Protel or Altium recommendation - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: grouchobyte
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2016, 01:44:22 am
content: I have a client that needs me to document a design I am doing with Protel DXPI currently use another tool but have used Altium Designer Summer 09. In 2009, I found it bloated and sluggish. I recently tried AD ver 16 and it is even more boated and there are backwards compatibility issues with my client's Protel DXP.I installed Protel DXP on a win 7 VM and there is the occasional crash..... windows is such a POS!So my question to you Altium fanboys......is there a stable version somewhere between Protel DXP and AD 16, that has less bloat and is the optimal version in the Altium's flailing evolution?

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2016, 01:54:50 am
content: Summer 09 has been pretty good for when I use it. First on XP and later on 7, the OS has not as much to do with its stableness, more so inadequate graphic capabilities. This I learnt the hard way.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 02, 2016, 09:40:57 am
content: Quote from: grouchobyte on September 02, 2016, 01:44:22 amPEBKAC. Get a hard drive, install native windows, problem solved. 90% of the people can use it daily, surely you can man up and use it.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2016, 12:30:13 am
content: If you are using an old crappy computer, get a decent one. Something with at least an i5-3570K (don't waste your $$$ on an i7) and 16GB of fast DDR3 RAM and preferably an SSD. Stay away from brand name computers (Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba), unless you are going to decrapify the hard disk. Also make sure you DON'T install Norton's bloatware. For anti-virus, install Bitdefender, or maybe MS Security Essentials and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware.I thought Altium 10 was pretty stable, but I use Altium 15 at work and don't have too many problems. Altium 14 was a dog with the memory allocation errors cropping up and the system hanging. I gave up on subscription at Altium 15, because it is wrong for Altium to charge for bug fixes. That is, when a product is not fit for purpose, the supplier should not be charging the customer to make their dodgy product work. Bug fixes should be FREE. Altium 15 seems to be OK, except for the occasional issue.

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2016, 04:13:37 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on September 03, 2016, 01:35:34 amActually Altium should have a rental deal on their software, a bit like Microsoft's Orifice 365. If you were only developing one board a year, then renting Altium on a monthly basis might make sense. Their market share would escalate as people adopt Altium. It might even lead to further full software Altium sales.Lack of marketing skills can cost a company dearly. For example, IBM's tunnel vision marketing of OS/2 Warp was the major factor leading to Warp's demise.

author: grouchobyte
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 03, 2016, 04:04:38 pm
content: Thanks everyone for chiming in with your opinions. As suggested my computer doesn't need to be an ECad workstation. It will outperform anything out there and I have no qualms using ALTIUM under a VM, in spite of advice to the contrary.I have acquired a copy of Summer 09 and it works just fine (smooth and fast) and no problems.What I don't like is the unnecessary bloat.Seems as if Altium wants to be the leader in this market with feature creep, cloud based subscriptions and a pricing model from hell.@grouchobyte