VersaWorks on Mac vs. PC

[Tim Aucoin]

This is a 2 part question... sort of!

I've been running my VersaWorks on my Mac (using Fusion with Windows XP loaded). I'm having issues with LONG print times on large, complex banners. My supplier suspects that perhaps data is slowing down when coming out of Windows via the Mac (through Fusion). Small jobs print great, but on the larger ones, the heads are pausing way too much... it took me 6 HOURS to print a 4' x 10' print last week Does anyone have an opinion on this? Could going through Fusion slow down the data transfer? My supplier also suggested I try hooking my Roland up directly to my Mac with a crossover network cable instead of going through my office network.

The second part is... what would you recommend for a PC system just as a stand-alone RIP to run the SP540v? I haven't bought a PC in almost 10 years and don't know their configurations today. I'm just wondering what I should look at as a decent system to act as a RIP if this should be a solution to my slow printing problem.

Any advice/info would be greatly appreciated.

 

[P Wagner]

It sounds like it could be one of a couple of things. First, make sure that the 'Rip while Printing' checkbox is disabled. This is located in the Queue A/B Properties dialog, under the Job Management Tab. This ensures that the RIP will complete before the job begins to print.

If you are still having carriage pausing while printing, the issue has been narrowed down to:
1) Network traffic interfering with data flow to the printer (network problem). In this case, the crossover cable running off another NIC should solve it.

2) Mac emulating Windows is not able to keep the printer's buffers spooled with data (PC problem). Adding a dedicated Windows box to run Versaworks would be the logical solution in this case.

Probably almost any PC that you can buy new today would have sufficient resources to run VersaWorks without a problem. VW3 will run on Windows Vista, XP, and 2000 without a problem.

Bob

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Thanks Bob...
I've eliminated the first possibility (RIP while printing)... those are not checked... I'm really thinking I should just buy a dedicated PC to run this. They don't cost so much now. A cross-over cable may do the job, but that will take more time to test now. I just now (5 minutes ago) got the go ahead to run at least 20 more banners @ 4' x 8', so I do need to get the job going and the printing speeded up! This job will pay for a new PC anyhow. Thanks again... I appreciate your quick reply and advice!

 

[Bill Modzel]

I'm running PosterJet via Parallels on my MacPro and have no speed issues at all except for the occasional customer provided file. I have no idea what the cause of that is though.
HP9000s is my printer. If the printing bed is up to temp it's almost instantaneous when I send the print file.