December 21, 2009 18:50
I have Maxsea TZ running on the Mac Mini. I'm testing it out with the included US raster/vector/3d/satellite chart data. My order for the East Australia charts is in progress.
First impression: Without exaggerating, It's entirely in a league of its own. Very impressive performance and a very polished user interface. I saw all of the hype and videos. I didn't really expect everything to perform the same in person. They've really raised the bar. It's even better than I expected (at least for the US charting area).
The initial application takes a while to load up (comparable to an older version of Photoshop). Not quick, but not too bad. There's no noticeable loading of anything afterwards, it's all seamless regardless of whatever you try to do within the application. I've tried my best to overload the software or trigger a crash, it's been totally solid and stays fast. I had multiple weather overlay animations for a huge region going, AIS overlays(via marinetraffic.com), depth contours, 3D, satellite overlays, and a whole bunch of fake routes drawn all over a region. It was a ridiculous mess of information. The app barely slowed down. Nice!
- The just-released 1.8.1 update was a 551MB download, and appeared to replace the entire install. My experiences are based on this newer version.
- It's quite processor intensive. The Mac Mini internal fan runs most of the time. I assume this would contribute to increased power usage on a boat DC system. I've really been pushing the limits, so perhaps it's not as bad in a traditional chart-plotter role. Even if you don't care about "3D" bells and whistles, this software would still be better as a traditional 2D plotter/navigation app than anything else I've seen so far.
Any nav software developer (regardless of platform) really needs to check out MSTZ asap, to not do so would be pretty negligent.
![[Image: LbFmnl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/LbFmnl.jpg)
![[Image: ro3L6l.jpg]](http://imgur.com/ro3L6l.jpg)
![[Image: zVbbJl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/zVbbJl.jpg)
![[Image: Azruvl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/Azruvl.jpg)
My only remaining concern is the Aussie chart data. I hope the experience is the same as with the USA charts/sat imagery.
Edit: I just wanted to add that this is the $346USD version which includes AIS support. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to just how much this software costs. So far, at lest in my opinion, it seems to be a very good value at that price point.
Cheers
Trev
First impression: Without exaggerating, It's entirely in a league of its own. Very impressive performance and a very polished user interface. I saw all of the hype and videos. I didn't really expect everything to perform the same in person. They've really raised the bar. It's even better than I expected (at least for the US charting area).
The initial application takes a while to load up (comparable to an older version of Photoshop). Not quick, but not too bad. There's no noticeable loading of anything afterwards, it's all seamless regardless of whatever you try to do within the application. I've tried my best to overload the software or trigger a crash, it's been totally solid and stays fast. I had multiple weather overlay animations for a huge region going, AIS overlays(via marinetraffic.com), depth contours, 3D, satellite overlays, and a whole bunch of fake routes drawn all over a region. It was a ridiculous mess of information. The app barely slowed down. Nice!
- The just-released 1.8.1 update was a 551MB download, and appeared to replace the entire install. My experiences are based on this newer version.
- It's quite processor intensive. The Mac Mini internal fan runs most of the time. I assume this would contribute to increased power usage on a boat DC system. I've really been pushing the limits, so perhaps it's not as bad in a traditional chart-plotter role. Even if you don't care about "3D" bells and whistles, this software would still be better as a traditional 2D plotter/navigation app than anything else I've seen so far.
Any nav software developer (regardless of platform) really needs to check out MSTZ asap, to not do so would be pretty negligent.
![[Image: LbFmnl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/LbFmn.jpg)
![[Image: ro3L6l.jpg]](http://imgur.com/ro3L6.jpg)
![[Image: zVbbJl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/zVbbJ.jpg)
![[Image: Azruvl.jpg]](http://imgur.com/Azruv.jpg)
My only remaining concern is the Aussie chart data. I hope the experience is the same as with the USA charts/sat imagery.
Edit: I just wanted to add that this is the $346USD version which includes AIS support. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to just how much this software costs. So far, at lest in my opinion, it seems to be a very good value at that price point.
Cheers
Trev