Using Autodesk Inventor on a Mac Pro

Unfortunately, the Mac Pro doesn't have a good solution for WinXP as of current. The expectation is that Parallels will update their software in the near term - however, unless they started to implement direct 3D that is not an option for CAD.

Your only option is boot camp which isn't running the hard drives at an acceptable speed (only an issue for the Mac Pros). People have said that with a PATA drive in the second drive slot, making the drive the master, and a work around within the mac side for discs - that good speeds have been reached. Of course, since this isn't an optimal solution and we don't know when boot camp (or another party) will have the SATA solution - its up to you to wait or not.

The latest you can expect a fix from boot camp is Leopard (Winter 07).

Parallels may have direct 3D by the end of this year. This though would be a performance cut from a full boot (30% cut shown thus far but 3D may be another issue).

Considering you are saving at least a thousand with the mac pro over the dell - not to mention I personally trust the apple hardware reliability much more so - hopefully you can wait a month or two and hope one of these two solutions come about.

My Mac Pro will arrive this week, so I haven't tested it with AutoCAD yet. I know AutoCAD 2004 runs fine, but slowly, with Windows XP using Virtual PC on my Power Mac G4. It was too slow to be productive so I bought a Windows PC three years ago, which is KVM'd with the Mac and 22" Cinema Display.

Part of my justification for buying a Mac Pro is to eliminate the need for the PC (and KVM switch). I have no doubt whatsoever that AutoCAD (or Inventor, which I also have available) will run fine and fast with Windows XP on the Mac Pro.

I use AutoCAD Mechanical 2007 on a Macmini and Macbook using BootCamp. Both platforms run well. My new MacPro is hobbled by the SATA issue under XP, so I haven't even tried to install AutoCAD yet. Since Norton Antivirus can barely get through a scan with the slow HDD performance, I figure what's the use of trying at this point. I know that the issue will be resolved at some point. Hopefully sooner, than later.

Well, in my case, if AutoCAD doesn't run well on the Mac Pro, I'll just keep the PC.

I'm aware of the current problems with Bootcamp and Parallels but assume those will be ironed out shortly, at which time I can test one of them (preferably Parallels) with AutoCAD.

As I understand it, the major difference between Virtual PC and Parallels is that Virtual PC is software emulation of an Intel CPU (very slow) whereas Parallels uses the Mac Pro's Intel CPU to run Windows "natively" (almost as fast as a real PC or Bootcamp).

Ok for whatever it is worth I have a Mac Pro 3.0 Ghz Machine and I’m using Parallels to run Windows XP, it works great! I have tested AutoCAD 13, 2000, 2001 and 2006 all work great. I use 2006 to make CNC machine paths for our high-speed 3-axis CNC routers. In fact it can regen drawings faster than my Compaq Windows Machine at work! Now if I could just talk management into getting rid of the Compaq and upgrade to Mac Pros!


Good luck hope this helps!

I can confirm that AutoCAD 2004 also works well with Parallels and Windows XP Pro. I'm keeping my PC for now as backup since the Mac Pro and Parallels are still in their infancy and not quite as stable as I would like.

Anandtech solved the solution with the SATA. They had a copy of XP slipstreamed with the intel5000x drivers. Here is the article.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2832&p=7

On parallels has anyone tried the 1896.2 build? That's the only one that I could get to work on the new core 2 duo imac.

This is your solution!!!

http://macprojournal.com/xp.html