Back in January LEGO made an announcement that the company will no longer support LEGO Digital Designer. This resulted in a major outcry from the LEGO fan community, and later LEGO released another statement saying that they will continue to support the current functionality of LDD, but will no longer update it, and will only continue to add new elements from time to time. You can read both statements and about alternatives to LDD here: LEGO Digital Designer – The End is Near…
Previously LEGO regularly updated LDD to ensure compatibility with Windows and Mac devices, as well as added new elements that were released in new sets. However there has been no update since the fall of 2014 with version 4.3.8. This meant that newly released elements could not be used in LDD, and also the software stated to get buggy on newer computers.
While LEGO did not release any new statement about the future of LDD, they did do a major update on the available parts list just a few days ago. LEGO Digital Designer version 4.3.9 includes over 300 new elements including parts from LEGO Speed Champions, LEGO Nexo Knights, LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Technic, LEGO Bionicle, LEGO Elves, accessories from the latest LEGO Collectible Minifigure Series and more. This is a huge and very important update that LEGO fans are super excited about.
You can read an interesting discussion on the update, as well as see an LDD file of all the new parts in this discussion at EuroBricks. And if you are ready to update your previous version of LDD, just open it up on your computer and it will automatically start the update process (if you are connected to the Internet). If this is the first time you are downloading LDD, you can get it directly from LEGO’s website here: DOWNLOAD LEGO DIGITAL DESIGNER
So what do you think? Do you use LEGO Digital Designer for your LEGO projects? And what do you think of the recent update? Did you find all the new elements you were looking for? Are there any issues that you ran into? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section below! 😉
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I love it, I designed my lego train layout with LDD. Down to the last bit. But it still looks pretty old school. I would like something a little bit more user friendly for the Ipad for example.
I think the fan base has made some software of it’s own. But a lot of it was even less user friendly.
Also, I’m not sure if the parts listing would constitute intellectual property or similar, so that fan software would be disallowed to add new parts ?…
LEGO is pretty good at allowing their fans to use their products for things that would enhance the hobby. So I don’t think that would be an issue, but yeah, so far I haven’t seen a fan-based software that is as intuitive as LDD.
Part of the reason LEGO is planning to phase out LDD is because it is not keeping up with today’s technology, and people don’t find it as intuitive as LEGO would like it to be. Devices like the iPad completely changed the computing landscape, so hopefully LDD at some point will be replaced with something that is more intuitive on modern devices. But in the meantime, LDD is pretty awesome in itself.
I’m really annoyed that I can’t get it on my OSX. I’d have to update to “El Capitan” (10.11), and since I don’t trust it, I need to back up my 6000+ photos, which isn’t easy to do. The old Windows computer I have can’t get the update either b/c LDD is on a full disc, and would need to be reinstalled elsewhere… which will take forever. Eventually I’ll get around to both of those issues. 😕 I’m glad LEGO did this though; it gives me names and design IDs for all the 2016 new pieces, including some unreleased 2016 parts coming this summer. 🙂 Now if only they would update their CS set inventories the same….
Full disc? The full installation is 1 GB, you can get cheap USB sticks with higher storage…
The Windows computer is really old, and the hard drive (not disc, that’s not the right term) that LDD is on has only 1.9 GB or so of room left. My dad said that’s not enough room. However, there’s another new drive my dad put on the computer that has plenty of room, but I need to reinstall LDD onto that hard drive for the update to be feasible. The computer is slow, though, and reinstalling could take hours. 😕
Personally I would not advise installing LDD on an old computer. They simply don’t have the capacity and speed to deal with LDD. On my old computer I had to run a portable fan next to it when using LDD, otherwise it got super hot and simply crashed. You might be better off to just buy a simple generic newer generation PC or laptop and use that for LDD. I’m pretty sure it would end up being cheaper and faster than trying to upgrade an old unit. A computer that is 1-3 years old and uses Windows 7 and above should be perfectly fine. You should be able to get one for $200 or less. Heck, just ask around. So many people have extra laptops sitting around that are only a couple of years old, and they are happy to give it to you for like 50 bucks.
Yeah. Ditto that. I’ve burnt up some old hard drives by running them too hard… I probably should have just bought a decent new computer sooner instead…
LDD is already on the computer (which is from around 2002, I think), it just needs to be moved via reinstallation. It currently works fine, as my brother uses it quite often. A little slow in loading, and sometimes unresponsive, but it works and the computer doesn’t overheat. That computer is also not mine, so I can’t do anything to it.
I don’t really need a new computer – my Mac laptop is fine, it just needs updating – nor can I afford one.
Well, I hope you will get access to the update soon, because I would love to hear your thoughts on it. 😉