Mac and PC system requirements?

[Colin Parker]

I have posted in another thread about help with running Radarbox on my existing Mac. It seems now inevitable that I have to upgrade my equipment.

Can someone with a Mac who runs the Radarbox 3D, please let me know what system they have that enables them to run the program fully, with all bells and whistles on their Mac? I currently have a 24" iMac 7,1 with 2.4GHz and 3GB RAM. I can run Radarbox in bootcamp but not VMWare. (I don't think Parallels is going to make much of a difference).

So, I am contemplating buying a new iMac but want to know whether it is enough to run Radarbox FULLY with everything turned on, on VMWare or Parallels and still be able to use other programs on the Mac such as web browsing, photoshop etc at the same time. This is obviously a substantial investment, just to be able to run Radarbox!

My other option is to buy a dedicated PC just for Radarbox 3D and have it running 24/7. I know what the minimum system requirements are for the box (2.4GHz, 512RAM etc..) but are these minimum requirements enough to run the program fully with all options selected including cloud overlays etc etc?...or do I need a much higher spec than the stated 2.4GHz?

This is turning out to be a very expensive venture for me so I want to get the next step right before I spend even more money!

Thanks!

[AirNav Support]

Hi Colin,

The question isn't easy to answer as it depends on a couple of items. Firstly how much local traffic your picking up and also your settings in your virtual software to how much resources its getting from your machine.

For a PC if you have dual core machine with 2.5Ghz and a good graphics card of 256mb then you shouldn't have an issue on running 3D on high settings. However if you want the max settings (includes seeing all network flights with 3D models) you will need a better graphics card. The reason for that is if you just have local aircraft as models thats 50 aircraft or so on average. If you have the network on, it will be over an 1000 aircraft on screen with models.

I think your best method so far is to make sure your virtual software is using up the max resources it can on your machine and then play with the 3D settings (start a min settings and work your way up) too see what you like and what's causing it to slow down on your machine.

[Colin Parker]

Thanks for the reply. I think I won't try my current virtual software on my mac as I had a quick try last week of turning off the network, and only displaying 'my' planes on the 2D map format and it still didn't work and since I paid for the 3D version, I want to run it in its full glory.

I am leaning towards buying a PC based laptop and running a HDMI cable to a monitor that I can fix to my wall. That way I can have a 24/7 display showing and all I have to do is turn my head slightly away from my mac in order to see the screen on the wall. Just trying to decide what laptop to get, or even to get an all-in-one PC I have hang on the wall.  The cost is adding up fast!

[EK01]

Just don't tell the wife/girlfriend !!!!!!!!

[Colin Parker]

Too late for that! Eyebrows are being raised!

[N9JIG]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, so if your circumstances have changed please forgive me!

I have been running ANRB on my Macs for a while now, using Parallels & XP and it works great. On my MacBook Air (the older version from 2 years ago) It runs fine, but a little slow since the laptop only has 2 GB of RAM in total.

On my new 27" iMac I7 with 16GB of RAM however it run rings around my various Windows computers! I have 4GB of RAM assigned to the Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit system. It took longer to download the 4.03 ANRB software than to install it and set it up. Startup is almost instant and it seems to work just dandy. In Coherence mode it runs just like a Mac application.

I have a second 24" Apple Cinema Display connected to the iMac, so I just drag the ANRB window to that monitor and let it run there. I can shut off that monitor when I don't need it.

As far as the wall monitor goes, you can get a digital TV these days for chump change (at least here in the States) and they all have VGA, HDMI or DVI connectors on them, just get the proper adaptor for your Mac and set it up as the second display. You can then watch TV when not watching aircraft.

[Colin Parker]

Sorry to dig up such an old topic again.

In the end, I bought a cheap PC laptop just to run the Radarbox and nothing else apart from the small programmes that feed PlaneFinder and FlightRadar24.

The laptop has always been incredibly slow. A restart takes nearly 5 mins, and the Airnav programme takes about 15minutes before I can click "start". (Surely thats not normal?).

It has hung and required a restart of the laptop once every week or two over the last 18 months however in the last week or so it has been hanging a lot and in the last 3 days I have reset the laptop many many times. Several times a day the AirNav programme seems to hang and for some reason the  ModeS sharing application I use for FlightRadar cannot connect to the software anymore.

I am reaching the end of my patience and considering whether to upgrade my hardware or stop the thing altogether since I have already spent more money on it than planned.

So, I am seeking opinions on what to do next. My current laptop which struggles with the Radarbox 3D is:

Intel Core i5-480M
NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M
2GB DDR3 Memory

Is that decent enough to run the programme?

If I need new hardware, I am thinking or two options. Either buying a better PC laptop just to run the radabox, which means spending possibly quite a bit of money just to run the equipment and nothing else - potentially a waste of money and I do not intend on dishing out for a top of the range laptop for this purpose. OR, buy a brand new iMac to replace my current iMac, and see if Parallels is going to do a decent job of running the radarbox in additon to usage as my main computer, with internet browsing, iTunes, and most of all, photo editing in Photoshops - all that with Airnav running in the background.

If after I spend £2000 on a new iMac and Parallels doesn't do a good job with the radarbox then there is no way I can justify also buying a new PC laptop. I will probably give up with my feed. If I have to buy a top of the range dedicated PC laptop to run it then I will give up my feed instead of spending the cash needed. If I buy a mid-range laptop to find it isn't sufficient enough, I will also stop my feed. There appears to be no-one else feeding the Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Guangzhou area so I don't want to stop the feed to everyone but this is driving me crazy.

Any help appreciated!!

[Colin Parker]

P.s. When oh when is there going to be a Mac version of the software? More and more people are using Apple based computers around the world.

[Runway 31]

Looks like you Windows laptop is on the way out Colin.  Which version of windows are you using, 2gb of RAM isnt much nowadays and 3D is rather memory intensive and more memory would make a difference.

In addition to my main computer I use an ASUS i7 laptop I bought out of PC world last year for under £500 which runs on Windows 7 64Bit with 6gb of ram.  In addition to RB I usually have at least 6 or 7 tabs of IE9 open at any one time along with one tab of Google Chrome and also have 2 versions of the Airnav updater software running, one Access based database along with Word and 2 excel sheets and other sundry items such as Photoshop CS as required.  I dont run for 24hour as it all gets shut down each night so cannot comment of 24/7 running. 

I dont use 3D as I much prefer the normal radar screen finding 3D a bit of a gimmick.  While 3D for myflights runs no problem,  I certainly wouldnt entertain it for network flight as I consider that nothing less than a super computer would do for this task if you have the Network setting any higher then minimum.

RB is installed on C:\Airnav to avoid any problems with the virtual store.

Regarding start up, just timed it and from pressing the RB icon till the map came up took 2 mins 15 seconds in total which is a lot longer than the last time I timed it at under 1 minute 45.

I hope that you can find something that suits your needs as I look at the Hong Kong area several times daily and appreciate your feed.

Alan

[AirNav Support]

Hi Colin,

If it takes that long to start up, I would check your database is not corrupt, backup your databases and start with a fresh database and see if that improves things. If it does put back your old database and then purge some of the data that you don't need anymore. If that doesn't help then it sounds like a corruption in the database is causing issues and you will need to use either a past backup or start fresh.

Your machine should run RB 3D fine but ensure there your anti virus and where you have installed RB is setup correctly otherwise that will slow things down. Finally play around with your 3D settings, you will not be able to have a full 3D settings set without having trouble as then your asking RB to update 1500+ aircraft models positions and this will cause issues.

Lastly at present we have no plans for a MAC version, the market is not large enough to warrant development for this platform.

[N9JIG]

Try running Task Manager and see what is running and using resources. 2 GB RAM is pretty light. You can try adding more RAM, 32-bit Windows will see 3.5 GB more or less.

I would look around however for a newer computer. I don't know about your area but you can get a new decent I5 laptop with Windows7-64 and 8GB of RAM for about $500 US. If you go with a desktop you can get an I7 for about the same price.

I have found that running the AirBox on the iMac works well but for some reason the serial port stops responding without warning occasionally, sometimes daily, but more often once a week or so. Never figured out why... It does it in Parallels, BootCamp and VMWare so I am guessing it is a hardware or Mac issue.

[Colin Parker]

Thanks for the reply guys.

As much as I would like an excuse to indulge in a new iMac I think the safest thing to do would be to buy a new laptop. Can I just ask, what specs should I be looking at if I want to run 3D to a decent level? Will a i7 with say 6GB of ram be enough? I do not know what prices laptops are these days, I will have to have a look but to run 3D what sort of machine should I look at, or should I just give up on running the 3D?

This last 18 months I have had radarbox running but have accessed FlightRadar through the internet if I need to check anything as my machine is so slow and so easy to hang that I daren't use my own RB programme on my own laptop!

So, will I be needing to buy a supercomputer? Is this like Microsoft FlightSim where the minimum specs are pretty low but to have anything above "Medium" in the graphis settings you need a top of the range machine?

Support, how do I back-up databases and start fresh? I am pretty illiterate when it comes to this stuff! I can't even remember now how I set the whole thing up back when I got it!

Thanks for the help.
Colin.