually run windows more of the time than mac OS, but it's really not that big a deal.

This may be my personal (lifelong) apple bias speaking, but I think that my mac running windows is actually the best, most reliable windows machine I've ever owned. The high cost of apple products is not just due to the software integration and mac snob factor; the machines have genuinely high-quality hardware, and there's no discounting the industrial design quality. (the magsafe power cord has saved my life more times than I can count.)

So, while I wouldn't recommend you hold your breath waiting for the mac version of GH, if you want a mac don't let that hold you back.

Also just FYI mac rhino 5.0 is, in my humble opinion, an extremely poor substitute for the real thing. All the features are pretty much there, but the interface is clunky as hell and painful to use.

Not sure if in the end this post is a better argument for buying a mac or for choosing a windows machine instead, but hopefully it's at least a little bit informative.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Haas on March 4, 2012 at 9:35pm

Do you ever use rhino and grasshopper with parallels? I was looking at their website and it seems pretty flawless from the demo video they had. I'm curious about how powerful it can be to run a large rhino file or heavy grasshopper file, would there be much of a difference in power if you just ran direct from parallels compared to using bootcamp?

Permalink Reply by Andrew Heumann on March 4, 2012 at 10:25pm

In my experience parallels is just not fast enough to cut it. There is a BIG difference between parallels and boot camp. However, it is possible to set up Parallels to run off of your boot camp partition, allowing you to pop into windows from Parallels for quick tasks and switch into bootcamp for heavier-duty tasks.

Permalink Reply by biboarchitect on March 4, 2012 at 10:43pm

Hi,

I run Paralells 7 with Windows 7 on a mac. I dont have an issue for transferring files between systems at all, both OSs read same drives. I use windows for Rhino/Grasshopper, Maya and DP, everything else on Mac. I rarely use AutoCAD, I use rhino instead.

My honest advice to you is to get 8GB ram, windows 64-bit won't make a difference as rhino is a 32 bit (unless you use Rhino 5, then it should differ - they say so on website o_O).

My parallels dedicate a 1GB for itself (I have 4GB), and tells system will be unstable if I increased it. Actually I tried and yes, its faster with the default settings. I think something related to OSX running the Paralells, then parallels running the widows! Else every thing is great!

Hope that's useful!

bibo

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on March 5, 2012 at 3:03am

I don't know about OSX and parallels but as long as they aren't 64bits no more than 4gigs can ever be used.

Same for Win 64. A x86 System can address a total of 4Gigs. The system takes up to 1gig. So Rhino ends up with about 3gigs, regardless the memory installed. The 64bit version can give the whole 4gigs rhino4 can access to each instance.

So with Win64 you will gain what the system took for itself (as long as you habe more than 4gigs of ram installed). Rhino5 will still make a big difference, as the next memory limit is at about 16 ExaByte.

You can scrap all that, if parallels or OSX runs in 32bits. Then the virtual machine can only have what's left of 4gigs.

Permalink Reply by biboarchitect on March 5, 2012 at 3:55am

Hi Hannes,

Never knew that 32-bits only supports up to 4 GBs. OSX is 64-bit, and Paralells supports win 64-bit, but never tried win 64 on paralells.. i always thought as long as rhino is 32-bit it wont differ.. is that right? i mean if Rhino is 32bit and using WIN 64bit, will it differ? will it make use of the excess ram? like 8GB will be better? or same?

Thanks

Permalink Reply by Hannes Löschke on March 5, 2012 at 5:47am

There will be a difference, but if you only run Rhino on an optimized system the difference will be small.

Expect big differences once you run multiple apps, as each 32bit app gets its own 32bit space (the full 4gigs it can handle) as long as you have physical memory left.

But once Rhino4 gets anywhere near 3gigs, I'd reccomend Rhino5 because 4 doesn't recover once it hits the memory wall.

Permalink Reply by Addison Baharuddin on May 25, 2012 at 4:42pm

Hey Im trying to run Rhino with Paralells 7 and Windows 7 too. How is that working for you? I ask this because for me the mouse goes crazy when rotating in a viewport. It happens when i right-click-drag my mouse past the borders of the viewport. I understand that the cursor is supposed to jump to the opposite end of the viewport to allow more rotation but it isn't happenning.

Your advice is much appreciated!

Permalink Reply by Robert Harvey on March 5, 2012 at 1:12am

Having an iMac and MBP both with windows installed on them I keep all my files in my Dropbox, 4 machines with no issues transferring files all synced in the background. Whilst osx is great I prefer working in windows even as a 10+ year mac user.

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on March 5, 2012 at 2:24am

McNeel do not support Rhino being run a virtual machine: http://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/virtualmachines

Permalink Reply by Benjamin Golder on March 5, 2012 at 5:54am

I've used Bootcamp to use grasshopper for 3 years on two different computers.

I hate using windows, and only use it for Grasshopper and Rhino (and rarely ArcGIS). I don't bother with Rhino 5.0 for Mac, it's way too far from fully functional. I spend more time in other programs that run well on Mac, so I have no reason to purchase a windows computer.

Bootcamp works fine for me. It's mildly inconvenient.

Permalink Reply by David Wood on March 5, 2012 at 5:54am

Hi Andrew,

I recently had this dilemma. I work almost solely in Rhino 5 64bit, but was drooling over an MBP!

In the end I just couldn't justify it to my self and got a Dell Precision M4600 with RGB IPS screen, 2.5 Quad i7 (would rather of had a faster dual-core but non available with this config), 16gb RAM and nearly 1TB in hard-drive/SS storage for under £2k.

Personal choice, just depends if you need 64 bit really? If so, then it's expensive to kit out an MBP to workstation grade. If 32 bit is enough, then I'm sure MBP will manage.

I have always wanted a Mac, but I'm totally happy with the M4600 even with the 2 hr battery life.

David.