To upgrade or not to upgrade

[Trista]

Hi everyone!
I am using Chief Architect X3 now for several purposes. I am an Interior Designer for a General Contractor in the Milwaukee area in WI. Our company consists of my boss and me... we run the whole operation of designing and managing any job we get. We do residential remodeling work 75% of the time and additions for other 25%. I know I am due for a new computer here at work within the year. My question stems from there. To upgrade from X3 (we have 2 licenses & several computers to update) it costs about $1300 for 1 license. When I started here in 2009 we had X10 and we upgraded a few times after that, obviously. The updates were always helpful- especially the content you could get from the library. I do existing plans, new plans, print plans, product selections (including tile, carpeting, cabinet design, countertops, doors, mouldings, you name it!) I have never in the 5 years of being here and working with chief had to call SSA for help. All my questions have been answered with a little internet searching or here on this forum! (You guys are awesome!)

So my question in a nutshell- Do I ask my boss to upgrade to X6 from X3? I don't do framing plans or super intense plans for anything huge. Are there any perks for upgrading that would be of use to me- someone who doesn't even come close to using this program to its whole capacity. I don't see a breakdown of differences from X-6 to X-3. they show what has changed from the prior version, not one that is a few versions old.
Sorry for such a vague and open ended question. I figure who better to let me know if it's worth the cost than someone who uses the product. (and not necessarily sells it!)
Thanks for any opinions!
Trista- Interior Designer
Mequon, WI

[Trista]

I do show clients the 3D views via a laptop I bring to our meetings... I have never done an awesome rendering simply because of the time involved and my computer seems to always freeze in the process even though I meet minimum requirements to run X3. We have come a long way from the vector views I thought were awesome back in 09 (and I thought that was the extent of 3D imagery for this software) to now where it looks 10 X better than that in just a basic camera view.
If you want to see some of what we do you can look at our website or our facebook page to see how some of our anticipated projects have come out looking. It might give you insight to how we use chief. Sorry for the novel everyone!
www.mulliganassociates.com
Trista- Interior Designer
Mequon, WI

[dgavin]

I would upgrade. I am a remodeler and do mostly kitchens and baths with some other projects like a 3 season room,. deck etc. along the way.
The improvements from X3 to X6 are numerous and time saving. IF you do ray tracing the new ray trace engine is vastly improved. If you do not do ray traces you should!! Great sales tool. Plus you can charge for design and need to keep up with the competition.

[Trista]

Thanks Dennis! I appreciate the feedback. It's good to know there are some time saving perks to upgrading. (Always a plus when trying to get your boss to spend this kind of money!!)

[perryh]

I also would upgrade as it always saves more time with every upgrade wit all the goodies. I draw it all everything in the building, structure, framing details, cabinets etc.

[lbuttery]

check out the What's New listings in this thread for X4 and X5

http://www.chieftalk.com/showthread....ftware+history

do you have to upgrade ? - no

should you upgrade ? - yes

every time you have a question it will be harder and harder to find the answer here

feature changes way too numerous to list

X3 had a "horrible" library system - much improved in X4, X5 and again in X6

Lew

[eritter04]

Think of the SSA as a designer club membership that you have to pay dues on every year. You get discounts and free upgrades and bonus library stuff with your "club membership."

The computer I would say get yourself the best computer you can afford. I remember when I was using X1, I thought a 24 hour raytrace was normal and we to, stuck to the vector renders. But then we upgraded our computers and what a difference it made. You can now run high quality raytraces in a matter of minutes.

Eddie

[gawdzira]

Wasn't it X4 that introduced the Water Color Rendering? See image. For me, this quick rendering technique is worth the upgrade. Now add annotation sets and the backsplash tool.....