Anybody use Mac?

[WildWestDesigns]

VMs are great. But like netsol said, having the proper hardware is key. They have really gotten better with the software as well. Can even VM running games, which is no small task considering OpenGL/Vulkan needs (have to actually pass thru a GPU to the guest, so that means running at least two of them as the basic drivers from the VM software won't cut it).

Now, I do have to wonder how much of this is VMing or emulation (and yes there is a difference) given that the arch is different among the two platforms. x86_64 versus arm64 at some point.

The one downside here with VMing, is from what I'm aware of, the more popular VM software is subscription based (VMWare, Parallels etc). I tend to like VirtualBox, but there is also Qemu which can virtualize or emulate. Those don't have subscriptions.

Another option is WINE or CrossOver for Mac. Think of it as Rosetta except it translates Windows system calls to POSIX calls. CrossOver is the commercial version with official support. Bare in mind, for the gamers out there, WINE is the backbone of Proton that steam uses to get Windows games to run on Linux. So there are commercial applications for it. I know some on here think open source is "hacky"(I dislike this term as it is most often applied incorrectly and in a negative light), but it does have it's value.

 

[netsol]

WWD
my only point is you can't virtualize with hardware that would barely do the job without virtualization
the efficiency of virualization comes from those resources being able to be used for other tasks WHEN YOU ARE NOT RIPPING, as well as being able to reallocate resources on the fly

 

[WildWestDesigns]

WWD
my only point is you can't virtualize with hardware that would barely do the job without virtualization
the efficiency of virualization comes from those resources being able to be used for other tasks WHEN YOU ARE NOT RIPPING, as well as being able to reallocate resources on the fly

I know. But when have you known me not to take things further down the rabbit hole than they should?

 

[netsol]

i can never resist complicating a project, beyond all reason.

 

[ADVANCED DISPLAY]

So what kind of work do you do on it exactly? I figure for a lot of cases the Mac studio maxed out is overkill but, well I'm a fan of overkill lol. Honestly lately with both our custom PC workstations we've had issues with coreldraw (our program of choice) after working for a bit with big files I've had it unable to even move an object or do ANYTHING because it says it's out of "resources". I never want that to happen.

The PC’s in my shop have the same issue with coreldraw Fromm time to time. I hate that! Yet to happen on my Mac Studio. Coreldraw is the software of choice in my shop, although I just gout V2 if affinity as I know they program their stuff more specifically for Mac silicone.

 

[DL Signs]

The PC’s in my shop have the same issue with coreldraw Fromm time to time. I hate that! Yet to happen on my Mac Studio. Coreldraw is the software of choice in my shop, although I just gout V2 if affinity as I know they program their stuff more specifically for Mac silicone.

Haven't used Corel in years, but I use Affinity, and it can handle a LOT. Never have any issues on PC's, even with multiple 1,000+ layer files open at once. I have had a couple of exception crashes on the Mac with Affinity, and only when I have Illustrator open too, and multiple files open in each, but I just open it back up and it restores all files, takes seconds to get back to where I was. I get way more hangs, glitches and lag from Adobe on both Mac & PC. I've been using Affinity for a couple of years now, pretty impressed with it.

 

[greysquirrel]

So, I've been really drooling over the Mac studio, I don't know how many nerds we have and how many of those are in the Mac camp, I LOATH windows. Seeing as how coreldraw and I believe the adobe suite runs on the new M1 chips (ultra, ughhh makes me tingle) Im seriously flirting with the idea of getting one.

The two main workstations I have here now are windows machines mad and while they're doing their job...... they do have a tendency of acting LIKE WINDOWS MACHINES and shit will freeze from time to time etc.

Just looking to get some opinions if anybody's tried one.

So the new M1 chips are super fast. I bought the original Mac mini with the M1 and then bought the Mac Studio. The Mac Studio is set up right behind me...The Mac mini might be all you need unless you are doing heavy photoshop files. I added the Studio to support 3 monitors because it's my main work station and I remote into Onyx with one, drive business software and QB and email on the other and will design on the third. Problem is Im lazy and still using Mac mini. Max out Ram and storage....best investment you can make. I don't think the Studio is necessary unless you need the third monitor. the Mini drives up to 2.

 

[unmateria]

M1 in times of 13900k a best investment? Damn... Sorry, no. twice the speed of a limited apple machine at 1/3 of the price is not a good investment... Maybe a fast or beautiful one

 

[cornholio]

I always wonder, how people in the graphic industry spend their money...
The spend fortunes on Apple hardware to emulate/VM old Windows software. I've been in the business long enough to see all the changes in CPU (68000, PowerPC, Intel and now M1), requiring all software to be replaced, in order to run smoothly. Then they had to trow out their external hardware multiple times (SCSI, FireWire, USB, Thunderbolt?)
While the could buy a decent refurbished PC for 500 €, they rather spend this money on VM software and try to get old RIP software to run on the shiny new Mac.
A freshly installed Windows running a decent RIP doesn't crash, if you use the Mac to visit the porn websites...
Use the Mac for designing, but PC's for controlling printers and cutters...

 

[ADVANCED DISPLAY]

I always wonder, how people in the graphic industry spend their money...
The spend fortunes on Apple hardware to emulate/VM old Windows software. I've been in the business long enough to see all the changes in CPU (68000, PowerPC, Intel and now M1), requiring all software to be replaced, in order to run smoothly. Then they had to trow out their external hardware multiple times (SCSI, FireWire, USB, Thunderbolt?)
While the could buy a decent refurbished PC for 500 €, they rather spend this money on VM software and try to get old RIP software to run on the shiny new Mac.
A freshly installed Windows running a decent RIP doesn't crash, if you use the Mac to visit the porn websites...
Use the Mac for designing, but PC's for controlling printers and cutters...

that's my exact setup. In the realm of PC's, by the way, I usually hit up Signburst for custom machines that'll last. The old computers we had here used to be horrible. They were old and even when they were new the old owner spent JUST enough money to make sure they could run. I agree with the RIP station part, just makes mess waves.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

The spend fortunes on Apple hardware to emulate/VM old Windows software.

Two different things here. VMing actually could get better performance (depending on the hardware being used for a host), emulation, not so much since everything is done via software (and typically there are limits to how much hardware that the emulation software could emulate which may be far worse compared to what the host has available to it) and not using anything from the host directly, if true emulation. Which is probably going to be more of the case with the different archs between Mac and Windows now and if Rosetta 2.0 (I think that's what it is, don't use Mac, so don't know for sure) is removed.

 

[Cheezer]

I was all Mac for years. They are beautiful and sexy and incredible pieces of technology and when paired with Adobe CC purely elegant design tools. BUT! they have no place in the sign industry beyond graphic design. Try to run a plotter or a RIP (screw Caldera! overpriced junk!) Try to run a CNC or do Braille translation. find an affordable sign design software that works on Mac or a mechanical drawing program with dimension lines and call-out and scale drawing capabilities. Not saying it can't be done but it can't be done easily or effectively or affordably.

Unfortunately, it took me way too long to accept this. I struggled with Macs constantly because I was trying to make them do stuff they were never designed to do. I knew it but I refused to switch because "I despised Windows". Like a wine snob paying way too much for horrible-tasting libations because some connoisseur says it's the best. A lot of Mac users "despise Windows". Know why? they are afraid to learn something different. I now love Windows. It's not quite as elegant as Mac but it works and works much more consistently than Mac ever did. Part of the elegance that Apple provides is merely sleight of hand anyway. The ugly workings and gruesome guts are there just like Windows but Apple has hidden them from you behind the scenes so you don't have to look at them but they exist. And when you have a real problem you will need help fixing it and help usually costs money.

Sure, I have an iPhone and an iPad. They work great with apps and the cloud and even play nice with Windows, for the most part. I also spent the money and got quality PCs. We run Lenovo on all our stations and personal laptops. I swear I have not had a single issue with any of them that was not easily fixed without taking them to a repair shop.

I kicked the habit several years ago. Maybe the new Macs are better. They really should be considering the price. But all I can say is Wow! No more emulation software, no more cable adapters, and no more daily crashing and compatibility errors. No more beating holes in the wall with my head. ( I still do that occasionally just for the old time's sake). No more stumbling onto some cool new software that you would love to get but, guess what? Yup, Windows only, and no version for Mac. I left it all behind and never looked back. You couldn't pay me to switch back. Windows has truly set me free!

 

[DL Signs]

I was all Mac for years. They are beautiful and sexy and incredible pieces of technology and when paired with Adobe CC purely elegant design tools. BUT! they have no place in the sign industry beyond graphic design. Try to run a plotter or a RIP (screw Caldera! overpriced junk!) Try to run a CNC or do Braille translation. find an affordable sign design software that works on Mac or a mechanical drawing program with dimension lines and call-out and scale drawing capabilities. Not saying it can't be done but it can't be done easily or effectively or affordably.

Unfortunately, it took me way too long to accept this. I struggled with Macs constantly because I was trying to make them do stuff they were never designed to do. I knew it but I refused to switch because "I despised Windows". Like a wine snob paying way too much for horrible-tasting libations because some connoisseur says it's the best. A lot of Mac users "despise Windows". Know why? they are afraid to learn something different. I now love Windows. It's not quite as elegant as Mac but it works and works much more consistently than Mac ever did. Part of the elegance that Apple provides is merely sleight of hand anyway. The ugly workings and gruesome guts are there just like Windows but Apple has hidden them from you behind the scenes so you don't have to look at them but they exist. And when you have a real problem you will need help fixing it and help usually costs money.

Sure, I have an iPhone and an iPad. They work great with apps and the cloud and even play nice with Windows, for the most part. I also spent the money and got quality PCs. We run Lenovo on all our stations and personal laptops. I swear I have not had a single issue with any of them that was not easily fixed without taking them to a repair shop.

I kicked the habit several years ago. Maybe the new Macs are better. They really should be considering the price. But all I can say is Wow! No more emulation software, no more cable adapters, and no more daily crashing and compatibility errors. No more beating holes in the wall with my head. ( I still do that occasionally just for the old time's sake). No more stumbling onto some cool new software that you would love to get but, guess what? Yup, Windows only, and no version for Mac. I left it all behind and never looked back. You couldn't pay me to switch back. Windows has truly set me free!

Amen to ALL of that.
I'm old as dirt and can remember a time when Mac ruled the design world, and even I swore by them, but those days are loooong gone.

I have a mac on my desk here at the shop only because the guy I replaced said he HAD to have it, and then they had to invest in some low buck windows machines to run equipment because the mac wouldn't do it all. So instead of being able to do everything on one, it's a disjointed cluster-f of multiple machines that aren't beeded. At home I have windows machines with comparable specs and they'll run circles around it for 25% of the cost, plus I can upgrade or repair with off the shelf parts. Boss said I can spec a new machine, but I know what he paid for it, and hate wasting that investment, figured I'd just work with what they gave me, but damn. No one else here has a need for it, or even wants it, it won't run equipment reliably, so I'll use it until I can't suffer with it anymore. And that day is coming soon... Real soon.

The new macs, I was hoping they'd come around, but they went in the opposite direction locking you into their environment even more. Storage is done via flash modules with the controller no longer integrated like an SSD. Yup, the controller is hard wired to the main board, so you can't change or upgrade anything. As the memory chips cycle out, if they fail, you have to get theirs at their price, if the controller fails, instead of just swapping a module or SSD, you're replacing a mainboard, and probably losing the machine for weeks to get it done because they can't keep up with parts supply. Why? Just why?
Oh yeah... $$$$ No thanks.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

You couldn't pay me to switch back. Windows has truly set me free!

I wouldn't say this exactly. It's more about what 3rd party software/hardware OEMs have done to "set you free" more so compared to Windows doing it. I would argue, for the mainstream OSs, in order to be more appealing to a mass market, a lot of things have been abstracted away from the user (and in some cases locked further and further away from the user, even for those that were so inclined to mess around with the computer), so I wouldn't say that it was "freeing". I'm not trying to mitigate the advantage of software/hardware support, just that it isn't due to Windows itself, but the 3rd parties that chose to use Windows for their support. And it would more than likely boil down to just the numbers of the amount of users that an OS has.

While one OS has been doing it for far longer, the other one is quickly catching up to it (in my opinion anyway, so take that for what it's worth).

In the end, have to use the one that gets the job done for you, but they all have their issues, it just depends on how things balance out.

 

[Cheezer]

In the end, have to use the one that gets the job done for you,

Exactly the point I was making!

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Exactly the point I was making!

It was the whole "set you free" part that I was referring to though. The two OSs that most people on here use are not the most "liberating" OSs just comparing the OSs themselves (bare bones OS that has nothing on it but what comes with the OS itself). In fact, I would say the opposite is true and only going to get worse. The advantage that one has over the other is actually what 3rd parties give it, not the OS itself.

 

[PhantomSteve]

We have 4 Macs, one of them is the M1 chip and while it's fast, the computer has issues with our network. Disconnects randomly and when saving large files onto our NAS.

The 3 Intel macs are fine, I'm tempted to return the M1 for an Intel.

We have M1s and Intel and the M1s work as well (or better than) the Intels.
My advice is to get someone to look at the M1 — it should work perfectly on the network and when saving large files — or at the very least, reformat and reinstall the software — that should fix any issues.
You have to go M series to remain relevant as Moc will drop support for Intel at some point in the near future.

 

[PhantomSteve]

We use Mac only. Except for the RIP to run our Epson 40600 — it has the Windows OS and the RIP software on it — nothing else.
We almost never have computer related issues.

 

[Johnny Best]

This topic has been rehashed for years on here. I started on a MacPlus in the 80s. Apple had nice fonts to use because of Steve Jobs. When I went to conventions all the hardware were PC driven with their Cris Farley salesmen and the green screens. Most sign people at that time had the talent of a pigeon.
Now we go forward tp present time and all the PC people are computer geniuses. I run a RIP and SignCut on a Powerbook Pro with no problem and never a glitch. My design computer is a Powerbook Pro also and runs Adobe products and Internet without a problem.
So lets keep the Mac/PC bullshit to a minimum from now on and just keep walking in circles looking for scraps.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

So lets keep the Mac/PC bullshit to a minimum from now on and just keep walking in circles looking for scraps.

Macs are technically PCs. That was just marketing to make them seem different (and perhaps more "elite"). Now if the rumor is true that Win 12 is going to be more cloud centric, Windows 12 may not fit that same moniker. We seem to be heading back to a dummy terminal type of computing (and even back in the old days, it was slightly better compared to how it's being done now, but I digress).

And this is nothing compared to a gas versus diesel performance truck thread.