ARM Mac Support

[Minh Nguyen]

Dear All,

In 2020, Apple announced the transition of CPUs in Macintosh computers from Intel to Apple-designed chips that use the ARM architecture. This transition is planned to take a couple of years, and the first computers with the new ARM chipset have been released in November 2020.

Graphisoft is actively working on adapting our solutions to be compatible with the new hardware environment. Please check this Help Center article in order to find answers to the frequently asked questions about this matter:

• When will Graphisoft solutions become compatible with Macs with ARM chipset?

• Should I buy Intel or ARM-based Macs if I need to invest in new computers now?

• For how long will Graphisoft support Intel Macs?

• How does Archicad work on ARM Macs with Rosetta 2?

We are continuously updating the article with the latest news we learn from our tests and development.

Best regards,
Nguyen Minh

[justdhruv]

Thank you for updating.

[cgrimley]

Nguyen, I have some follow up questions to the testing as we're looking at the new M1 13" MBP's for some drafters.
1) Is the polygon count the only factor considered in the testing? Or do things like libraries, layouts, number of details/sections/elevations/etc., or overall file size come in to play. We regularly have teamwork projects that are over 1GB in file size.
2) Seeing that the M1 with 8GB RAM is fairly comparable to the other computers with 32 GB RAM, and beating out the MBP w/16GB RAM. I assume it'd be safe to say the M1 with 16GB RAM would beat out the other computers quite easily?

[Minh Nguyen]

cgrimley wrote:
Nguyen, I have some follow up questions to the testing as we're looking at the new M1 13" MBP's for some drafters.
1) Is the polygon count the only factor considered in the testing? Or do things like libraries, layouts, number of details/sections/elevations/etc., or overall file size come in to play. We regularly have teamwork projects that are over 1GB in file size.
2) Seeing that the M1 with 8GB RAM is fairly comparable to the other computers with 32 GB RAM, and beating out the MBP w/16GB RAM. I assume it'd be safe to say the M1 with 16GB RAM would beat out the other computers quite easily?

Hi Casey,

Thank you very much for the questions!

1. The polygon count is not the only factor considered in the testing, but it is one of the main factors to see whether it is a small, medium, or large project. Other things like libraries, number of details/sections/elevations or oversize can affect the performance of the file, but they are easier to optimize (please follow the article here) compared to number of polygons.

2. The M1 with 8GB of RAM performs quite close compared to bigger machines because its RAM is enough to handle most operations. Once the project becomes bigger, the 32GB RAM advantage will be a decisive factor.
In my tests, with a large stadium project (about 5GB PLN, more than 20 million polygons), the iMac 5K with 32GB of RAM finishes 5-10 times faster than the M1 with 8GB of RAM. Looking at the Activity Monitor during the test, I can see that due to the lack of memory, most operations will be loaded on the SSD drive. Thus, we decide that for now, 8-16GB limitation only allows the Macs with M1 chip to handle small to medium size projects. It could handle some medium-large size projects, but the project must be well-optimized, and the level of details in 3D views should be kept as low as possible.

I hope this answers your questions! Feel free to ask if there is anything unclear!

Best regards,
Minh