Mac 3D Graphics Performance Comparison

One of my readers left a comment at my post titled “NX 3D Graphics Performance” saying:

“You should try Nx on your Mac and see what you get. I bet it will be better than your Autocad for the Mac test.”

So I asked Siemens PLM for a NX for Mac license and today I finally got it up and running on my MacBook. I had previously ran 3D graphics performance tests on AutoCAD and Rhino for Mac. So now I could add NX for Mac and compare all three of them. Here are three videos showing the engine model being rotated in NX, Rhino and AutoCAD for Mac.

NX for Mac

Rhino for Mac

AutoCAD for Mac

NX seems to be pretty decent, Rhino is usable and AutoCAD is practically useless. All three CAD systems ran on the same MacBook using their default graphics settings and loaded the same data set.

Autodesk has been making a big noise about the native OSX look and feel that they have given AutoCAD for Mac. It looks like they need to give AutoCAD for Mac some native OSX graphics performance as well. As the NX for Mac video shows, my MacBook is a pretty capable of handling data this size. It’s the AutoCAD for Mac software that is lacking. A lot.