|
Autodesk® Alias
2013 for Apple® Mac
OS® X
Hardware Qualification
Last Updated: October 2012 |
|
Products |
Platform |
Version |
Software Date |
Build Number |
-
Autodesk Alias Automotive
-
Autodesk Alias Surface
-
Autodesk Alias Design
|
64-bit |
2013 |
March 13, 2012 |
201203131908-400327 |
|
General Hardware and
Software Requirements |
-
Apple® Mac OS® X 10.6.2 or 10.7
-
2 GB RAM (4G or more recommended)
-
DVD-ROM drive
-
A three-button mouse (or a mouse that can emulate
three-buttons, such as a Mighty Mouse)
-
Supported OpenGL-capable graphics card with 256 MB (full
OpenGL 2.0 support is required).
-
1280x1024 screen resolution. Set your display to show
millions of colors.
-
Disk space requirements
-
4GB free hard disk space for Alias Automotive 2013
-
2GB free hard disk space for Alias Surface 2013
-
3GB free hard disk space for Alias Design 2013
-
Apple QuickTime® and Preview (to view the PDF
documentation).
-
QuickTime and Preview are provided with the Mac
operating system. You can also download Adobe® Acrobat®
Reader version 6 or higher, from http://www.adobe.com to
view the PDF documentation.
-
Apple® Safari™ Web browser is required to view the
online help.
-
QuickTime player (version 7) to create and view QTVR
files. The QuickTime 7 software is available athttp://www.apple.com/quicktime/download.
-
Flash plug-in to view animated tutorial sequences in
your browser. Free plug-ins are available from http://www.flash.com.
-
Set the mouse buttons as follows:
-
Left mouse button: click
-
Middle mouse button: middle mouse button
-
Right mouse button: contextual menu/right mouse
button
Use standard mouse driver option settings. Do not, for
example, set the middle mouse button to work as a
double-click of the left button. A wheel mouse (such as
Apple Mighty Mouse) should operate as a 3-button mouse. If
not, reconfigure it in your System Preferences.
-
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 latest 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 Windows qualification and will monitor the
current configurations.
|
|
Qualified Hardware Configurations |
|
✔ |
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 |
✖ |
✖ |
✖ |
|
Known Hardware Limitations |
|
Limitations |
|
Affected Hardware |
Known Limitations |
ID |
|
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 hangs 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 .jpg file textures may look incorrect
in Hardware Shade |
297444 |
|
Solution |
Use another file format or 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 |
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 |
|
|
| |
|
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 2013 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 |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
CATIA CAI |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
CATIA v4 |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
CATIA v5 |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
Siemens NX3- NX8 |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
PTC Granite |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
OBJ |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
VDAFS |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
VDAIS |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
JT |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
JAMAIS |
✖ |
✖ |
|
|
C4 |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
Illustrator |
✔ |
✖ |
|
|
EPS |
✔ |
✖ |
|
|
ProE Render |
✔ |
✖ |
|
|
STL |
✔ |
✔ |
Binary and ASCII formats supported. |
|
EDF |
✔ |
✔ |
New support starting in Automotive 2013 |
|
|
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 degradation 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
modeling 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 degradation 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.
|
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. |
|
|
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