Anwar Posted June 22, 2020 Share Posted June 22, 2020 With Apple announcing today a transition of MacOS to ARM CPU's over the next two years, when can we expect to see formZ running on Windows 10 on ARM? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsOne Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 or a Mac? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 In my opinion, only when or if ARM overtakes Intel as the predominant cpu architecture, and that will not happen any time soon. I read somewhere that ARM has trouble executing certain 64-bit x86 tasks so I wouldn't hold my breath. Can anyone really see four different versions of Form.Z under development (for ARM + Intel on both PC and Mac)? I certainly can't! Personally, I can't wait for Quantum Computing to come along. That will be a game changer! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anwar Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 (edited) If formZ is using the Windows APIs properly, it should just be a matter of targeting ARM or x64 in the complier rather than maintaining two separate codebases. However, the biggest problem I see is that Windows 10 on ARM does not support OpenGL greater than 1.1, so AutoDesSys would have to support DirectX for it to work. Also, plugins like V-RAY would have to be recompiled, and of course there is no ARM hardware with NVIDIA graphics so CUDA and RTX acceleration in V-RAY and Maxwell would be useless. So rendering is a larger problem than just getting the modeler to work. As the only machine I take with me anymore when I travel is the Surface Pro X, it would be nice to be able to do modeling, even if I had to render on another device. It is expected that x64 emulation for Windows 10 on ARM will be available in the first half of 2021, however, unless DirectX is supported, formZ will still not run even in emulation. Edited June 24, 2020 by Anwar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Yeah, I believe that ARM will certainly dent Intel's stranglehold when it comes to devices requiring low power consumption, such as laptops, but I can't see it going much further than that. Look at AMD and it's current Threadripper range. Despite achieving synthetic scores that put top end Xeons to shame, the hoped for uptake is not there. Organisations are not rushing to switch from Intel, simply because it is "the devil that you know", and therefore trust, despite the cost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anwar Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 Adobe has publicly committed to porting its entire Creative Cloud to Windows 10 on ARM, although it has not disclosed how long it will take. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Adobe must know something that the rest of the world doesn't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 (edited) I should add that in my case, the role of a "faster and better" cpu has become almost irrelevant, simply because I rely mostly on gpu acceleration, either CUDA or RTX. Hopefully, Autodessys feels the same and steers Form.Z in the same direction. Gotta go now! Edited June 24, 2020 by santa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anwar Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 Hi Santa, While I agree that rendering is usually the longest running operation, and that GPU acceleration is generally more needed than CPU performance these days, there are still some modeling operations that can take a very long time to complete, so CPU optimization is by no means dead... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZTEK Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Just as a side note… interestingly, the actual #1 supercomputer, Fugaku in Japan, is based on an ARM chip by Fujitsu (Fujitsu's 48-core A64FX). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anwar Posted June 24, 2020 Author Share Posted June 24, 2020 Well, if we really wanted to get ahead of ourselves, we could ask for RISC-V support...lol... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
santa Posted June 24, 2020 Share Posted June 24, 2020 Anwar, I agree with your comment regarding cpu relevance for modelling. I didn't mean to infer otherwise. Have you seen the chip being developed by Cerebral Systems in California? It takes up an entire wafer of silicon (22cm X 22cm), has 400,000 cores and contains 1.2 trillion transistors! Obviously, it is not intended for mere mortals, like us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Martin Malinski Posted June 26, 2020 Share Posted June 26, 2020 Pretty sure Apple have a plan ...All the debating about the capabilities of ARM as we know it.... is likely being short sighted. A lot can happen in two years. Developing FormZ for ARM? ....(whatever the eventual Mac development is?) ..... Very likely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatMNTishman Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 How about we just ask ADS for consistent communication, consistent development and a focus on being the most compatible, stable design platform that can exchange flawlessly with every major design platform? The Rosetta Stone of CAD. Would that be nice? : ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
¢hris £und Posted June 27, 2020 Share Posted June 27, 2020 Some things need to be considered. Mac or Windows. How much code was optimized in Assembly? The more that was done, the longer it will take to convert. Automated software to re-compile won't do any good for such code. ADS may or may not have optimized their code in such a way... And, that is one thing. The other, what about the libraries they draw from? ACIS? Other APIs fZ uses? I don't know what other technology they license. Even if all written in higher-level languages, The APIs may need to be built for the specific silicon too. It isn't just up to ADS. Though, I too hope. ¢£ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThatMNTishman Posted June 28, 2020 Share Posted June 28, 2020 Here's an interesting writeup on the mac marketplace. https://architosh.com/2020/06/arm-macs-and-cad-3d-apps-apple-chip-readiness/ ¢hris £und and danshaw 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danshaw Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 (edited) Here's hoping for an Apple Silicon based v9.5 to run on a Mac and an iPad Pro (I believe that the current iPad Pro would run Z quite well) - would make a lovely little twin screen setup - and hopefully the maturity of a .5 upgrade would give me the reason to upgrade (I'm without Formz of any version at the mo as none of the versions I have will run on the latest Mac OS). Edited June 30, 2020 by danshaw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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