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Free Solidworks for EAA members

For those who are engineering inclined, I have to mention that as an EAA member you get Solidworks for free.

I haven’t had any use for it myself (yet), but it is the perfect tool if you want someone to fabricate an intricate bracket, make a new panel, for 3D printing of small pieces etc, or simply design yourself a personal jet

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

It’s a neat benefit for sure. Just be warned it requires a physical machine running MS Windows natively. It actively refuses to run under virtualisation. Everybody will have their opinions and preferences on hardware and OS choices, and might also have (strong) opinions on this decision of the software makers, my note is just to warn people about wasting time setting up a virtualised Windows for the purpose of trying it out if you only have other OS’es.

But a very nice gesture from EAA!

Last Edited by hmng at 17 Oct 09:27
EHLE, Netherlands

hmng wrote:

Just be warned it requires a physical machine running MS Windows natively

Who hasn’t It’s the kind of software you buy hardware for, not the other way around. I would think any OK PC for flight sims will run this software just fine.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

A VM is for running executables which need WINXP

Solidworks has a serious learning curve.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

What about a VM with a dedicated graphic card ?

Ted
United Kingdom

LeSving wrote:

I would think any OK PC for flight sims will run this software just fine.

It will run it, but not necessarily well, and is unlikely to be supported by the CAD publisher. Game-oriented and CAD-oriented video cards are different animals, optimised for different operations.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Define “well” As I said, it’s the kind of software you buy hardware for. If you are going to work all day (as a professional) using Solidworks or Ansys or whatever, you would buy a CAD station, not a gaming PC. I don’t agree they are different animals, more like different breeds perhaps. Siberian Husky vs German Shepherd more than octopus vs llama The difference is in the minute details.

The main difference is OpenGL vs DirectX. A CAD GPU is optimized for OpenGL while a gaming GPU is optimized for DirectX. Some features simply aren’t available in DirectX. This hasn’t as much to do with the hardware itself or OpenGL/DirectX as it has to do with the drivers for the cards. The result is that some rendering features aren’t available with a gaming card. This is not to say you actually need those features for the design of the occasional bracket Another difference may be that a gaming PC works well for smaller projects, but gets bogged down for larger ones.

I would say a gaming PC works “well” for CAD. The other way around is not necessarily true unless you are willing to pay 10k for a graphics card. But then again, I have not yet tried this Solidworks, maybe it doesn’t even install on my laptop

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving wrote:

A CAD GPU is optimized for OpenGL while a gaming GPU is optimized for DirectX.

Aha! So that’s why the most recent graphics card I bought had a “Games/CAD” switch…

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 18 Oct 07:28
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Airborne_Again wrote:

Aha! So that’s why the most recent graphics card I bought had a “Games/CAD” switch…

What card is that? Some Nvidia Quadro card? I think what happens is in “CAD mode” you will only be able to install drivers optimized for OpenGL rendering, while in “game mode” you will be able to install drivers optimized for DirectX.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

LeSving, did I understand the EULA correctly that you have to stay EAA member to be able to continue using it?

EGTR
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