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.

[Lingwisyer]

If you plan to use it in any sort of professional capacity, I would wait for a while for the launch kinks to be sorted out and full support to come around. There is bound to be all sorts of compatibility issues with various non-Apple products given the "new" architecture.



Ling.

[Karl Ottenstein]

Varch wrote:
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.

For the M1 machines, I would certainly wait as Ling advises.

Because you are switching from PC, I guess I'd ask how much Windows software you have that you need to still run - either because it is only available on Windows, or because you'd have to purchase a new license to get the Mac version? The M1 Macs can not run Intel/Windows virtualization software (at least as of yet... if/when they do, it will likely be slow). But, the 16" MacBook Pro (Intel) can get beefed up memory, processor, graphics and SSD and can run Parallels Desktop or VMWare Fusion (and others) to let you run Windows 10 alongside your Mac apps while you transition. While "older", this machine is just now 1 year old, with a graphics bump added this past June.

[Varch]

Good comments- thanks. The Mac was really for my wife (also an architect, semi retired) but I figured I might use it as my opportunity to dip my toe into the Mac world. She mainly uses the Microsoft Office suite- which I is available in a Mac version. We also use Bluebeam which I know is no longer supported on Mac unfortunately. Eventually I'd like to start teaching her Archicad and get her a license for her Mac.

For me, I've still got a pretty decent Bimbox laptop that should be able to run AC24 pretty well for the next year or so.

[Anonymous]

Karl wrote:
But, the 16" MacBook Pro (Intel) can ...

/cut
The question is: how long will Graphisoft support intel Macs ?! As history can teach us, Apple will support them with another OS version after BigSur (may be two)... new Archicad versions works on the current and previous OS existing at the launch date. So I guess a new intel Mac will be completely unusable with new Archicad version at last in 2024.

[Karl Ottenstein]

borgo1971 wrote:

Karl wrote:
But, the 16" MacBook Pro (Intel) can ...

/cut
The question is: how long will Graphisoft support intel Macs ?! As history can teach us, Apple will support them with another OS version after BigSur (may be two)... new Archicad versions works on the current and previous OS existing at the launch date. So I guess a new intel Mac will be completely unusable with new Archicad version at last in 2024.

Good point. I guess I have not seen any evidence to suggest that Intel Macs will not be supported for some time to come by both Apple and Graphisoft. Apple's XCode is already generating code for both Intel and Apple silicone and will continue to do so. Big Sur runs on both Intel and Apple chips and it, and future MacOS, will continue for some time so there should be no ARCHICAD issues in the intermediate term.

But, you say 2024 (4 years from now). Who knows. Maybe so, based on Apple's prior history when switching from PPC to Intel (which many of us remember well... eliminating Rosetta support for old software particularly messed up my workflow for a while):

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3563892/why-apples-move-from-intel-to-arm-means-we-should-stop-buyin...

An Intel Mac, even if abandoned for OS upgrades down the road, can still boot as a Windows machine... so it is not as if all would be lost. It is a tough call though without specific commitments from Apple.

[deivarch]

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.

[Minh Nguyen]

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

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the clarification. But could you be a bit more specific? Is moving ArchiCAD to Apple Silicon a priority? Will it make some use of Machine Learning (I imagine it could be useful for visualizations, counting of elements, elements conflict, "auto-add" a correct element).

Also, since M1 and the A series chips are both ARM, is there a plan to bring AC to iPad?

[Karl Ottenstein]

GRAPHISOFT just posted this article today on ARM Mac support:

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