Autodesk® Alias 2012 for Apple® Mac OS® X Hardware Qualification
Last Updated: January 2012

 

Products

Platform

Version

Software Date

Build Number

  • Autodesk Alias Automotive
  • Autodesk Alias Surface
  • Autodesk Alias Design

64-bit

2012

March 10, 2011

201102242103-365525

 

Contents of this Page

 

General Hardware and Software Requirements
  • Apple® Mac OS® X 10.7.2 or 10.6.7 (10.6.3 and 10.6.4 are unsupported)
  • Intel Core CPU Architecture, minimum 2GHz (PowerPC systems are unsupported)
  • 2GB or greater system memory, 4GB or more is highly recommended
  • 256MB minimum dedicated video memory and supported video card
  • 3 button mouse
  • DVD drive
  • 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

Untested

Untested

Untested

NA

NA

Mobility Radeon X1900

Untested

NA

NA

NA

NA

Radeon HD 2400 XT

Untested

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 2600 PRO

Untested

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 4850

Untested

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 4670

NA

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 4870

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Radeon HD 5670

NA

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 5770

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Radeon HD 5750

NA

NA

Untested

NA

NA

Radeon HD 5870

Untested

NA

NA

NA

NA

Radeon HD 6630M

NA

NA

NA

NA

✔

Radeon HD 6750M

Untested

✔

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

GeForce 9400M

NA

ο

ο

ο

ο

GeForce 9600M GT

NA

✔

Untested

NA

NA

GeForce 320M

NA

ο

NA

NA

ο

GeForce 330M

NA

✔

NA

NA

NA

GeForce 120 GT

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Quadro FX 4000

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Quadro 4000

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Quadro FX 4500

ο

NA

NA

NA

NA

Quadro FX 4800

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Quadro FX 5600

✔

NA

NA

NA

NA

Intel

GMA 950

NA

NA

✖

✖

✖

GMA X3100

NA

NA

✖

✖

✖

* Minimum 256MB of dedicated graphics memory is required. Systems running with shared memory are likely to underperform. At time of writing only Nvidia based graphics hardware is supported.

 

Known Hardware Limitations

 

Limitations

Affected Hardware

Known Limitations

ID

All

Limitation

Crash or hang with hardware shade

357302

Solution

Do not install 10.6.3 or 10.6.4 updates. We expect this issue to be addressed in a future update from Apple.

All

Limitation

Slow response times when interacting with manipulators, marking menus and general UI interaction

 

Solution

Disable ViewCube and even more optimizations can be achieved by running in fullscreen mode.

All

Limitation

Application hang with use of Marking Menus or crash on startup if required system fonts are not available.

350787

Solution

If you are using font manager software be sure to enable Tahoma, Tahoma Bold, Lucida Grande and any other system font.

All

Limitation

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

Geforce GT120

Limitation

Base shader color does not appear in hardware shade with Linear Reflections enabled in Environment

 

 

 

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.

Alias 2012 Hardware Shade Functionality

OpenGL 2.0/GLSL Driver Support Required

Self Shadows

No

Shader Glow

No

Displacement Mapping

No

Planar/Camera Projection Mapping (Color, Transparency)

No

Depth of Field

No

Ambient Occlusion Calculation and Display

No

Cube Map Reflections

No

Image Based Lighting

Yes

Blinn Shading

Yes

Bump/Specular Mapping

Yes

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- NX6

✖

✖

 

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.

Tablet Driver Notes/Limitations

Wacom Driver: 6.1.2-5

Limitation

Intermittent problems with cursor offset after changing Wacom tablet properties

Solution/Workaround

Solved by minimizing and restoring the Alias main window.

Limitation

5 button mouse cursor not in sync with paint stroke after initial driver installation with Intuos2

Solution/Workaround

Reinstall tablet driver.