I suppose they don’t have to do it. It would be easier for me if LayOut was identical on both Mac and Windows. Of course then we wouldn’t be able to import PDFs into LayOut on Mac.
I suppose they could have their own sets of fonts but that would probably involve additional licensing costs. Easier to use the system fonts which the both do now.
Hi Simon
Yes, I found that too. When I had the iMac it came with 8GB which I found was useless for Layout. However, I had ordered Memory from elsewhere as I did not want to pay Apple’s prices.
I increased mine to 40GB and found it made a big difference. Zooming was still painful but at least useable.
Mike
I definitely think there are pros and cons of each system.
It took me about a year to decide to change my Main Machine to Windows, and the reasons are varied, but mainly centre around the Software available for Windows Machines, namely Lumion.
Layout is still not perfect but I was under no illusion that it would be, as I read this forum daily, so already knew there were issues that I would face.
Generally though, the zooming is a lot better, (I do have 64GB RAM on this plus the 2080TI, although not sure what difference, if any, the 2080TI makes to Layout. There may be a setting I can change but I dare not delve into changing settings in the NVidia Control Panel 
)
I have changed the Font to Candara which seems to be better, especially when using large bodies of text. Again, still not great but I think workable. I actually prefer the style too.
I am trying to think of how I can adapt my workflow to use RTF Import, and still have the freedom to change columns etc for presentation. I’m sure I’ll come up with some cunning plan at some point.
On a side note, I am enjoying the ability to be able customise Toolbars more freely, and also the Materials in Sketchup is great.
I like this. I always treat each Project afresh.
Mike
On another post, I remember it being said that one of the problems for LO is that it has to load the whole of the underlying SU drawing (or drawings in many cases) into RAM. So that may help explain why having more RAM makes LO operate faster. But I’m guessing, I admit.
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Hi Simon
I tried something else today.
I decided to see what difference changing the Layout Display quality would make. I’ve always had it set to Medium and Output Quality set to high. I changed the display quality to Low, leaving Output set to high. It has made a marked difference to the speed of Layout, without affecting the display too badly.
I remember trying this on a very previous version and I found the display quality too poor. However, in this version it’s a lot better. I always set the rendering to Hybrid and all the vector lines stay nice and sharp, along with items drawn in Layout or from the Scrapbook. Text and Dimensions seem to be pretty much unaffected too. The main difference is the Textures, which is fine as I know they’ll be output in high quality.
Anyway, thought it worth mentioning.
Mike
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Hi Simon … Seems like a pretty good guess to me!
When I went from 16 GB of RAM to 32 GB on my iMac, I did notice some improvement in LayOut, just not enough improvement! I now wish I had just gone for 64GB instead! (Unfortunately, I’m now invested in (4) 8 GB RAM cards, and I would have to swap them all out for 16 GB cards to get to 64GB!)
It sure would be nice if Adam and the LayOut team would just confirm and clarify this theory about RAM and performance for us! Why are we users left to guessing and throwing money around trying to get LayOut to just work at a decent level?
I have 64gb ram in my iMac. Layout is dreadfully slow if I work in Medium or High presentation quality. Entering in and out of text boxes is horribly slow, zooming and panning also.
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Thanks bmike,
That is really depressing news, so even 64GB of RAM doesn’t help LayOut’s performance! And I see you have the Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB graphics card as well … Are you also running off of a solid state hard drive?
I’m forced to conclude that LayOut has a software code problem that no amount of hardware is going to fix! When is Trimble going to bit the bullet and just rewrite the base code for LayOut, so that it can be a worthy partner to SketchUp? Soooo Frustrating!
To me it feels like the whole backend needs a re-write to make it faster… probably year on year of code and features… was really surprised at how sluggish it becomes, even if I turn off auto rendering.
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Yes, as I’m sure you are aware, there is a long list of “best practice” workarounds developed by this user community to cope with the many LayOut shortcomings. These methods have been built through a lot of painful trial and error experience over years of use, and shouldn’t be necessary, but are!
I’ve asked Adam (LayOut team captain) in another thread about how many people he has on his crew, and what % of the overall SketchUp “improvement” budget he commands … but no response so far!
I get the impression that “redoing the backend” LayOut code isn’t very high on Trimble’s priority list … either too hard, or too expensive, or both!
I’ve a feeling if Adam were to answer the question truthfully, he would be out of a job. Trimble has a strict policy of what can and cannot be discussed with regards to the business at hand.
Thanks RLGL,
Yes, I’ve heard about the “candor” restrictions the SU team operates under … must be hard to work there …
Im struggling today with adding notes to some drawings. We’re talking a few short paragraphs and it’s grinding to a slow crawl, almost unsable.
Writing notes in RTF and pasting into a document is a cumbersome exercise and doesnt solve the formatting speed issues. I also find flipping between programs is mentally-disruptive.
Most ‘graphical’ text editors turn off the HQ antialising and other font rendering options when editing. Is there no such option in LayOut?
…I hope the developers get this issue sorted ASAP. It makes no sense in 2020 not to be able to add a few paragraphs of text.
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While SketchUp is IMO one of the coolest modelling software on the market, Layout is by far the worst. After so many years of patience, and a few days after releasing 2021 without any improvement, I seriously think about jumping overboard the ship. I really don’t understand why Layout is not being improved while SketchUp is, and while many new side software are being created.
The SketchUp evolution versus Layout start to look like running a Ferrari on mud tire. What ever feature and speed you add to the car… at the end of the day, the ride is still bumpy and painful!
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Hey Joe,
I agree that SU is great. Unfortunately, Trimble doesn’t seem to really care about LO … after all, LayOut doesn’t have to sell on the open market, it just ships along with SU Pro. Trimble doesn’t perceive that a poorly performing LO might hurt SU Pro sales.
To date, all our many complaints re LO don’t seem to register with Trimble enough to fundamentally move the needle. I wish I knew how to change this situation … I want LayOut Pro, not LayOut Light!
Get used to those Mud Tires while we wait for Trimble to wake up!