One day I’m working with a family in Revit 2013, and the next I’m time traveling back to Revit 2012. Then the weekend comes, and with it the release of Revit 2014 – the speed, the bliss! Up next is Monday, which calls for a family in Revit 2011. I need a type catalog quickly, and try exporting it right from the family editor. But wait! That couldn’t be done in 2011. So I quickly jump to 2013, open the 2011 family and export its parameters as a type catalog, go back into 2011 and carry on working, now with the type catalog created in 2013. See, type catalogs can travel through time!
Situations like the one above are normal where I work. From time to time, I also get a chance to try versions of unreleased software, or install Revit in other languages (just to practico mee Espaniol, por exemplo). Installing all this software on the same machine, in the same OS, would usually be kryptonite for the superman of IT administrators. Mere mortals would be institutionalised after only a few hours. There is, however, a perfectly sane, kryptonite-proof way to live in this universe of multiple Revits. It’s what I’ve been doing since back in 2009, and on a Mac no less.
This harmony of multiple Revits is all thanks to a couple things. First is the change that took place in Apple’s hardware in 2005, when they switched to Intel processors. I knew it would be only a matter of time before I could run Windows on a Mac at a reasonable speed. I wanted to do that because the software I was using (Autodesk) would only run on Windows. But why did I want a Mac in the first place? Nowadays I can list several reasons, and this post is about one of them. Back then it was really just a personal preference. Note: for those with aesthetic sensibilities that make them allergic to Apple’s products, you could do this under Windows or Linux, though probably it wouldn’t look half as good.
Second, it’s thanks to a piece of software called Parallels Desktop. Parallels allows me to create Windows virtual machines on a Mac, each with its own version of Revit. It turns a whole Windows computer into a single file, albeit a large one. That file can be backed up for when you install a virus just to see if Revit runs faster, or copied from computer to computer when you upgrade your hardware. It’s a plug-in, plug-out computer. There when you need it, gone when you don’t.
So how good is this setup of “Parallel Revits”? Do you remember how it felt the first time you drove your Porsche at 90mph down the Audubon? Neither do I, but I’m guessing it’s something like that. Want to play with Revit 1.0 and Revit 2014 at the same time? Marcello, you can, and no need to worry about old installation conflicts. The latter was one of the reasons that brought me down this path, and though nowadays newer versions of Revit co-exist without problem, I’m so happy with the way things work that I continue to keep each version of Revit on its own virtual machine.
@PragReviteer @lukeyjohnson when you open Revit version 2014 into version 1.0 you get this message pic.twitter.com/IXnWXnTxRQ
— marcello sgambelluri (@marcellosgamb) July 28, 2013
Performance-wise, I can say that if what you do is Revit families, you are covered with almost any laptop – even the new Macbook Air 13”. For working with projects you will have to ask others, but with a mighty 15” MacBook Pro I don’t see why that would be a problem. With 16GB of memory on your laptop, you can even run two full virtual machines side by side.
I run this setup on a 13” retina MacBook Pro. The retina adds nothing at the moment, as Windows 7 doesn’t support high density screens (neither does Revit for that matter). And I only have 8GB of memory, which in practice limits me to one virtual machine open at any one time. This is not ideal, but I carry my laptop everywhere, and the 13” is lighter than the 15”. Obviously for me, weight is a major factor. In the future I will likely upgrade to a retina 13” with 16GB. Not that these exist yet, but it seems like they will come out in October this year. Further to that, I hope that Windows 8.1 and Revit 2016 will add support for high density displays.
On a more technical note, I always keep a template virtual machine ready to be deployed. For the particular settings of the virtual machines, I follow what Gordon Price recommended here (via Luke Johnson) in order to get the most out of graphics. Namely, rename the file AdskHardwareCertificationReport.xml to something else and then on restarting Revit, enable Hardware Acceleration. The file can be found in C:Program FilesAutodeskRevit 2013Program for 2013 and in C:Program FilesAutodeskRevit 2014 for 2014.
One last thing, Revit 2014 Update 1 fixes a problem I had with the Parallels setup. Whenever I would put the computer to sleep with Revit 2014 open, waking it up again would cause the views within Revit to go black, throw an error and close, or the whole of Revit would crash. So far, with the update installed, this hasn’t happened. Welcome to the future!
