Macbook Pro for Rhino 6

As someone who has used Rhino on the last 3 generations of MacBook pros (at least since 2006) I have to say that the modern specs are more than enough to run half gigabyte file regardless of upgrades (I very seldomly run on the macOS, I far prefer the win10 version on BootCamp).

On the down side, I feel that until apple starts using modern nvidea cards the platform will be 2nd tier for me, but really i think i am needing a desktop anyways.

That said, as far as the hardware goes, for travel and most stationary needs (on bootcamp & win 10) you will be far more than fine w/ an MBP. If the current WIP of Rhino on OS X works for you, then you are good to go.

1 Like

@athelstane105 is it still the case that the mac release is far behind the windows? I understood it supports fewer plug-ins (which aside from vray isn’t a big concern to us), but I thought the rhino 6 mac release helped to narrow the gap between the two versions? I remember my flatmate used to always boot his imac in windows out of frustration with R5 on mac.

there’s about 20 years between Windows and Mac versions, the Mac version is playing catch up, its nearly there, I’m hopeful of feature parity by V7 , 3rd party plugins are probably a different story, I’m sure the good folk at McNeel have their own goals and targets to hit :slight_smile:

imo, it’s not, there are major issues with display speed

i was referring to feature parity, yes there are some display issues still to iron out :+1:

Contrary to what Intel would have you believe, CPU provides the least value for the money. Unless your application is CPU intensive and memory accesses stay within the CPU cache, CPU upgrades do not do much. Typical CPU options these days are 2.3MHz v. 2.6Mhz. That is a theoretical 13% increase. That you’d only see in the limited type of application I have described.

The bus speed is much lower than the CPU speed. You rarely have bus upgrade options.

#1 Take memory
#2 Take GPU

I would take the lowest CPU option available.

1 Like

Hi - for feature parity, see this link:
https://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/mac/rhino6wincommandsnotinrhino6mac
-wim

1 Like

that list is pretty small compared to a few years back :+1:, and most of those commands still on that list I don’t even know what they are or have a use for them :rofl:

Is using Rhino 6 for windows on Paralles a viable solution?
(tempted to get the 16" Macbook Pro, but I would be a first time OS user)

I think you will be fine with a 16" MBP for your intended use, especially if you are considering also using ArchiCAD. I am the “tech guy” for 2 architectural firms, with around 7 employees each and both have been using Macs exclusively (except me, because I do a lot of other things and need Windows) going back to 2012.

For ArchiCAD even some of the 2012 iMacs with16GB Ram still work fine, so going for a 2019 MBP will be more than enough. I would personally go for the better of the 2 standard configurations but not do any other custom upgrades.

3 things you have to keep in mind if you are using a machine for your business:

  1. longevity and servicing - I think here nobody can argue that the Mac has the lead here. Like I said, we are still using Macs from 2012. Our server is a Mac Mini and has been running 24/7 for the last 5 years in both offices with no issue. Also if something goes wrong with your Mac you can go to an Apple store or an authorised reseller (although I recommend going to an Apple store if you can). We’ve had a few instances where something was wrong over the years and they could always help us. If you are using it for business, get Apple Care. That way you know you are covered for the next 3 years (much easier to calculate your costs that way and usually you would spread the costs of technology over 3 or 4 years in your accounting anyways).

  2. Resale value - also something where the Mac is a clear winner. Those iMacs from 2012 - we usually sold those when we got new ones. There are places that buy them or you will find buyers on Ebay and the like. You can say the resale value of a Mac goes down by around 10-15% per year. For a PC that is much higher.

  3. Safety - what I mean here is, what happens if something goes wrong. A solid backup strategy should always be in place when using any kind of computer for work. We have Time Machine run on our server, so all machines get backed up. Those and all the files on our server are constantly backing up to Backblaze. If a machine is faulty for some reason, or gets stolen (happened recently) or you just want to upgrade your machine - no worries, pull up the Time Machine backup and install it on an existing or new Mac. I have done this more than 20 times now and it has always worked switching between ANY Mac without issues in under 3 hours (90% of that is waiting for the restore to copy everything). Things are usually 100% like before even if the Mac has completely differenty hardware. Again, not something that will be trivial on a PC.

So don’t be discouraged by the prospect of some performance gain. If you are self-employed or own a business and rely on a working machine to earn money then the factors above are way more important than performance of a machine.

2 Likes

Hi - while that might work to some extend, this is not officially supported:
https://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/virtualmachines
-wim

1 Like

Just saw this now. What you can do is use Bootcamp to install Windows 10 and then you theoretically have the best of both worlds. In reality I wouldn’t do that though. Too much back and forth and double work, unless you work exclusively on a file server. But it doesn’t sound like it, if you are working on the go. I used to have Windows and Mac on my Macbook, but it wasn’t that good (you install something on one and then when you most need it, you realise it was on the other)

What are your worries in moving to Mac OS? I work with both equally as often and have to say I prefer Mac OS for the normal kind of organisational work, like working with files, browsing, emails, etc. all the stuff outside of specialised software. If you work with a colleague its pretty nice to use Airdrop between Macs to exchange files even if you are not connected to wifi (it uses Bluetooth and direct Wifi).

Is there anything specifically that you think you will not be able to do in Mac OS?

@seltzdesign My comment was actually “I don’t really want to move to a Mac OS and still need to run bootcamp or parallels”, by which I meant that if we move to Mac OS, then I want to commit to it and work in Mac compatible software. I wouldn’t pay for Mac hardware and then mostly run it in Windows, seems pointless to me.

Maybe a subject for another thread, but I’m interested to know more about using a mac mini as a server… We’re a small office (3 people), currently file sharing through dropbox, which isn’t going to work for us now with teamworking in ArchiCAD.

Oh I see, yes that makes sense.

Regarding using a Mac Mini as a file server quickly. You will need:

  • 1 Mac Mini (get one with an SSD, it doesn’t have to be high spec, just get a new one for the support)

  • 1 External hard drive, I can absolutely recommend the Promise Pegasus 2 R4 (not cheap, but excellent quality and speed - we use them in both offices for 5 years with 0 issues)

  • 1 UPS (uninteruptable power supply), we use the APC BackUps Pro 900. This is really important if you want to have a server that can run constantly and is really worth it (in my experience most of the hardware failures can be traced back to some kind of electrical fault/spike/powercut)

Hook everything up through the APC, so now you already have a super stable system.

Purchase Mac Server and install it. You need this to create user groups and users. Create a user for each person and name them exactly the same as the user on their individual mac (just makes it easier) - since you probably don;t want to store user data on the server, have them as “services only”.

Now in the normal Mac Sharing preferences you can set up file sharing. Best to have a few major folders on the external harddrive like “Time Machine” and “File Server” and then set those up. You can do both in the normal settings of MacOS now.

If you buy Mac Server and have a new Mac Mini you get free support from Apple, which has helped me a lot. If you bought Server and the Mac they will forward you to the Enterprise Support, which is simply incredible. I knew nothing about setting up a server and they walked me through absolutely everything with a remote session. I was on the phone with them for a total of around 4 hours the first time and it was completely free and they were so nice about it.

So more or less that’s it. Of course there a lot of small things, but nothing too complicated.

By the way we had everything on Dropbox before and eventually had to give that up. It was just getting too unveildy and at the time our connection also wasn’t very fast. Plus if something fails and you have to download your entire Dropbox of >1TB again, that’s a real pain and takes a long time. Dropbox is not really designed to handle more than a few hundred thousand files, which can happen surprisingly quickly. The constant syncing was also really slowing down the machines.

If you use Backblaze on your Mac Mini Server, which is the main advantage over using some kind of NAS - you just sign up for a normal Backblaze account for 60 dollars a year and it will backup everything, including your external file storage. No quotas or anything we have like 4TB on there. Backblaze actually does a lot of things Dropbox does as well like file versioning/restoring and has saved our butts a few times.

All in all I think its a very good setup. Like I said it runs super solid in 2 locations. I checked on the server the other day at the other company and it had an uptime of 372 days, so the server hadn’t been restarted in that long.

2 Likes

Just to let you know there is another thread specifically about the new 16 MBP here: Poor performance with Macbook Pro 16.

It seems that it’s not entirely due to that specific model, but the rhino file in question, but still seems a bit frustrating. I wish they used Nvidia cards, then I’d buy one now. I loved being able to run Octane on my 2015 rMBP, but it got replace by an Apple Store for a 2017 model with the Radeon 560 - can’t complain because they basically did it for free, but still sad there is no option for Nvidia cards any more (internally at least).

1 Like