AB300-2P Running Revit Architecture in Virtual Machines

[Phil Read]

Hi everyone -

Here's the benchmarking / journal file from the presentation at AU 2007 entitled "AB300-2P_Running Revit Architecture in Virtual Machines".

Expect it to take about 10-20 minutes to run.

Please feel free to post hardware type (laptop / workstations), settings and results - including Total Time.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the session documentation (including benchmark results). You'll need to log in to see and download the files:

http://au.autodesk.com/sessions/detail/989/

Thanks again -

Phil

[BMcCallum]

Hi Phil, won't be at AU this year but happy to post the results.

15" MacBook Pro 2.16 w/ 3GB RAM
1.5 GB RAM for Parallels 3.0 virtual machine
No bootcamp partition, always running virtually

Here are the results from the CSV file (it's attached, too.)

12, opening and loading the custom template
12, creating the floors levels and grids.
50, creating a group of walls and doors
86, modifying the group by adding a curtain wall
34, creating the exterior curtain wall
13, creating the sections
15, changing the curtain wall panel type
14, creating a perspective view
5, changing the curtain wall panel pleat
42, changing the levels height
108, update group to maintain level to level height
102, render a 3d view
288,export different views
9,save the project

Total: 790

[Henry D]

Here are my results for Boot Camp and VM Fusion.

MacPro Dual Quad 3Ghz, 5GB Ram WinXP Pro 32, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB

Boot Camp Partition:

6, opening and loading the custom template
9, creating the floors levels and grids.
31, creating a group of walls and doors
55, modifying the group by adding a curtain wall
21, creating the exterior curtain wall
10, creating the sections
11, changing the curtain wall panel type
9, creating a perspective view
4, changing the curtain wall panel pleat
27, changing the levels height
66, update group to maintain level to level height
35, render a 3d view
164,export different views
5,save the project

TOTAL 453

VM Fusion (Boot Camp Partition):

10, opening and loading the custom template
17, creating the floors levels and grids.
41, creating a group of walls and doors
63, modifying the group by adding a curtain wall
28, creating the exterior curtain wall
16, creating the sections
13, changing the curtain wall panel type
12, creating a perspective view
4, changing the curtain wall panel pleat
33, changing the levels height
75, update group to maintain level to level height
81, render a 3d view
207,export different views
7,save the project

TOTAL 607

BTW I ran it twice with the Boot camp partition only and noticed that the numbers varied, some were one digit lower and some were one digit higher.

[Kevin Janik]

Those of you running Parallels, are you running the Beta or the Build 5570 or the standard 3.0 version?. If you are running the Beta, are there issues or if you are not, is there a reason you are not running the Beta?

We are trying to figure out what to run with OS X Leopard.

Kevin

[BomberAIA]

I would like to the the comparison of Boot Camp, Parallels & Fusion. Which is the faster virtual machine, Parallels or Fusion?

[Henry D]

I would like to the the comparison of Boot Camp, Parallels & Fusion. Which is the faster virtual machine, Parallels or Fusion?

I am working on setting up Parallels on my machine, and then I could give a comparison.
Fusion seems very stable, however for me to use it for Revit they still need to iron out some issues:

-No Open GL (big one for me)
-Wacom Tablet doesn't work properly in Revit and the solutions VM support gives are too complicated for me to mess around with
-Have to keep reactivating Revit, when you go from Boot Camp and Fusion

So for now I am using Revit in the Boot Camp partition only. I also don't like giving up 25% of the extra speed I get when I am using Boot Camp.

On the plus side, the VM Fusion team is very enthusiastic and agressive at running down any issues. So, I am confident that they will solve these issues in subsequent versions.

[hand471037]

Something to keep in mind is that the Fusion and Parallels folks have slightly different technology under the hood.

Fusion can make use of multiple processors, while Parallels doesn't yet (and from talking to some Fusion developers it's going to be a hard thing for them to do based on their approach). So if you're rendering a lot that's going to make a difference. Notice that the Fusion machines so far have been clocking in faster with the rendering step than the Parallels ones.

So then if you're rendering a lot I'd suggest you use Boot Camp to get full-speed. Or export out your work to something that renders on OS X, I do believe that Maxwell and vRay both have OS X versions, and I know that Mental Ray does (but you have to pay extra for it). One nice thing about that approach is that you're not held back by XP32's stupid limitations, nor do you have to deal with the driver issues of XP64 or Vista.

With that said I use Parallels. I've found so far that it's got nicer features and it supports Revit pretty well.

[Kevin Janik]

Are you all just using the 3.0 version and not the Beta?

Kevin

[hand471037]

I'll run the test on the Boot Camp partition later to compare...

MacBookPro
2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 Gigs ram
Windows XP Pro on Parallels 3.0 (not the beta, latest build)

12, opening and loading the custom template
13, creating the floors levels and grids.
52, creating a group of walls and doors
84, modifying the group by adding a curtain wall
43, creating the exterior curtain wall
14, creating the sections
16, changing the curtain wall panel type
15, creating a perspective view
6, changing the curtain wall panel pleat
43, changing the levels height
101, update group to maintain level to level height
100, render a 3d view
356,export different views
14,save the project

[BomberAIA]

I downloaded VM Fusion yesterday and installed it. I could not get my mouse or keyboard to respond when I was in the XP startup screen. So I finally uninstalled it. I'll stick to Boot Camp.