AC26 Release & Apple compatibility M1 or M2?

[EH21]

I'm planning on getting a new iMac and/or MacBook Pro and also leaping from AC22 to AC26 in 2022. What would you do...wait to upgrade it all until I can run AC26 on an M2 or go for the M1 now as it is available and wait for the improved compatibility with AC26? Would M1 be a vast improvement from what I have?

Currently, I'm running a dinosaur: iMac on OS 10.13.6 with 2.0 GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB Memory, NVIDIA 650M 512 MB graphics

[furtonb]

My MBP has the M1 Max in it, it performs well. I wouldn't go with an "M1" machine because of the lower memory capacity, I would at least buy the M1 Pro. I have 64GB which is only available for the M1 Max, M1 Pro is limited at 32GB. I think choosing any of them would be a serious improvement over your current machine.

The question is not if this machine is OK (it is far more than that...), but what is the potential running this hardware. Try Vectorworks and you will understand the disappointment of Apple Silicon AC users.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Your old iMac is so slow/limited, that even in Rosetta2 Intel-emulation mode, you would find AC 25 or 26 faster.  Announced today is that the native Apple ARM (M1, M2 families etc) Preview version of AC 26 will be available within 2 weeks.  The release version will be available in the 4th quarter (October-December).  That will of course be faster, but there's no reason to wait for that.

There are other discussions on various M1/M2 machines here on the community with some benchmarks.  Dig through those to decide.   Your iMac is so old that I suspect it is one of the old models that supports 'target display mode' to allow you to use it for a monitor.  If so, then you might look at the Mac Studio since you wouldn't need to buy a monitor...

[Gene Kniaz]

I'm glad they announced a schedule for releasing the ARM versions; it was a bit disappointing that 26 launched without it. I've always presumed that since Archicad started on Mac, there was always a "special relationship" there - surprised it's taken 2 years from M1 initial launch. Hopefully it will be worth the wait!