I know that when I’ve poked around at how SU renders (in newer versions), Renderdoc (the software I use) tells me It can’t access Sketchup because it is using compatibility features.
That must be related.
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Fair point, but I have a question. This looks at the biggest possible picture total operating system market shares. What I’d like to know is what percentage of SketchUp Pro users are Windows or Mac. That is, could there be some kind of Pareto Principle happening, wherein MacOS may only be about 10% of the total OS market, but they make up half or even a majority of SketchUp users? That’s probably something only Trimble could answer.
Speaking purely for myself, when I look around YouTube or these forums, I tend to see a fairly even mix of Mac and PC users.
I get the same. I’m no OpenGL expert, but I wonder if “compatibility” has to do with a least common denominator sort of minimum version it will work with, vs latest version it will work with? Interesting, but in the end doesn’t tell us mortals much!
In my experience of dealing with the UK and IRE SketchUp customers , it depends on the industry itself and the size of the business using it.
For example, an interior design studio with 10 users is far more likely to be using Windows than a freelance or self employed user.
It’s even more pronounced in Architecture, where Revit is as ubiquitous as SketchUp, but Revit isn’t available for Mac.
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I am sure that Trimble can see the ratio based on license activations, but I doubt very much they will share it with the public. And I agree that global market share of units sold (according to a source of unknown reliability or bias) does not equate to fraction of SketchUp licenses.
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That is why I asked. I have a baseless intuition that the SketchUp Mac market share is bigger than the share of Mac computers generally in use.
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Back in the days when SketchUp (classic) licences where tied to the OS, the licenses sold by the Dutch distributor where almost 25 % Mac.
When that changed in version 2015, it was harder to keep track.
When I switched back to Mac around the time that version 8 was current, they forgot to turn of the Windows version, so I still have an active version 8 Windows license, whereas the Mac version got updated to more recent ones…
My reseller back then tried to hold me from switching, but after used up three laptops within a timespan of 2 and a half years I decided to go back to a less time consuming OS
25% is fairly sizeable for something with only a 10% market share (for a single region). Overall, it seems the waters have gotten a bit muddy, with no shortage of us dual-wielding Macs and Micros, not to mention the browser-based version of the app (which I was running on a crummy Chromebook with only 4GB of RAM) as well as the new iPad app which is only going to grow in terms of users. In any case, if Trimble is willing to invest in a browser and tablet app, optimizing it for Metal should only be a matter of time.
I switched from windows 10 years ago cause I used 3 laptops in less than two years, two of them where high end laptops, but for some reason I don’t know after a few months of usage the machine became extremely slow, and I bought the most expensive antivirus software, and tried to be disconnected from the internet when it was posible. I spent a lot of money, I was doubtful about Mac a lot of people say they’re overpriced and slower than windows laptops, anyway I was frustrated with windows and bought a 13” 2013 MacBook Pro, I didn’t want to invest more money on a 15” with discrete graphics, because I wasn’t sure the switch of OS was a good decision, but I don’t regret the buy I did, I could tell that MacOS is a much better and optimized OS, I installed all the softwares I use hoping the performance wasn’t as bad as I was told, I was so wrong, the performance was a lot better than on windows, I used that machine for 8 years and the performance was the same as the first day, that machine saved me a lot of money, I don’t even have to instal an antivirus, I got a fully upgraded M1 Max MacBook in 2021, and the performance is incredible, the battery last easily two days before requiring to be charged, the display is delightful it’s almost the perfect machine, I say almost cause it lacks of Gpu power compared to Nvidia, in the past it wasn’t a problem for me, but in recent years I’ve been working more on Archviz, I acquired recently a high end desktop pc, a i7 13700K, Nvidia 4070ti and 64 gigs of ram, and the performance is almost the same on the cpu, the gpu is way more powerful, so I use my Mac for modeling, documentation budget calculations etc and the pc just for rendering. I wouldn’t switch back to use exclusively windows unless something huge changes and the performance between the two platforms be huge.
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I took the plunge bought the high end M2 Max with 96gb Ram etc as I also do a lot of other graphic work. Sketchup doesn’t seem to be any better. Actually worse with Sketchup 2023