Hello, If this has been brought up already I apologize! New to the CNC world, ordered and elite Forman and my questions is am I better off buying a PC with windows to run Vcarve Pro or just use my current MacBook Pro with parallels to run it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hey Corey,
I have not tested it, but if you look at the Vectric system requirements, you need OpenGL 3.3, so if you have it under parallels, there should be no problems.
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I run Vetric under Parallels and it works well (Intel based iMac). Some of the keyboard commands can be a little odd, but overall no problem. Since you can test drive Parallels for a couple of weeks, try both in trial mode and see how you like it.
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I run with Parallels on an iMac Pro (x86 Mac). VCarve Pro seems to run fine. I have an M1 Pro MacBook Pro but haven’t tried it with Parallels and the ARM version of windows (I’ve read that it works). My iMac Pro is my ‘big screen’ machine for stuff like this. My laptop is actually the more powerful machine but for CNC software I prefer to use my desktop station. BTW, you’ll likely want a good mouse. I’m a long time touchpad user but the mouse just works better for this class of software.
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You could opt for the free ‘personal use’ license of VMWare Fusion (Download VMware Fusion | VMware | AU).
Cheers … Dave
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What version are you using and and on what hardware? I tried the latest (new major released a few months back) and it simply didn’t work well at all. I think I tried it it with both Caveco Maker+ and Vectric VCarve Pro. It was having graphics problems and the cursor wasn’t matching up with the object on the screen, etc. If I remember right Fusion’s 3D rendering was far faster in Maker+ when doing a simulation but it was unusable due to the cursor problem.
Hey Dave, hey all,
since we mentioned Parallels and VMware, while we’re at it, we should also mention Virtualbox and Wine which are both free. Virtualbox works very well.
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I tried the CodeWeavers version of WINE a couple months back. Couldn’t get VCarve to run.
Do you use VCarve on VirtualBox? If so, how fast, smooth is the 3D graphics? I thought it didn’t support OpenGL 3.3+
Did you try Codeweavers support? I found them helpful in getting a very specialized Windows software package, with a small user base, up and running on an Intel Mac.
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No. I was trying the demo. I already had a working solution with Parallels so didn’t pursue wine.
Hi,
I run Parallels on a MacBook since they were the first M1 even when I was liking VMware more in the past.
I do all my CAD/CAM in Fusion, where you do not even need Parallels.
(…but the discussion about buying a Foreman and then trying to save two hands full of coins seems a little odd to me - imho)
Most important is to get a combination of hardware / software where you can achieve what you have in mind.
If you ask if you should buy a Mac, maybe you’re more familiar with re-boot oriented OS… 
Thank you all for the great information. I will keep on doing my homework with everything I have learned. Thanks again!
I found Parallels to be a pain in the butt so I just bought a cheap mini PC. It’s been great!
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I run VCarve Pro with Parallels on my M1 MacBook Pro and it works just fine. I bought a cheap PC to run it and leave it out in the shop but the Mac’s screen is so much nicer that prefer to use that when I can.
VCarve Pro with Parallels on my M1 Max Mac Studio and the whole thing works without any issues.
Parallels runs fine on M1 Macs, in fact the VM is just as fast as my standalone PC plus the added convenience of shared windows and files offered by Parallels.
I’m a Mac fan boy since 1984 and ran the Open Firmware department at Apple for a decade so I’m a bit biased. I would love to see someone write the Vcarve equivalent as native MacOS application but the Carve isn’t too bad, a bit clunky in the UI but ok.
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