topic Re: MacOS ARM transition in Installation & update

MacOS ARM transition

archislave — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 08:48:43 GMT

I wonder what the transition will be for the Mac on Arm. Will it run with Rosetta or only on Intel Macs?

Re: MacOS ARM transition

SenecaDesignLLC — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 14:05:52 GMT

Considering that the amount of people who will buy the new macs, that use archicad, will likely be quite few, my guess is it will be awhile. I assume they will make it work over time but doubtful it will be a priority.
Just speculation.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Jacques Toerien — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:41:30 GMT

I have to say I'm less concerned about CPU performance than GPU performance. Not sure how powerful the arm GPU is, and also Apple is deprecating OpenGL, so we'll probably need to see Metal support in future ArchiCAD builds.

As I get older I appreciate silence more, hopefully the ARM based macs will run cooler with less assisted cooling (read fans, especially in the pro models).

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:40:10 GMT

Jacques wrote:
I have to say I'm less concerned about CPU performance than GPU performance. Not sure how powerful the arm GPU is, and also Apple is deprecating OpenGL, so we'll probably need to see Metal support in future ArchiCAD builds.

ARM has nothing to do with the GPU... 3rd party GPU will still be installed... they aren't turning Macs into iPads 🙂

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Jp1138 — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 11:49:15 GMT

Karl wrote:

ARM has nothing to do with the GPU... 3rd party GPU will still be installed... they aren't turning Macs into iPads 🙂

Yet

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Ralph Wessel — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 15:08:42 GMT

Jp1138 wrote:

Karl wrote:
ARM has nothing to do with the GPU... 3rd party GPU will still be installed... they aren't turning Macs into iPads 🙂
Yet

As Apple pointed out in the recent WWDC keynote, the design and development of their entire product line (and supporting software) is done on macOS. The desktop macOS isn't just critical to us - Apple would be sunk without it. I'm not sure why the idea that Apple wants to dispose of its desktop operating system keeps being floated (or where it came from), but there's no business case for it. I suspect it's a pipe-dream for people who don't want Apple to exist because even they realise Apple can't exist without macOS.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Jp1138 — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 15:51:37 GMT

Ralph wrote:

Jp1138 wrote:

Karl wrote:
ARM has nothing to do with the GPU... 3rd party GPU will still be installed... they aren't turning Macs into iPads 🙂
Yet
As Apple pointed out in the recent WWDC keynote, the design and development of their entire product line (and supporting software) is done on macOS. The desktop macOS isn't just critical to us - Apple would be sunk without it. I'm not sure why the idea that Apple wants to dispose of its desktop operating system keeps being floated (or where it came from), but there's no business case for it. I suspect it's a pipe-dream for people who don't want Apple to exist because even they realise Apple can't exist without macOS.

It was kind of a joke I have very little knowledge of Apple products, having never used them, but it´s kinda the image they´re projecting, focusing everything in the mobile and letting the computer slowly slip away. Maybe this ARM thing will be a turning point in that sense, being able to design the whole thing from the ground up should make them more competitive and able to produce more attractive products in "high-end" computers line.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Jacques Toerien — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 18:09:59 GMT

Karl wrote:

Jacques wrote:
I have to say I'm less concerned about CPU performance than GPU performance. Not sure how powerful the arm GPU is, and also Apple is deprecating OpenGL, so we'll probably need to see Metal support in future ArchiCAD builds.
ARM has nothing to do with the GPU... 3rd party GPU will still be installed... they aren't turning Macs into iPads 🙂

Sorry, wrong. In Apple's case (and others), Apple Silicon ARM has A LOT to do with GPU. The A12z chip in the Dev mini is a SoC "System on Chip", like the iPad and iPhone arm chips, they handle all the gfx calls and functions. The A12z in the developer mini features 8 gfx cores. The Mac Mini dev unit doesn't ship with a discreet GPU, like the current consumer macs it relies on the gfx cores on the arm CPU to provide GPU functionality.

While the dev unit doesn't have a dediated GPU, it is HIGHLY unlikely Apple will include discreet gfx on a production Mac mini, entry to mid iMac or entry Macbook / Macbook Air model. If you watch the keynote they are running the latest Tomb Raider game on the arm pretty much butter smooth at 1080p....via emulation...no discreet gpu required here for a consumer machine. They are trying to get away from 3rd party suppliers, you'll probably only see discrete GPUs on mid to higher end iMac's and Mac Pros. Why include a discrete GPU when you can get away with more than adequate consumer performance with the on chip GPU? Afterall, less heat, more battery life, less cost and more profit. Win-Win.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A12Z

Hell, even a raspberry Pi 4 ARM SoC has a built in GPU.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Karl Ottenstein — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 16:46:49 GMT

Jacques wrote:
Sorry, wrong. In Apple's case (and others), Apple Silicon ARM has A LOT to do with GPU. ...

We can agree to disagree.... my comment was not precise, but was in terms of ARCHICAD and Twin Motion, neither of which will perform usably or at all with any on-chip GPU known today, but which require powerful, heat-generating discrete GPUs at the moment. With today's (and next year's) technology, computers without discrete GPUs are not usable in a production ARCHICAD workflow.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Ralph Wessel — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 17:40:47 GMT

Jacques wrote:
Apple Silicon ARM has A LOT to do with GPU. The A12z chip in the Dev mini is a SoC "System on Chip", like the iPad and iPhone arm chips, they handle all the gfx calls and functions. The A12z in the developer mini features 8 gfx cores. The Mac Mini dev unit doesn't ship with a discreet GPU, like the current consumer macs it relies on the gfx cores on the arm CPU to provide GPU functionality.

There's no more necessity for an on-chip GPU with Apple's silicon than any other chip. It's an option they might have for conserving power, but that doesn't in any way prevent any other kind of GPU (including external via thunderbolt). Even existing macs support multiple GPU options, including embedded.

Nothing should be based on the mac mini provided to devs - Apple have explicitly stated that they put no effort into its design or construction. It's nothing more than a stop-gap measure that helps devs prepare.

MacOS ARM transition bench marks looks promising

Ben Cohen — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 23:05:54 GMT

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3564716/apples-silicon-macs-promise-screaming-performance.html

That data suggests these developer-only, early field test Apple Silicon Macs achieve average scores of around an 811 points (single-core) and 2871 (multi-core) in contrast to the 726/2831 scores achieved by Microsoft’s Surface Pro X.

Dev kits are performing better than Microsoft Surface Pro X in benchmarks... even under emulation...

https://9to5mac.com/2020/06/29/first-benchmarks-surface-for-apples-arm-based-developer-transition-kit/

Performing very well, even under emulation, via Rosetta 2.

Back in the day, we had one of the first Intel iMac's running ArchiCAD with the old Rosetta 1 emulation and the performance was surprising good. Looks like history is repeating.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Jacques Toerien — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 17:18:34 GMT

It beats my 2010 MacPro 2.94Ghz 12 core on single thread...ah that's progress for you. CMP still >2x the score on multi-thread, but nowhere near the efficiency per core or Watt of the A12z. Quite impressive so far for a development system.

The A12x benchmarks about the same as a GTX 950 for Metal gfx performance (~9100), just below an nVidia 105o (~10,100), so the A12z should be about on par for Metal as it has 8 gpu cores instead of 7 in the A12x. Still well behind an RX 580 at 52,800. No idea about OpenGL, though according to Apple that is also slowly being deprecated for their OS releases.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

runxel — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 22:02:28 GMT

The ARM transition in itself won't be that big of a problem. You can recompile a lot of the code, and there is maybe 10% of things you need to rewrite.

A much (by far!) bigger issue is the deprecation of OpenGL. Especially since Archicad relies so much on it. Same reason why the future of the Rhino for Mac version is rather uncertain.
And it's not only your own code. Presumably there are third party libraries used – and you just don't know when or if these get updated at all.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

archislave — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 16:41:32 GMT

The better get on this fast recompiling for Apple Silicone. We may find more platform growth from computers so far outpacing windows x86 computers. My impression of Graphisoft is one of lacking enthusiasm for the MacOS. They take their time updating it. Why can’t the be more progressive like Adobe and especially offer subscription versions. I think we still have to wait for new younger leadership who see it as a no brained.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

runxel — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 18:10:16 GMT

archislave wrote:
The better get on this fast recompiling for Apple Silicone. We may find more platform growth from computers so far outpacing windows x86 computers. My impression of Graphisoft is one of lacking enthusiasm for the MacOS. They take their time updating it. Why can’t the be more progressive like Adobe and especially offer subscription versions. I think we still have to wait for new younger leadership who see it as a no brained.

???? Not sure what you're rumbling about...
Graphisoft are massive Apple fanboys, so rest assured, if there is something lacking, then it is proper Windows support (multiscreen *ahem*) 😉

Secondly: Subscription versions are offered...
.... and nobody likes them. 
Have you not seen the backlash Adobe (great example there!) faced? Same goes for Trimble, who changed the license model of SketchUp a week ago or so.
(By all respect, but we really have to be thankful GS did not jump on that stupid bandwagon and offer subscription only licenses – yet)

Re: MacOS ARM transition

schagemann — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 02:04:38 GMT

Without getting lost in technical details whose effects are still mostly unclear, it is however a critical development to understand and prepare for.

Form memory for the last transition from classic Mac OS (PPC) to OS X (Intel), was reasonably smooth via Rosetta which was around until OS X 10.6

The main concern we have is how to best deal with any new hardware purchases, in the period where Apple and 3rd party software manufacturers will be ironing out the inevitable initial problems.

Our current take on this is to buy (if we/you must) the last models of Intel based Apple Hardware, before any new ARM based Macs are released. This should then allow anyone who needs new hardware, to sit out the first couple of years of trouble, before upgrading 'Biggest Kahouna'.

What are your plans or strategies regarding this?

Re: MacOS ARM transition

mikas — Mon, 13 Jul 2020 05:45:41 GMT

Unfortunately my plan will be to not buy Macs, and instead if a workstation is needed, it will be a windows machine.
I allready use WInPC occasionally, though I really like MacOS more. I just don't want to experience a transition period anymore. I have done two transition with Mac already, and I have to say that for me they there not buttery smooth like it seems it was to some other users.

Yhhis way I don't have to worry about what programs act up with new Apple Macs and which are usable. All are crosslicensed progs nowadays. AC, Rhino, Cinema, Solibri and TwinMotion. No additional costs from there. If Macs appear to perform well after this transition period (or maybe earlier), then I will reconsider jumping back to Mac. And that is only if they are priced differently at the workstation level than what they are at the moment. That is if they ever will touch the workstation business anymore at all, there seems to be too little revenue available from that market to Apple.

OT: tried the dark theme already, and like it a lot. Hope win gets it soon too.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 02:55:20 GMT

Karl wrote:

Jacques wrote:
Sorry, wrong. In Apple's case (and others), Apple Silicon ARM has A LOT to do with GPU. ...
We can agree to disagree.... my comment was not precise, but was in terms of ARCHICAD and Twin Motion, neither of which will perform usably or at all with any on-chip GPU known today, but which require powerful, heat-generating discrete GPUs at the moment. With today's (and next year's) technology, computers without discrete GPUs are not usable in a production ARCHICAD workflow.

I don’t think this is the case. There is nothing limiting the power of an integrated GPU, and it has the benefit of using shared memory, meaning it can potentially perform faster. One of the largest bottlenecks for the GPU is the speed at which data can be transferred between the CPU (which packages the data for each frame) and the GPU (which calculates it, and then sends it back). If that turnaround time can be reduced, it has a huge benefit overall.

The OpenGL deprecation in favour of Metal is a big cost for developers, but a huge win for consumers. This means developers will be required to rewrite their graphics pipelines on a MUCH faster framework. My (albeit limited) understanding is that openGL provides a number of APIs to program the GPU, but because its cross platform and works on multiple chips, it disguises the actually instructions it’s using on the GPU itself. So you tell the program to do an instruction, but beneath that, openGL has to determine how to run those instructions on its given chipset and then translate those instructions to be run. Metal provides an API that more closely matches the actual hardware instruction sets that are on the chips, so it doesn’t have to abstract itself. You can run similar graphics on much less computing power

So now we potentially get an integrated chip that has faster data transfer between the CPU and GPU, an instruction set that runs with FAR less overhead on the GPU, and the added benefit of unified memory between the cpu and GPU. I think there’s a lot of power that will come from that increased efficiency. I mean consider how incredible their graphics performance is now on mobile, and that’s with a decent amount of throttling for energy efficiency.

With that, while it’s technically possible for apple to include discreet GPUs in their future products, im not sure it’s going to be such a necessity. They already provide the option for eGPUs, and even support multiple eGPUs now. If I had to guess, I would say they are likely capable of making an excellent integrated GPU, one that would be more than capable for Archicad, and likely better than most discreet ones, and consumers that really need top tier performance (I’m thinking like Mac Pro buyers) can purchase their own GPUs.

Re: MacOS ARM transition

antoine129 — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 13:23:31 GMT

Looks like Archicad 24 is working on the M1 MacBook pro!
https://github.com/ThatGuySam/doesitarm/pull/189#issuecomment-731724199

I wonder what the performances are, if Archicad 23 also works, and if 8 or 16 GB of RAM makes any difference.

And of course what are Graphisoft's plans for upcoming versions!

Re: MacOS ARM transition

Karl Ottenstein — Tue, 24 Nov 2020 17:34:37 GMT

GRAPHISOFT just posted this article today on ARM Mac support:

https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/130674/