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Is FormZ working on M1 Macs?


Imagix

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Imagix,

Tech made a post recently where they mentioned that they are working on squashing some bugs related to the OS Big Sur version.  Beyond that, fZ appears to be working through Rosetta2.

Big Sur has made a number of under the hood changes where undoubtedly some of those will conflict with previous code.  Once those are squashed,  Look to Rosetta2 first.

 

If you are looking for a native version, prior to that post, they did note that they could compile their code over with little issues, many of the components that they rely on have not been compiled over.  Without these components, there is little sense.

Think ACIS.  The engine that is used for smooth modeling.  Or, the Rendering engine LightWorks (though, I personally doubt this one will ever be ported for reasons outside of ADS' control.)

Off the top of my head, I can't think of others, but as with most development these days, there are multiple dependencies.  All or most of those dependencies will need to be compiled over too.   How long that will take, it is anybody's guess.

 

That being said, these bare-bones base models appear to be pretty damn impressive.  While I do think there is a bit of hyperbole both with Apples marketing and with pundits, if one takes into account the market segment they belong in, they are impressive.   One can hope that this is enough to shake those dependency devs into action if they consider what is potentially coming down the pipeline.

 

¢£

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have to say, I'm tired of being jerked around. Apple, ADS, ACIS, Maxwell, VRay, Lightworks, Intel whatever. I just wanna do the design and modeling without struggling with the tools. Its less and less satisfying to get designs and presentations done with all this screwing around every couple of years. I think the world of ADS and formZ, but how long does one beat their head against the wall? 

I'm moving to Windows like Bo did. Screw Apple and their insanity. I dont need animojis and widgets. I need tools for grownups and problem solvers.

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I did that and performance wise the experience as a program user is much faster BUT I have found the user, just getting used to the workflow difference experience to be a nightmare. In the end as I am not just using the 3D application I think I made a mistake. If you just want formZ to go faster get a new PC with Windows 10. But don't expect Windows 10 to NOT change they are already speculating about new updated Windows with a radical new interface???

 

 

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I am running a 2010 12 core Mac tower with OS X 10.11 and a flashed 980Ti 6GB video card.  You can get one of these machines online w/32GB and 500GB SSD for about $1750.  I use lots of textures, most work is presented with Shaded Full and I render with Maxwell when required (2-8 Hrs per 4K image).  Very happy with the old hardware, I spend almost no time messing around and wasting time on updates shenanigans.  I use FZ more than 50 hrs a week and this old stuff still works great for me, fingers crossed that it will last awhile longer.  I do have FZ installed on a 2019 5K iMac as well, but the video FPS is slower and jerky on my poly and texture heavy models (±500MB files), something that is not apparent on my tower.

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My own Windows10 transition is definitely not for my main work, as W10 is bothersome to navigate, for example word dictionaries are scant in W10 . My main use is rather to explore very specific new tools in Rhino7, (as their Mac side is less supported in the plugins and in the Youtube training of very specific work tasks).  Rhino's Youtube support vids are amazingly extensive, covering many instant-solutions, as done by users at no cost to viewers. Specialized tool solutions are demoed quickly, which I prefer to the long showcase videos or long courses-A-Z. Keyword searches make this fast. 

The basic geometry stuff is the same and Rhino gives me more depth to explore, as for example the deform tools for complex objects are much faster and easier than formZ, (RE Bend and Taper).

My 2012MacPro  is about equally fast for my W10 installation of formZ. Common shortcut-hand-patterns for formZ and for Rhino, in both Mac and in W10 might be possible, by "re-mapping" the Alt- and Command- keys,  when adjusting sct files in W10, and I don't plan on using other W10 apps with many shortcuts.  

I expect the new MacPros might eventually become affordable, but the old ones are good enough for me on OSX 10.13.6. Chances are future upgrades of everything will be subscription only, so older will be better for me working offline.

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