Revit and Virtual Machine

[Silleke]

Anyone out there with an experience running Revit program in a virtual machine Win7 64-bit?
Someone from Autodesk said that Revit is not written for a virtual machine. Is this true?

Your thoughts about this subject matter will be highly appreciated.

[haraldbrynlund]

hello, hello

thanks for posting. I just installed Parallels 6, Windows 7 64 bits and Revit 2012 Student version on my pretty new MacBook Pro with good enough specs.

but i have not started the program more than the 2nd time - and I get problems with the videocard solution for Parallels. its seems that Autodesk cannot accept it. and there is no alternative..
This is the feedback an error message hidden in the Options Dialogue (no prompting):

"The installed video card "Parallels Display Adapter (WDDM)" has not been tested with Revit. You may continue to use Hardware Acceleration. If you experience graphics display issues, you should: Turn Off Hardware Acceleration".

And when I turn Hardware Acceleration off - nothing happens..

-

I just posted this on the LinkedIn forum "Revit Users":

Help! The menu ribbon on Revit 2012 turns out invisible, black and grey! See screenshot attached
I am running Revit 2012 on MacBook Pro via Parallels build 6.0. Also I have not yet activated the software, because it prompts an Asian-language wizard and fails to connect.

Hope to hear back from you.


H

[nroma23]

Hi

I have a MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.66 GHz, 4 GB ram, 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9400M/ 9600M GT video card, and I am running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit from bootcamp. I installed Revit 2012, but when I try to run it, the splash screen opens and then hangs forever. If I click on the splash screen, it then crashes and prompts me to exit Revit or to wait for program to respond.

Has anyone had any luck running Revit with a setup similar to mine?

I'm thinking I may need to upgrade my ram to 8GB.

Thanks

[Design Apparatus]

I have a MBPro17 (2009) that I run Win7Pro 64-bit with Bootcamp. Same video cards as you as well. I have run RAC2011 and 2012 with no problems. Under 2011 it ran flawlessly. Under 2012 I got an error that says I may not use Hardware Acceleration with this card as it is unsupported by Autodesk...so it unchecks itself and runs fine. I have run it both with 4GB and 8GB of RAM. It ran fine with 4, but there is a noticeable bump with 8 on my models that are 40-50 MB in size.
First thing I would check is if you are running the latest/greatest Bootcamp (v.3.2).
The screen hang on starting Revit has never happened to me. The second thing I would do is turn off ALL startup programs and see if that helps. 3rd would be to try and turn off any unnecessary processes in the Task Manager (just for this one try to run Revit). If none of those work, I would uninstall Revit and try to do another install. When I had 4GB RAM, it took 2-1/2 minutes to start. With 8GB RAM it took a little over a minute.
Hope this helps.
BTW you can get another (2) 4 GB RAM modules for about $90 (waaaay cheaper than when you bought the MB); just make sure you buy the same Samsung memory and not the memory from OWC; I tried theirs and got a lot of system hangs. Ended up returning theirs after testing their RAM...both had problems. Just go to the instructions at OWC and see how to open up your MBPro and when you do, take note of the model of memory that is in there and buy the same type/brand.

[Design Apparatus]

I tried running with Parallels 5 and I had a significant amount of grief with the video/graphic quality and speed that you got using Windows this way. You have to use Parallel's own video driver instead of the driver for the card in your machine/laptop...this ends up being a limiting factor. I do all my work solely on the Windows side and all my personal stuff on the Mac side...so re-booting into the other OS is not that big a hassle to me. If you NEED to be in both environments frequently throughout the day then you are really stuck with using Parallels. It is just a matter of trade-offs.