New Macbook Pro 13 with M1 Chip

[Varch]

I'll bite. I'm looking at switching from PC to the Mac world. Do I get the older Macbook Pro with the older chip or get the new M1 chip? Will Archicad run on this soon? The 16GB ram seems a little low.

As a new Archicad user and Mac wannabe, I'd love to hear your opinions.

[Gene Kniaz]

The post seems very encouraging. I've also watched a number of YouTube tester-videos, and it took really heavy video processing (8K RAW footage to 4K), for the 16GB version to start showing performance gains over the 8GB versions, so it seems logical that Graphisoft has seen encouraging results.

[deivarch]

mnguyen wrote:

deivarch wrote:
At one point, I remember hearing during the AC24 presentation in the summer that Graphisoft had one of the developer kit MacMinis which I assume had the M1 chip in it? Any chance Graphisoft could discuss their roadmap for Apple Silicon compatibility? For now, we have to assume that AC24 will be running through Rosetta until AC24 is optimized for the M1. Just wondering, because the performance tests that a bunch of Youtubers are doing are showing the M1 to be a game changer.

Hello,

Thank you for the question!

I would like to clarify one key detail here: the Apple Transition Kit was equipped with an Apple A12Z Bionic, which is the same chip found in the 2020 iPad Pro (which is not a big difference compared to the A12X on 2018 iPad Pro). This is not the same as the M1 chip found in the latest Macbooks and Mac Mini. At the same time, macOS Big Sur was still in an early development state back then, therefore the integration between software and hardware was not optimized.

Currently, we are thoroughly testing the M1 chip to see how Archicad works on the new chip with Rosetta 2. There will be an article about the compatibility roadmap for Apple ARM very soon, followed by another article with detailed performance review of the M1 chip later this year.

Thank you very much, and stay tuned!

Best regards,
Minh

Thanks for the Update. I'm definitely excited to see how things develop!

[Minh Nguyen]

Dear All,

I would like to draw your attention to our latest article about Performance Review with M1 processor. I hope this will give you an idea how Archicad performs on this new platform from Apple.

https://helpcenter.graphisoft.com/knowledgebase/130695/

Thank you very much for your support!

Best regards,
Minh

[Anonymous]

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

According to our plans a full commercial release of Archicad natively running on the ARM architecture is to be expected in 2022.

Honestly, I find this timing a bit disappointing. I really thought that a universal version wold be possible with the launch of ArchiCAD 25 (at mid 2021) or immediately later.

[Laszlo Nagy]

I think the important part of Graphisoft's statement is "natively".
For any application to run natively on Apple Silicon, all programs, code libraries, etc. the application depends on will have to be native first on Apple Silicon. This means that Graphisoft will have to wait for all those developers to develop their Apple Silicon-native versions.
So this is not like Graphisoft decides to go all in, and develop the Apple Silicon-native version of Archicad. Graphisoft depends on multiple other companies before it can do that.

Another thing to consider is the M1 chip itself. It has a maximum of 16 GB of RAM, which cannot be expanded further. This means that you will not be able to efficiently use an Apple Silicon Mac with applications that require larger amounts of RAM.
There is reason why with the announcement of the M1 chip, only 3 new Macs were announced: Mac Mini, macBook Air, 13" Macbook Pro. The more powerful Apple Silicon-based Macs will come later, and will be based on newer Apple Silicon chips, which should be announced later this year.

Just some pieces of information...

[Anonymous]

LaszloNagy wrote:
Graphisoft depends on multiple other companies before it can do that.

OK, I didn't be aware of this. Thanks for let me (and others) know this.

LaszloNagy wrote:
Another thing to consider is the M1 chip itself. It has a maximum of 16 GB of RAM, ...
/cut
... and will be based on newer Apple Silicon chips, which should be announced later this year.

This was more obvious for me. But as most rumours points to new and more powerful AppleSilicon based Macs in 2021 Q2, I thought and hoped Archicad 25 realise timing would be perfect for a ARM native Archicad too. But I haven't considered the point above.
Since GPU from my 2011 MBP 15" failed for the third time, I am on the way to buy a new MBP 15" or 16", but at last I decided to wait for the MBP 16" replacement with AppleSilicon, because I guess the ones with intel CPU will quickly become obsolete. In the main time, I'am able to work with Archicad on my even older MacPro, and do some job on 2011 MBP using only Intel HD 3000 Graphics.