ARM M1 support for Renoise

I think I might actually buy one of those new M1 macs if the first real world test confirm that they really are
that fast while offering great battery life. Hopefully Renoise will ARM compatible at some point in the future, even if it’s not anytime soon.

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I have zero information about how vst plugins will work together with the host here. There is a database for universal2/UB2 plugins at kvraudio… If the host is UB2, can it run intel AND arm vst plugins? Is the vstsdk ready for UB2 at all? Or do all plugins have to provide an ARM binary, once the host runs its ARM binary?

I don’t really understand it either, but I’ve ask Steven from Xfer/Serum he says that Serum is running like a champ under rosetta2 and that there’s a lot of performance for such a small and quiet machine (also confirmed a native arm version).

I think the plugins might have to support Big Sur in the first place to able to run under rosetta2 and not all plugins do right now, a lot of devs are advising to not upgrade yet.

anyway, the chips seem to be really powerful. once there’s a 12 core pro version, they should be running circles around mobile intel chips.

…that’s what a compiler does(?)

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If Apple has made the decision to go with ARM for MacOS, is it safe to assume that Renoise will eventually be ported to ARM, or will Renoise updates for MacOS eventually be dropped?

I’m mainly interested because I need to get a new laptop within the next few months, and this will factor into my decision as to whether or not I get another Mac.

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Hopefully, I don’t know how much of work it is for taktik and since the install base isn’t going to be huge it’s maybe not a priority right now.

but the reviews of these new machines are exciting if you’re somebody who cares about mobile power. Don’t even wanna know what these things are capable of once they bring out the big guns (macpro 16 inch).

And as someone who loves to stack synths, the single core benchmark look tasty :stuck_out_tongue:

Most of the time it’s not just running a new compile, depending on the language used etc.
Even if it works you may still have issues with performance, bugs etc.
So there are still development and testing that needs to be done.

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The early reviews I’ve seen seem like the new M1 Macs have an emulator that shooooould be able to run Intel-based software as is? Hopefully?

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For the record I am aware that just using a compiler isn’t the end of the software development story.

Apple’s Rosetta 2, in my understanding, is able to run any Intel-based macOS program. However, just like Rosetta 1 (which helped bridge the gap between PowerPC and the at the time new Intel Macs) is temporary. They can (and will) likely pull support for it when they see fit.

Honestly, looking purely at current performance stats, I do sincerely hope for an ARM-based macOS Renoise version.

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Since Rosetta 2 seems to be not a JIT- but instead a pre-compiler/processor, it could be possible that a intel-binary-only Renoise still could then run arm-only-binary plugins? I find it pretty hard to find any valid information about this, like most of the time for macos internals :laughing:

can anyone confirm if the Apple M1 + Rosetta2 can use Renoise competently?

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+1

Would love to know as well.

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I might do the jump for Intel Mac to ARM when they renew the 16", so eager to know if Renoise will follow.

Renoise works fine with Rosetta on Macs with M1, although GUI performance is not great - it seems FPS is far from 60.
I would love to see a native version!

Edit - I have a 4K screen and run in high resolution. If I launch Renoise in low resolution, it is as fast as before. It seems it doesn’t use new Macs M1 video card properly.

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Great! How does it do with plugins (VST/AU)?

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I’ve had lag issues on my 2018 MBP a long time now. Still run Catalina. On the MacBook screen, it’s laggy but on an external screen it runs smooth.

Have you changed the screen colors already?

Renoise is running very well under Rosetta 2 on my M1 MacBook Air.
The load times are very small, so I think the translated code is cached permanently.
I would comment on the performance but I honestly don’t have a big enough workload to push Renoise past about 15% CPU… My last computer was a 2011 iMac, so I really don’t have a good reference point :laughing:
Hoping for an ARM port, but honestly not too bothered.

renoise

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