Big Sur & M1 MacBook Pro

betazero

FYI Bricscad seems to be working fine if anyone was skeptical about upgrading to Big Sur.

Michael Mayer

Here too I think.
No 3D View problems in V20 as far as I see.

EdwardC

Using it as well, seems fine. Wondering when V21 will be released and also the future with the ARM based processors?

Michael Mayer

While in older versions it took some months until Bricscad for Linux/macOS released
(around February ?), since V20 they tried to bring all OS versions nearly at the same time.
I think that hasn't changed and V21 should be released soon (?)

Apple Silicon ....
well, latest Bricscad seems to run fine on Big Sur already,
I think it should be manageable that Bricscad runs on ASi by Rosetta2 without too much
development effort. Rosetta2 even still offers legacy OpenGL support for that.
Apple itself seems to be quite confident that Intel Apps run reasonably fast on Apple Silicon.
So I am confident that Bricscad will run on Apple Silicon.

As for Universal Binaries that provide Intel x86_64 code AND Apple ARM optimized code,
I haven't heard anything from Bricsys, if they are interested to support ASi.
But Bricsys own code is only one part of ASi compatibility.
Bricsys also has to bring all(!) 3rd party libraries developers on their side to provide ASi
ready libraries for them. These are also essential things like ACIS Solid Modeling Core or
RedSDK graphics framework.
(And if you search on RedSDK's or Spatial's websites for Apple or Metal, you won't find
any hints or comments)
((Vectorworks promised Rosetta Support ASAP and next Version ASi optimized code,
if possible, for the same 3rd party libraries reason))

But I hope Bricscad will be interested in Apple Silicon and I am curious if Apples SoC's
ML cores could accelerate Bricscad's AI commands like Bimify or Propagate.

EdwardC

@Michael Mayer said:
While in older versions it took some months until Bricscad for Linux/macOS released
(around February ?), since V20 they tried to bring all OS versions nearly at the same time.
I think that hasn't changed and V21 should be released soon (?)

Apple Silicon ....
well, latest Bricscad seems to run fine on Big Sur already,
I think it should be manageable that Bricscad runs on ASi by Rosetta2 without too much
development effort. Rosetta2 even still offers legacy OpenGL support for that.
Apple itself seems to be quite confident that Intel Apps run reasonably fast on Apple Silicon.
So I am confident that Bricscad will run on Apple Silicon.

As for Universal Binaries that provide Intel x86_64 code AND Apple ARM optimized code,
I haven't heard anything from Bricsys, if they are interested to support ASi.
But Bricsys own code is only one part of ASi compatibility.
Bricsys also has to bring all(!) 3rd party libraries developers on their side to provide ASi
ready libraries for them. These are also essential things like ACIS Solid Modeling Core or
RedSDK graphics framework.
(And if you search on RedSDK's or Spatial's websites for Apple or Metal, you won't find
any hints or comments)
((Vectorworks promised Rosetta Support ASAP and next Version ASi optimized code,
if possible, for the same 3rd party libraries reason))

But I hope Bricscad will be interested in Apple Silicon and I am curious if Apples SoC's
ML cores could accelerate Bricscad's AI commands like Bimify or Propagate.

Thanks for the input! I'll look forward to seeing what happens. I use a Win 10 box as well as a Mac mini here in my office. I personally prefer the Win 10 box for general productivity. I guess I keep my Macs due to a long history with them that goes back to the Power PC days. Thanks again!

Ed

Michael Mayer

I tried to switch to Windows (or Linux) for two years now
and overall, with their limitations, I still prefer Macs.
I have a nice AMD 3950 RTX 2070 PC here as a backup and even
mostly use it for serious work, because it is there, though.
But my perspective for the future is still Mac.

Apples M1 somehow looks very impressing already, but we have to
wait another 3 (?) weeks for real testing.

And all what we have for now are 3x M1 devices that are basically low
end consumer devices and have a RAM Limit of 16 GB.
(Which may be because of the use of "low power" RAM limitation,
needed for the notebooks for more impressing battery run times)
E.g. most expect that there will follow a space gray (more Pro) iMac
with the next Apple Silicon release, that may have more RAM and
again all input options (multi TB and 10 Gb Lan) that the gray Intel
Mac Mini offers.
Also a even more capable 16" MacBook Pro (!) and prosumer iMacs
should follow. But maybe that will take up to another year.

So since M1 already looks promising, I will no more look for a 2020
(seducing) Intel iMac, to replace my aging 2013 Trash Can.
If tests will soon show, that typical CAD/3D projects could run on
a 16 GB RAM ASi Mac and that it is faster than my Trash Can,
I'ld prefer to buy an ASi Mac Mini with all its 1st generation issues
and wait for the better more-pro ASi things to come in the future.
(As I still have my PC parachute in case things go wrong)

EdwardC

@Michael Mayer said:
I tried to switch to Windows (or Linux) for two years now
and overall, with their limitations, I still prefer Macs.
I have a nice AMD 3950 RTX 2070 PC here as a backup and even
mostly use it for serious work, because it is there, though.
But my perspective for the future is still Mac.

Apples M1 somehow looks very impressing already, but we have to
wait another 3 (?) weeks for real testing.

And all what we have for now are 3x M1 devices that are basically low
end consumer devices and have a RAM Limit of 16 GB.
(Which may be because of the use of "low power" RAM limitation,
needed for the notebooks for more impressing battery run times)
E.g. most expect that there will follow a space gray (more Pro) iMac
with the next Apple Silicon release, that may have more RAM and
again all input options (multi TB and 10 Gb Lan) that the gray Intel
Mac Mini offers.
Also a even more capable 16" MacBook Pro (!) and prosumer iMacs
should follow. But maybe that will take up to another year.

So since M1 already looks promising, I will no more look for a 2020
(seducing) Intel iMac, to replace my aging 2013 Trash Can.
If tests will soon show, that typical CAD/3D projects could run on
a 16 GB RAM ASi Mac and that it is faster than my Trash Can,
I'ld prefer to buy an ASi Mac Mini with all its 1st generation issues
and wait for the better more-pro ASi things to come in the future.
(As I still have my PC parachute in case things go wrong)

Sounds like a solid plan. I don't know about CAD and Macs for me. I have perpetual licenses to AutoCAD LT 2012 as well as a perpetual ARES Commander license that will allow the 2021 update and now the bricsCAD Lite perpetual licence. On Commander as well as Autodesk the Mac versions are pretty gimped down. So far BricsCAD seems fairly comparable to the Windows counterpart but for me at least I really enjoy the Windows experience with all three.

Michael Mayer

Is ACAD still supported on Mac?

That would be more likely for ACIS on ASi.

Yes, Bricscad on Mac or Linux has it flaws,
not as reliable as ob Windows. Also there are many
features missing opposed to Windows.
RVT Import, UE4 Export, ...

betazero

ACAD is actually good on Mac now so yes. Bricscad on Mac works fine. I swapped out my MacBook Pro for an M1 version. I will test Bricscad on it and some other stuff and report back once its delivered . My current MacBook burns my legs and fingers if I try to do anything slightly intense. I am betting the new Macs will run waaaay cooler and last waaaay longer on battery and will be faster in every way. I think AAA game companies will finally see Mac as not only a viable platform but a preferred one for Mobile games which also can run on computers. Phones and tablets will merge with computers as far as quality level of graphics and Apple will be way ahead of the game.

Michael Mayer

I am looking forward to your M1 tests.

betazero

It will arrive between Nov 25-Dec 4th I will report back

Michael Mayer

Yes, exciting.
The first benchmarks arrive. And it looks quite good.
Some (Australia, Asia) even got it in their hands already.

AFAIK you can pick them up in Apple Stores since today too.

Torsten Moses

Don't overlook, that the "M1" will emulate x86/x64 code ... such code will be slooooow .... don't be surprised if performance of BricsCAD on M1 will be poor ... :-)

Michael Mayer

It doesn't look that bad.
Seems like Rosetta2 (not really an emulation) has about a 0.75x penalty.
And for now M1 is of course the lowest base model, with 16 GB RAM limit.

But single core performance is good and multicore not bad.
GPU is great for a internal GPU, nowhere near 3080 though.
So not exactly a Bricscad Workstation, but maybe still faster than
my old Trash Can Mac Pro I am typing on.

Michael Mayer

Hmmh,
CPU wise, Mac Mini or Macbook Pro,
in Cinebench R23 (native on M1) both are about 40% faster in multicore
CPU Rendering than my Mac Pro 2013 6 core and even more than
double as fast in single core CPU Rendering.
Which should be what you notice when you start and work with Bricscad,
even with Rosetta2 handicap.
(In case Bricscad already runs flawlessly via Rosetta2 on Apple Silicon)

And I am quite sure that GPU wise, both are also faster than my
dual D700 6GB GPUs from 2013.
Where the M1 theoretically has access to a large amount of those 16 GB
fast shared "VRAM" Memory if needed.

Of course it doesn't make sense to buy such a device for CAD and 3D
as there will come much more suitable and impressing device from Apple
in 6 or 12 moths anyway. If you can avoid to buy something now.
Or regarding that beside my Trash Can there stands a Ryzen 3950X RTX 2070
$2500 (?) PC that, for now, is much faster.

But so far, any attempt to be faster than that PC by an Apple product would
mean $15,000+. In a few moths you may that for sub $4,000.
And in one or 2 years maybe even faster than typical PCs including optimized
software. Won't be a bargain though.

Torsten Moses

Dear Michael,

But so far, any attempt to be faster than that PC by an Apple product would mean $15,000+. In a few moths you may that for sub $4,000.

sorry, I can't resist to answer :-)

What makes you so optimistic about performance & prices ???

What I have heard/read about that conversion/translation, it is actually only available for x86 (32 bit) software, not for x64 (46 bit) ? But I might be wrong ...
besides, that the actual M1 chip is limited to 16 GB, right ? But that might improve (eventually) in some years ... when they redesign their M1 chip for larger address space (not to mention where Intel/AMD processors might be in 1...3 years).

In the past 25 years, all attempts to establish alternative "PC" designs more or less failed - see DEC/Digital Alpha, Steve Jobs' "Next", RISC IV/V designs, and some more ... only "Apple" can hold a few percentage of the market, due to their closed/locked-in environment - and exactly this now becomes even more dominant, with M1 ... do you see any correlation ? :-)

Apple was + is always extremely expensive, no relation to hardware/software quality at all - even in the Intel/AMD based times, an "Apple PC/Workstation" was 3...4 times more expensive than a "normal" PC (as I usually build my own power machine) ...
so why, out of a sudden, shall Apple now reduce their prices by factor 3...4 ($15.000 to $4.000 as you say) ?

And personally, I'm absolutely not convienced that Apple chips (aka ARM) will ever beat Intel/AMD processors, in absolute performance ... sure, ARM is great in power-efficiency (which is more or less important for notebooks, not that important for desktop/workstation PC), but AMD (and likely Intel in next 1...2 years) are getting closer ....
while in opposite, Apple still has to prove their processors for absolute performance.

Agreed, their M1 built-in GPU is around a GT 1050 in performance, which is rather performant for an embedded GPU ... but that's all, more or less not of importance for CAD workstations.

many greetings !

EdwardC

A response from Bricsys on the next version of BricsCAD as well as the M1 chip.

Hello Ed,
Thank you very much for your report.
Unfortunately there is no date when Linux and Mac releases for V21 will be available for download. Our team is actively working on this issue but there are few issues that need attention before the release to be public.
As for M1 chip, no decision has been made yet. Our team is aware about this issue and a task has been created for it.
Best Regards,
The Bricsys Team

Michael Mayer

What makes you so optimistic about performance & prices ???

I am optimistic,
that Apple Desktops with more powerful iterations of the M1,
which are promised being coming over the next 2 years,
(ALL Macs will convert to Apple Silicon, also the Mac Pro)
won't be cheap.

I was and now, since the first tests of M1 arrived, am even more
optimistic that they can deliver more power.
Something which I doubted at the beginning for several reasons.

What I have heard/read about that conversion/translation, it is actually only available for x86 (32 bit) software, not for x64 (46 bit) ?

That is valid for Windows on ARM,
which, so far, does a real emulation for x86 Software. Wich all culprits
of an emulation. Yes, 32bit Apps only so far, but I am sure they must
and will support x86_64 too at one time.

besides, that the actual M1 chip is limited to 16 GB, right ? But that might improve (eventually) in some years ... when they redesign their M1 chip for larger address space (not to mention where Intel/AMD processors might be in 1...3 years).

It is likely that that 16 GB RAM limit is just because they use low power
RAM, on their M1 chip, which is designed for "ultraportable" Notebooks.

Not in years, I expect in 3-12 months, we will see the next iteration of
Apple Silicon, with more RAM, more CPU and GPU cores.
Which will then already likely cover the large part of their Mac Hardware
sales.
Maybe that rumored 24" iMac, a 14" and the 16" MacBook Pros, ...
Just the high end desktops, 27" iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro may take another
12-24 months.
But I expect that the full transition will not take full 2 years.

And personally, I'm absolutely not convienced that Apple chips (aka ARM) will ever beat Intel/AMD processors, in absolute performance ... sure,

We will see and it will be very interesting.

I am convinced that the current Apple SoC can't grow unlimited.
It may get 64 GB, 128 GB or maybe even 256 GB of shared RAM,
but never that 2TB or similar class that Apples current Intel Mac Pro
offers. Same for the CPU and GPU cores.
That would not work with a single SoC as it would get astronomical
expensive (yield).

So there must be a typical multi chip solution with a fast bus system
(Fabric, Infinity Fiber, ....) to make everything working together.
Then we get really interesting modular desktops.

Michael Mayer

@EdwardC said:
A response from Bricsys on the next version of BricsCAD as well as the M1 chip.

Hello Ed,
Thank you very much for your report.
Unfortunately there is no date when Linux and Mac releases for V21 will be available for download. Our team is actively working on this issue but there are few issues that need attention before the release to be public.
As for M1 chip, no decision has been made yet. Our team is aware about this issue and a task has been created for it.
Best Regards,
The Bricsys Team

Thanks for sharing.

Yes, that is to be expected.
(Hope V21 Mac/Linux get's enough time to offer the same experience as the Windows version)

Not sure if they had a ARM developer kit to test and final first models are available,
basically just since yesterday.
I think making Bricscad working on Rosetta2 should be feasible without too much effort
and I doubt it will be a lame experience. I think there likely are still many Bricscads running
on much less capable PC hardware than current M1 devices deliver even under Rosetta.

Releasing a true Apple Silicon optimized Bricscad will be something completely different though.
I doubt that could happen for V22 already. But who knows. They will look, test and estimate
if its feasible and at what cost.
Nevertheless I would be happy to hear that Bricsys is at least interested in Apple Silicon.

betazero

Mine arrives Nov 27th so I will try it out. I will not be working on it because I use an iMac for that but I will try it out. Play some games try Bricscad etc... The real mega performance will not be the M1 it will be whatever the iMac chip will be called. I hope they have two chip types. An M1 for mobile and a P1 for performance (or whatever) for iMacs. Where they do not need to care about battery life and can just let it loose.

betazero

Well I have my new Mac today My 5 minute review is that iPhone / iPad apps need some settings when running on Mac. Tried Among use and you need to use a joystick which is fine but you can't maximize the game window. I imagine given time they will be able to add some Mac exclusive settings. Tried Hades Star and it runs portrait and menus are chopped a bit( it runs portrait on an iPad too so not a surprise). Also, couldn't find Clash Royale so I guess some apps just don't show or maybe the developer has a choice and they are optimizing for the new Macs. Going to try Bricscad now.

betazero

Well it crashes on New Drawing so might not work at all lol.

Michael Mayer

Thanks betazero.
(congratulation for early delivery)

I have no clue of any Games
but developers can allow that their iOS Apps will appear in Mac App Store,
or not. As I heard a lot refused as the fear a bad App experience.
Like not resizing, no gestures and other issues.
But overall I think it is still a nice option.
I would love to have my iPad weather App on my desktop.

As for Bricscad,
that is not exactly what I wanted to read

But you tried Bricscad V20, right ?
So there is a chance that V21 will run .....

betazero

Ok so good news. Open works but not New for some reason. Its very smooth and fast. Let me hook up a mouse

Michael Mayer

Its very smooth and fast

Can't be

Your specs ?

betazero

Want a video ? Oh yea its at least as fast as my 2017 iMac which is an 4.2 ghz i7 with 32 gigs of ram and Radeon Pro 580. And absolutely no heat so far at least. Ok have to install dropbox and share video link since videos are not accepted here. By the way it is not sped up I just zoomed around trying to slow it down. Hold please ....

Michael Mayer

I would like to see a Video.

But I am mostly interested about your RAM.

betazero

Video will have system specs at the end.
link to video - download the video or you get Dropbox's crappy streaming quality. It is freaking snappy in web browsing wow...I know that's not a big deal but its one of the first things I have noticed.. By the way my mouse is on notched mouse wheel so zooming in and out could be smoother but I don't like the smooth wheel. Going to try a much more complex drawing.... Crashed opening a more complex drawing.

Michael Mayer

Faster than i7 580 Pro ....
I am impressed.
This is the lowest level of Apple devices. This is ultra portable class.

I watch all M1 test videos and benchmarks.
Looks like it would be still faster than my trash can, including Rosetta penalty.
Macbook Pro seems the most reasonable device if you really want to us it seriously.
(But I had a 2009 Macbook Pro 17" in the past)
And I am sure the next iteration will be even more impressing.
But it is very hard to resist.

You should try large point clouds or 3D demo files

betazero

So it works good on a simple drawing but crashes on a medium to complex one. Possibly its an easy fix for the Bricscad team though.

Michael Mayer

Hmmh,
crashing on New Files, crashing on more demanding files, ....
Hope this is nothing serious.