Is SolidWorks a supported application?

[eobet]

Hello!

I would like to know if VMware Fusion will officially support SolidWorks in the future, as it is the one program which prevents me from completely switching to OS X.

Thank you!

[Deryni]

Um... VMware supports Operating Systems, not Applications. If your Application depends on specific hardware requirements, then that would be the real question.

[admin]

As Deryni said, apps are not supported, only OSes.

You might want to talk to MacSolidWorks (a user on this forum, try the search field) about his/her experience. I think the short version is that right now it works, but slowly. Certainly try it and let us know how it works for you :smileyhappy:

[rcardona2k]

Repeating what Eric said: Talk to MacSolidWorks and/or look at his profile for a listing of this postings. They all have to do with SolidWorks. If you correspond with him, you can prod him about living in Bryan, TX. :smileywink:

[eobet]

Thank you for your answers!

I realize that VMware mainly runs different OS versions, but there seems to be at least some basic graphics drivers shipping with Fusion for Windows XP, and I know that both OS X and Solidworks runs under OpenGL, and nearly all applications have OpenGL tweaks in their drivers (same goes for DirectX), so I tought that I should at least ask.

Since Maya is availible on OS X, I guess SolidWorks is the largest 3D/CAD package availible that is Windows XP exclusive, these days, and thus, perhaps, could be a major selling point?

[SMB1]

It doesn't 'mainly run other OS's,' it only runs OS's. Fusion is a virtual machine, you install OS's on a machine and Applications on an OS.

Now, your problem with SolidWorks seems to be that it requires 3d accellerated drivers. If it does, then no there is no support for that. If it can run with just the VMware 2d drivers that are installed with the VMware tools then it should already run if you install a supported OS into a virtual machine.

[MacSolidWorks]

It would appear that I'm somewhat of a celebrity these days. Please, no pictures!

SolidWorks runs rather well in VMware Fusion. I'm using XPx64 with SWx64 and the performance is really great...for a VIRTUAL MACHINE.

It is somewhat overly optimistic to think that a virtual device will ever perform as well as a real device. I would NEVER recommend that someone attempt to do any serious or meaningful CAD work on a virtual computer. This just doesn't make sense, especially when you can run a full version of Windows 64bit or 32bit natively in bootcamp. Furthermore, at this stage, Fusion cannot save to an NTFS format drive, which leaves you with accessing a FAT32 drive which is super slow.

In addition, SolidWorks REQUIRES access to a REAL video card in order to use HARDWARE OPEN GL. Unless VMware finds a way to access a REAL video card from a VIRTUAL environment, SolidWorks is a no-go for anyone other than a small parts modeler.

If your modeling needs are not too intensive, it'll work pretty darn good, I've been pleased with the performance so far. SW has not crashed once on me while using Fusion and I use it rather regularly for presentations to clients.

However, in reality this is a novelty for anyone using large assemblies, complex parts, rendering, mold flow analysis, cosmos, etc. If all you want to do is model some rubber dog dookey without having to boot into Windows...Fusion is all you need. But, unfortunately that's not going to be the case with people spending this much money on SW, you really need a real environment to do some real work.

The cool thing is that it works at all, and with the new 45nm process Intel has come up with for their chips we can look forward to more cores per chip in the future. If we could get more CPU cores in a VM, and dedicate a processor for video hardware emulation, I really think this software has a future in the CAD arena.

My 2 cents.

-MacSolidWorks

[Lifespan]

MacSolidWorks,

My company is presently running a windows platform for all applications. There is discussion about changing to the Mac OS. I am presently running SolidWorks 2008 and from your post I see that I can get it to work but not to top speed or preformance. You mentioned that running it in a full version of windows in native bootcamp. From my investigation of the Macbook Pro that I would have to boot from Mac to Windows using Bootcamp. Can I load SolidWorks with bootcamp and run other Windows applications in Vmware Fusion or with VMware Fusion it is all or nothing?

Thank you,

[admin]

Can I load SolidWorks with bootcamp and run other Windows applications in Vmware Fusion or with VMware Fusion it is all or nothing?

Your question is a little unclear. You can't run Boot Camp at the same time as OS X (this being it's major disadvantage), but you can tell Fusion to use the Boot Camp partition as the disk - then you can run most Windows applications in Fusion and when you need to use SolidWorks, reboot into native Windows. You could also have multiple Windows installs (you will of course need to check your Windows licensing on this) e.g. one (or more, if you have multiple partitions) Boot Camp, one (or more) purely virtual.