Wacom tablet is strongly recommended for any 2D paint workflows (refer to Tablet Support section in this document).
Please Read
It may
be possible to successfully use Alias for Mac OS X with a
non-qualified configuration, however, Support and Maintenance programs
will be subject to the Autodesk Support services guidelines.
The
configurations shown are subject to change, and additional qualified
configurations may be added after qualification testing has been
carried out.
All systems were tested with the lastest available version of Mac OS X. We encourage customers to remain current with updates from Apple.
Autodesk
will continue to explore new candidates for Alias for Mac OS X qualification and will monitor the current configurations. For
the most recent information on qualification, please refer to www.autodesk.com/qual-charts.
Qualified Hardware Configurations
Color coding legend
✔
Graphics
hardware and driver meet all requirements for stable and
acceptable performance in all functional areas of the software.
ο
Graphics hardware or driver meet some but not all requirements. Limitations exist.
✖
Graphics hardware or driver not suitable for use with Alias
NA
Not Applicable
Untested
Configuration not tested by Autodesk and at time of press are not qualified for use with Alias. Use at own risk.
Systems
consisting of any combination of the workstations and graphics drivers
listed below have been certified for use by Autodesk and are fully supported for use with Alias. Please review all
documented limitations for a given configuration, in some cases not all
functionality is supported.
Graphics*
Hardware
Mac Pro
MacBook Pro
iMac
Macbook
Mac Mini
ATI
Mobility Radeon X1600
✖
✖
✖
NA
NA
Mobility Radeon X1900
✖
NA
NA
NA
NA
Radeon HD 2400 XT
✖
NA
✖
NA
NA
Radeon HD 2600 PRO
✖
NA
✖
NA
NA
Radeon HD 4850
✖
NA
✖
NA
NA
Radeon HD 4870
✖
NA
NA
NA
NA
Nvidia
GeForce 7600 GT
Untested
NA
Untested
NA
NA
GeForce 7300 GT
ο
NA
Untested
NA
NA
GeForce 8800 GS
Untested
NA
Untested
NA
NA
GeForce 8800 GT
✔
NA
NA
NA
NA
GeForce 8600M GT
NA
✔
NA
NA
NA
GeForce 9400M
NA
✔
Untested
Untested
Untested
GeForce 9600M GT
NA
✔
Untested
NA
NA
Quadro FX 4500
ο
NA
NA
NA
NA
Quadro FX 5600
✔
NA
NA
NA
NA
Intel
GMA 950
NA
NA
✖
✖
✖
GMA X3100
NA
NA
✖
✖
✖
* Minimum 256MB of Graphics Memory is required. Anything less is unsupported.
Known Hardware Limitations
Limitations
Affected Hardware
Known Limitations
ID
MacBook Pro (Nvidia 8600GT)
Limitation
Hardware Allocated Anti-Aliasing crashes Alias with Ground Plane Shadows.
Shading maps with file textures may look incorrect in Hardware Shade
297444
Solution
Use procedural textures or do not use pure white values in the file texture
All
Limitation
Intermittent incorrect tablet input causing inconsistent stroke behavior. This occurs if there are many queued mouse events needing to be processed.
319445
Solution
Undo stroke
All
Limitation
Hardware Shade with Spotlights results in extremely slow performance.
316369
Solution
This is a bug in Apple's OpenGL driver. Apple has been notified of this problem.
All
Limitation
Slower
selection performance with Anti-Aliased surface display. This is more noticeable with large datasets
Solution
Disable
driver controlled Anti-Aliasing in driver control panel or Application
control Anti-Aliasing through Preferences->General
Preferences->Draw
GeForce 7300 and Quadro FX 4500
Limitation
Display artifacting and inconsistent shading results with Nvidia GeForce 7300 and Nvidia Quadro FX 4500
311419, 311658
All
Limitation
Hardware Anti-Aliasing has little effect on some hardware and can cause some mild UI artifacting.
320384
Advanced Hardware Rendering Features in Alias
Using
the advanced capabilities of modern graphics hardware it is possible to
produce higher levels of realism when using the Hardware Shade
functionality within Alias. These features enable more accurate
reflection mapping and other effects in hardware. In order to achieve
these results in hardware your graphics card and driver combination
must fully support the OpenGL Shading Language (GLSL) which is part of
the OpenGL2.0 specification.
The following table lists features that require GLSL support. In most
cases Alias detects incompatible hardware and will not expose
these advanced features.
Per-Pixel Shading Mode must be selected inside the Hardware Shade options in order to see the advanced shading capabilities.
All Projection Types (Color, Bump, Transparency, Specular)
Yes
Linear/Spot Lights
Yes
Advanced Virtual Ground Plane Reflection Control
Yes
Advanced Virtual Ground Plane Shadow Control
Yes
Shading Maps
Yes
Environment Reflections
Yes
Wirefile
Compatibility Chart
Alias
Supported File Formats (not all formats available on Mac OS X)
Format
Read
Write
Notes
Wire
✔
✔
As of version
10.0
of Alias (formerly known as StudioTools) wirefiles are backward and forward compatible with newer
versions of Alias. StudioTools 10.0
and later
will read wirefiles written by prior versions, however, prior versions
will not be able to read v10.0 or later wirefiles. We have provided the from100to97.exe translator that
will
convert 10.0 and later wirefiles to v9.7.x wirefiles.
Autodesk Inventor
✖
✖
Open Inventor
✖
✖
IGES
✔
✔
STEP
✔
✔
DXF/DWG
✖
✖
DES
✖
✖
NEUTRO
✖
✖
CATIA CAI
✖
✖
CATIA v4
✖
✖
CATIA v5 R11-R19
✖
✖
Unigraphics NX3- NX5 (see note)
✖
✖
PTC Granite
✖
✖
OBJ
✖
✖
VDAFS
✖
✖
VDAIS
✖
✖
JT
✖
✖
JAMAIS
✖
✖
C4
✖
✖
Illustrator
✖
✖
EPS
✖
✖
ProE Render
✖
✖
STL
✔
✔
Binary and ASCII
formats
supported.
Anti-Aliasing
Anti-Aliased display in Alias can be achieved using one of the following methods:
Anti-Aliasing Controls and Settings
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), Driver Controlled
Graphics
driver Anti-Aliasing control is set to override any application
settings. The entire Alias window is anti-aliased. There is no
distinction between a OpenGL viewport and rest of the application.
Benefit:
Amount of oversampling only limited by card resources and graphics
memory resulting in extremely smooth shading. Anti-aliased display is
persistent
Drawback: It is not possible to toggle anti-aliased display. Can cause noticeable degredation in interactive performance.
Full Scene Anti-Aliasing (FSAA), Application Controlled
This allows for
Alias to use a 4x Full Scene Anti-Aliasing from the graphics
card. Only modelling windows receive the Anti-Aliasing visual and can
be toggled ON and OFF. This is enabled inside of Alias: Window Display->Shaded Anti-Alias.... 'Allocate Hardware Anti-Alias Resources on Startup'.
Benefit: Only
modeling windows receive the Anti-Aliased display resulting in less
visual artifacting. Can be toggled ON and OFF. Anti-aliased display is
persistent
Drawback: Can cause mild degredation in interactive performance.
Camera based Anti-Aliasing
Anti-Aliasing
is controlled entirely from within the Window Display->Shaded Anti-Alias.... Software Anti-Alias options and is
only applied when Hardware Shade or Diagnostic Shade is enabled. The results are additive
to any existing FSAA if enabled in graphics driver.
Benefit:
Not dependent on graphics card and can easily be controlled within
Alias without restarting. Various quality settings can easily be
specified for very high quality smoothing.
Drawback:Anti-Aliasing
is only active during idle camera positions. It is disabled during
camera moves and animation (playblasts do receive Anti-Aliasing).
Expect delays when used in conjunction with other Hardware Shade
effects.
Tablet
Support
Alias
has been tested and confirmed to work with the Wacom Intuos series of tablets (see driver level below)
Active Tablet Displays: Alias has been
tested and confirmed to work with the Wacom Cintiq 18SX and Cintiq 21UX Active tablets. A DVI compatible graphics
card is required to use the Cintiq series of tablets.
Dual Monitor Configurations: Dual monitor configurations may cause incorrect
cursor behavior when spanning multiple monitors. Refer to Dual
Monitor Support below for more
information on running Alias with dual monitors.