Author Topic: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk  (Read 53037 times)

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Offline nctnico

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #100 on: June 20, 2021, 09:44:45 am »
They are not using Acceleration on the GPU. Simple as that.
But they do.

Quote
Altium requires hardware that is directx10 capable.

And now we see part of the problem..
Probably. DirectX is for gaming. Orcad etc use OpenGL directly. The problems with Altium are likely shoddy programming and not adhering fully to the specs (if these specs are even fully published by Microsoft). Every now and then I look over the shoulder of someone using Altium but crashes and long waits are frequent and he does use a decent machine.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 09:55:18 am by nctnico »
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Offline Gerhard_dk4xp

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #101 on: June 20, 2021, 10:31:36 am »
Quote from: free_electron on Today at 01:59:46 am

    They are not using Acceleration on the GPU. Simple as that.


Sometimes I don't care about acceleration. I cannot even see a board
in 2D-mode without directX, something I could do on the Compaq-286 with
the board in post #81 in a previous life.

And my tiny Dell XPS13 has at least 100 times the computation power
of that ancient Compaq and it has a 2000 pixels wide display that plays
HD movies without the slightest slowdown, but AD cannot even do a 2D
display of a postage stamp sized board? And it does not say "directX missing",
no, it says nothing and does simply nothing.

I do not propose to work on an XPS13, but it is handy if you are in the
Icelandic dessert with the motorbike and a customer has some questions.
The alternative is never to be in the Icelandic dessert with the motorbike.
And the XPS13 runs everything else in the VMware machine.

The impression that AD runs more stable on large machines comes
from the fact that they come with large RAM and if there are some GB
to throw away it takes longer until the memory leaks show consequences.

And even on the workstation it sometimes comes to a grinding halt,
like when doing an eco and fetching a new part to the PCB from
a local library takes a minute. For each part.
Closing an unrelated project then CAN do wonders.

And all those nilpointer reads/assignments! I have posted some
of them on the Altium website. These precious little hints are
complained at by the compiler runtime, not the program itself.

Checking for error conditions is very un-altiumish. They obey
strictly the rule "Never check for errors you do not know to handle!".

I remember that  AD16 would suddenly crash when starting it.
I was denied any help with the sorry excuse that I ran it in a Win7
machine under VMware Workstation. They insisted that VMware
workstation could not handle network connections correctly.
Notwithstanding that there was no network involved.

The 1Meg$$$ question: what is the core business of VMware?

I had to find it out myself. It turned out that I had renamed
an old decal library from .lib to  .pcblib  and AD did not
even check the library format - and preferred bombing.
I would not bet that the error is not happily preserved in AD21.

I then stopped my subscription and when I gave in in summer 2020,
everything was different, nothing was better, with new bugs.

For example, it cannot import Gerber files from Keysight Advanced
Design System correctly, it just creates $SOMETHING that has not
the slightest thing in common with the carefully electromagnetics-
optimized original filter design. Import via DXF gives at least a
skeleton that can be filled by hand. Hand coloring of pictures
with numbered points is not my idea of design automation.

It also creates funny nets between unrelated metal segments that can
be simply ignored when running DRC.  It's enough to remember that
14 unrouted connections are OK.
Gives me confidence when I need to import something complicated.
The free and open source gerbv can import Gerbers from ADS
with no issues.
 
Is there any true electromagnetics simulator that can exchange
data with AD?

What has happened to FPGA support? It started slow and then seems
to have starved.

In the spice realm, LTspice is still king.

I don't have the slightest interest of storing my designs in
somebody's cloud. The data is mine, mine only and the customer's.

They want another € 2100 from me next week  for another year of
support that has never ever solved a problem for me since
the Protel days. Guess what I won't do?

Gerhard

« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 10:50:50 am by Gerhard_dk4xp »
 
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Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #102 on: June 20, 2021, 01:08:35 pm »
They are not using Acceleration on the GPU. Simple as that. Does OrCad or Kicad support multiple windows served form one application ? split between screens ? Orcad doesn't.
Now you are displaying more ignorance  :palm: Of course it does. And, unlike Alitum, Orcad does it under both Windows and Linux.

I support a pool of over 500 users and 200+ licenses.
That explains why are you so persistent in defending it, despite your arguments getting more and more ridiculous and pathetic :palm: Trust me, you would have way less headaches if you had to support the same amount of users, but using Orcad Pro instead. Because it runs on everything and never crashes. I was able to browse a >600 MB board file of the open handware dual-socket server motherboard on my 7 years old system just fine, let alone on my recently upgraded system (5950X, 128GB of RAM). BTW, it's here in case someone is curious: https://www.opencompute.org/wiki/Server/ProjectOlympus AD would likely choke on a board half that size :-DD

Offline Karel

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #103 on: June 20, 2021, 01:43:02 pm »
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #104 on: June 20, 2021, 02:04:19 pm »
Trust me, you would have way less headaches if you had to support the same amount of users, but using Orcad Pro instead.

And how many user do you support ? How large is your sample size ? You need to compare like for like. Let's go find someone that has a similar pool and than we can compare. All i hear is lone-users here. Second, people only come to forums when they have issues or to complain. Never to say something good, or when they have no problems. So queue the endless vitriol and hostility towards users that don't run into any problems. It's the same everywhere. I like this hairdryer. Nah that's shit cause my sisters brother in laws mothers aunts daughter burnt her finger on one. I like white bread. No that's bad you should be eating brown bread. I like Ms paint , no you should be using the gimp. I like swimming, i nearly drowned once, walking is much better.

I already told you i see Altium crashes and weird behavior. There is no doubt it has quirks in it and i will never deny that.
But, in my experience, with my user pool, if i switch the user to different hardware the 'crash' issues disappear. Does it have other bugs ? yes , just like any other software. But the dead-stop hard crash disappears with hardware changes.

Quote
AD would likely choke on a board half that size
Board size means nothing. Half that pcb is empty space.
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Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #105 on: June 20, 2021, 02:37:44 pm »
Are you using a vm or wine? I thought that Orcad was windows only:
It runs natively on Linux. The guide you linked is specifically for Windows version.

Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #106 on: June 20, 2021, 02:40:38 pm »
But, in my experience, with my user pool, if i switch the user to different hardware the 'crash' issues disappear. Does it have other bugs ? yes , just like any other software. But the dead-stop hard crash disappears with hardware changes.
LOL. The problem is Altium, not hardware.

Offline Monkeh

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #107 on: June 20, 2021, 02:41:29 pm »
So queue the endless vitriol and hostility towards users that don't run into any problems.

Like the endless vitriol and hostility you're presenting towards those who don't need to put a different label on the same IC and call it 'workstation grade' to get a machine which works absolutely fine.

I like how you describe bad programming as 'quirks'.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 02:43:03 pm by Monkeh »
 

Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #108 on: June 20, 2021, 04:48:36 pm »
Board size means nothing. Half that pcb is empty space.
LOL. Just 24 DIMM slots is more than I ever seen in any Altium board, nevermind anything else that's on there. Schematic is 230+ pages long.
« Last Edit: June 20, 2021, 04:52:49 pm by asmi »
 

Offline free_electron

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #109 on: June 20, 2021, 06:37:57 pm »
Board size means nothing. Half that pcb is empty space.
more than I ever seen in any Altium board
again , how large is your sample size ? There are many many designs you will never get to see that far outstrip that server board.

You should see the development board for the RED 8K camera... they had it at the Altium users conference 2 years ago.
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Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #110 on: June 21, 2021, 03:51:09 pm »
You should see the development board for the RED 8K camera... they had it at the Altium users conference 2 years ago.
That board is nowhere near close to a regular PC motherboard, let alone server boards.

Offline free_electron

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #111 on: June 21, 2021, 04:24:13 pm »
You should see the development board for the RED 8K camera... they had it at the Altium users conference 2 years ago.
That board is nowhere near close to a regular PC motherboard, let alone server boards.
oh, you were at altium live then ?
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #112 on: June 21, 2021, 04:27:59 pm »
Quote
nowhere near close to a regular PC motherboard, let alone server boards

JOOI, is there a range of board.. complexity or whatever? Here you imply a regular PC motherboard is simpler than a server-class motherboard, so I am wondering if there is a workstation-class motherboard which would be, presumably, more complex than a 'regular' PC but less so than a server. An earlier response suggests not, so it would be instructive to know the reality.
 
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Offline nctnico

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #113 on: June 21, 2021, 05:34:52 pm »
Quote
nowhere near close to a regular PC motherboard, let alone server boards

JOOI, is there a range of board.. complexity or whatever? Here you imply a regular PC motherboard is simpler than a server-class motherboard, so I am wondering if there is a workstation-class motherboard which would be, presumably, more complex than a 'regular' PC but less so than a server. An earlier response suggests not, so it would be instructive to know the reality.
All in all board size / compexity doesn't matter. I've seen someone create a reasonably complex SOC board (including DDR memory) using Geda + PCB. Don't ask how much time it took. In the end efficiency of the tool matters. As Asmi wrote: the majority of the development boards for SOCs and other high end chips are not made with Altium; that is also my observation. There has to be a good reason for that. I look over the shoulder of someone designing a SOC board using Altium regulary. Crashes and long waits are frequent which take the speed out of the design process (and he is using a decent workstation PC!). I was involved in selecting Altium for the project based on several parameters but seeing Altium choke so often (and needing a complete re-install of Windows to get it going again at some point with no useable solution from Altium's support), I'm starting to doubt whether it was a good purchasing decission.  If Autodesk is going to takeover Altium they might find that may need to invest far more than they account for to keep momentum going. As I wrote before: KiCad is moving up fast, it has already eaten Eagle and Altium is next.
« Last Edit: June 21, 2021, 10:49:19 pm by nctnico »
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Offline thm_w

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #114 on: June 21, 2021, 08:56:25 pm »
Crashing when waking from sleep or hibernation could be memory corruption. Might be worth running memtest and narrowing it down to sleep or hibernate or both, if you really want to investigate it.
My system was unstable and memtest would only catch an error after ~4hrs of testing.

I use sleep with altium/solidworks and have never had a crash from waking. I do not use hibernate.
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Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #115 on: June 22, 2021, 03:49:15 am »
JOOI, is there a range of board.. complexity or whatever? Here you imply a regular PC motherboard is simpler than a server-class motherboard, so I am wondering if there is a workstation-class motherboard which would be, presumably, more complex than a 'regular' PC but less so than a server. An earlier response suggests not, so it would be instructive to know the reality.
In my opinion, the most complicated part of PC motherboard is RAM interface. So the more memory channels your CPU have, the more complex layout is. The reason is that each channel is over 100 traces with very strict rules as to how they need to be routed (length matching, spacing, etc.). All other typical PC interfaces are now serial (SATA, PCI Express, USB, HDMI, DisplayPort), so they are much easier to route because there are less traces, and they don't need to be length-matched to the same standard as RAM traces are.

With that said, there are HEDT (Hi-End DeskTop) CPUs out there which have 8 memory channels (AMD Threadripper PRO), while there are server CPUs with less channels than that. So it's technically possible for workstation MB to be more complex. Also there are workstations which utilize server-grade CPUs (Intel Xeon CPUs can be found in quite a few of them), which further blurs the line.

But then I made a statement about complexity, I assumed a typical mainstream systems with CPUs that have dual-channel memory controller, compared to the open source server system I linked above that has 2 CPU sockets each having 6-channel memory controller.

I suppose what is complex and what is not is somewhat subjective depending on the kind of boards a person deals with on a regular basis. In my case a typical board has an FPGA on it, x16 or x32 DDR3 memory interface and a bunch of peripheral chips (stuff like Ethernet, ADC/DAC, and other application-specific devices), plus power delivery system for all of that and a system controller MCU which orchestrates everything and makes sure all hardware on board works properly. I don't consider such boards particularly complex, but I imagine that many others will consider boards with 300-400 or more components on them quite complex. Even the very simple FPGA board that I designed in KiCAD for beginners (it's linked in my signature) has 169 components on it, and I regularly receive comments saying it's too complex - despite it's being pretty much as barebones as practical.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 12:37:30 am by asmi »
 

Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #116 on: June 22, 2021, 03:59:22 am »
Crashing when waking from sleep or hibernation could be memory corruption. Might be worth running memtest and narrowing it down to sleep or hibernate or both, if you really want to investigate it.
My system was unstable and memtest would only catch an error after ~4hrs of testing.
I did right after I got the new system, and let it run for almost 2 days, as it's got 128 GB of memory and so testing that much memory takes freaking forever, but memtest came up clean. Also, like I said, no other applications I regularly use have any problems, and among them are Orcad Pro, KiCAD, Vivado, Visual Studio, and a bunch of VMs which I run from time to time, including those ran through WSL2.

I use sleep with altium/solidworks and have never had a crash from waking. I do not use hibernate.
My new PC has an AIO 360 mm liquid cooler for the CPU (AMD Ryzen 9 5950X), so I don't want to keep it running (and using up the pump's resource) when I don't use it - hence the "hybrid sleep" setup. Thanks to the super-fast PCIE 4.0 Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD, PC wakes up almost instantly as soon as I press any button on a keyboard.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 12:38:28 am by asmi »
 
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Offline olkipukki

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #117 on: June 23, 2021, 07:55:47 am »
Are you using a vm or wine? I thought that Orcad was windows only:
It runs natively on Linux. The guide you linked is specifically for Windows version.

Are you running OrCAD under Linux? :)
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #118 on: June 23, 2021, 08:15:04 am »
Quote
AIO 360 mm liquid cooler for the CPU (AMD Ryzen 9 5950X), so I don't want to keep it running (and using up the pump's resource)

That caught my eye - do these wear out quicker than, say, an electric motor? In a similar ballpark to stuff like flash?
 

Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #119 on: June 23, 2021, 07:30:08 pm »
That caught my eye - do these wear out quicker than, say, an electric motor? In a similar ballpark to stuff like flash?
I don't think so, however if it leaks, consequences can be far more serious than from the air cooler fan failure. My previous PC has been up and running for almost 8 years (with some component changes like video card and SSDs), and I hope this one will last at least in the same ballpark.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 07:32:30 pm by asmi »
 
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Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #120 on: June 23, 2021, 07:42:32 pm »
Are you running OrCAD under Linux? :)
I'm not, but I think nctnico mentioned that he is. I also remember seeing Linux packages along Windows ones in their download section.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2021, 07:46:31 pm by asmi »
 

Offline apurvdate

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #121 on: June 24, 2021, 06:42:40 am »

Are you running OrCAD under Linux? :)

As per official documentation only Red Hat Enterprise & SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are supported (i.e. dedicated installer package is available for these). Never used those distros as I mostly use Debian based distros. So can't check if its PCB only or Capture & PCB both.
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #122 on: June 24, 2021, 07:25:38 am »

Are you running OrCAD under Linux? :)

As per official documentation only Red Hat Enterprise & SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are supported (i.e. dedicated installer package is available for these). Never used those distros as I mostly use Debian based distros. So can't check if its PCB only or Capture & PCB both.
Offtopic: Only the PCB part runs on Linux (at least for version 17.2). And it runs fine on Debian. After all Linux is Linux; the installation comes with it's own version of all needed libraries so the chance you run into compatibility problems using a different Linux distribution is minimal. I'm doing all the PCB layout work with Allegro running on Linux.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline olkipukki

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #123 on: June 24, 2021, 07:26:22 am »
As per official documentation only Red Hat Enterprise & SUSE Linux Enterprise Server are supported (i.e. dedicated installer package is available for these). Never used those distros as I mostly use Debian based distros. So can't check if its PCB only or Capture & PCB both.

I'm not, but I think nctnico mentioned that he is. I also remember seeing Linux packages along Windows ones in their download section.

OrCAD came from Windows (and DOS?) world and never run under Linux.
Cadence has stopped using 'original' OrCAD Layout and switched to cut down version of Allegro PCB Designer. Allegro packages used to run UNIXs, so obviously it can run on Linux today.

Conclusion: You cannot run OrCAD under Linux, but I'm happy to hear if I'm wrong :)
 

Online asmi

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Re: Altium REJECTS takeover bid from Autodesk
« Reply #124 on: June 24, 2021, 05:07:12 pm »
OrCAD came from Windows (and DOS?) world and never run under Linux.
Cadence has stopped using 'original' OrCAD Layout and switched to cut down version of Allegro PCB Designer. Allegro packages used to run UNIXs, so obviously it can run on Linux today.

Conclusion: You cannot run OrCAD under Linux, but I'm happy to hear if I'm wrong :)
Orcad is now just a name for a license level (four levels actually - OrCAD PCB Standard, Professional, and both of those with PSpice). Actual executable is allegro.exe. But it's still officially called OrCAD (and is sold as such), so, yeah, you can consider yourself proven wrong :)

And I think this is a great move by them, because it makes going up the license ladder a non-issue - you install a new license, you get access to new features. No reinstallation is required, no learning curve (except for new features obviously). This is something Altium should learn from them IMHO, and instead of creating and maintaining a whole bunch of products, just gate off certain features in lower-tier offerings. This way they only have a single code base to maintain, so there should be much less bugs, and it will be much cheaper too.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2021, 05:10:41 pm by asmi »
 


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