What are my options?
Parallels
Parallels software can be installed on your Mac OS. It allows you to run a “virtual” copy of a Windows operating system at the same time as running your Mac OS.
In our case, we would use Parallels to run a “Virtual PC”. The “Virtual PC” would then run Windows 10 on which SOLIDWORKS can ultimately run. You need to buy Parallels and a copy of Windows 10 for this solution.
Running Parallels on a Mac is really convenient as you can seamlessly switch between Windows and Mac OS when needed.
Unfortunately, it really stretches the capabilities of most machines to run both Mac OS and Windows as well as a heavy-duty program like SOLIDWORKS at the same time. It also introduces an extra level of software to “go wrong”. Certainly running via Parallels is slower and more prone to crashing SOLIDWORKS than the Boot Camp solution.
Important Considerations!
Why is having supported hardware important?
Without a supported card, you won’t get some feature such as the looking glass, RealView etc. to work.
Users have also reported items temporarily disappearing after you rotate/zoom/Pan e.g. dimension text.
Most importantly, without a supported card SOLIDWORKS is less stable and more prone to crashing.
If you are plagued by stability/display issues its worth running SOLIDWORKS with the option “Software OpenGL” turned on.
The option above calculates the graphics using your processor and a standard library, rather than the graphics card and graphics driver. This is slower but it can provide improve stability and a more reliable display.
If you have any more questions or would like us to spec you up a machine to run SOLIDWORKS on please refer to this guide, or contact us via one of our web forms here.
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