Plug in ARM compatibility question

[alexis]

Hi,

My favorite DAW (Cubase) is now reported ARM-compatible. Many of the plug ins I use are not yet, as I understand things.

If I were set on buying an ARM device, I wonder if it would be better to wait a little longer for more of those plugins to be released in ARM- compatible formats?

I've read about something I don't quite understand that allows one to run them on ARM devices even if they have not been updated for ARM compatibility, but I imagine that might be a little bit unstable (?).

Thanks for any thoughts -

[merlyn]

Eat your cake and have it, eh? If it was me I would give it a wide berth until it all settles down. I would think if someone wants an ARM device at the moment, it would be for portability. And if someone wants all the plugins, stick with x86_64 for now.

When the Mac moved to ARM there was a translation layer -- Rosetta -- that papered over the cracks while things settled down. There will be similar for Windows on ARM, but it's a stopgap, not a long-term solution.

[RichardT]

Hi Alexis,

I don't know the answer to your question about plugins, but I would be inclined to wait for at least a year so that the early-adopter problems are ironed out.

[alexis]

Thanks merlyn and RichardT!

I wonder how likely it is that the plug in manufacturers might churn out updates for both ARM and non-ARM devices for a very long time.

The might make the choice less critical between buying a computer with one type of chip vs the other ...?

[James Perrett]

It is changeovers like this that really show the differences between software companies. Well written software is going to be easy to recompile for different platforms because it will have been designed to be mainly hardware independent.

[The Elf]

Ley the early adopters stamp out the flames before you go anywhere near new technolgy.

[resistorman]

I'm wondering how different an ARM and X86 VST actually are, it's Windows after all?

[S.Crow]

I'm wondering how different an ARM and X86 VST actually are, it's Windows after all?

x86 has SSE, AVX etc which are proprietary, so you will need to use the ARM equivalents.

[James Perrett]

I'm wondering how different an ARM and X86 VST actually are, it's Windows after all?

They have a completely different machine code instruction set. Most properly coded music apps and plug-ins will have been compiled to machine code so will need to be re-compiled (and possibly re-optimised) for ARM. The only exceptions would be scripted plug-ins (like Reaper's JS plug-ins) which will be translated to machine code by the host application.

[merlyn]

I'm wondering how different an ARM and X86 VST actually are, it's Windows after all?

In open source plugins that I've seen there is some assembly language. Who would use assembly in this day and age? Well, it makes DSP code super efficient and is used for something like filters where conceivably there could be a lot used at the same time, e.g. an EQ on every channel.

Assembly is different for every architecture and would need to be changed. Definitely not impossible as Linux Studio Plugins (open source) are available for x86_64, arm5t, armv6-a, armv7-ar ... even ppc64.

https://github.com/lsp-plugins/lsp-plugins

[Jez Corbett]

Posting as I'm curious what the latest with Windows on ARM with audio is.

I watched with great interest at all the hype and excitement when the recent ARM Windows laptops came out, but initially there were a lot of reports of certain creative software flat out refusing to install as their installer software itself saw an unidentified cpu and wouldn't continue. But those developers (Adobe being particularly notable) said they'd fix it.

Then Intel and AMD started talking about they were making super high efficiency x86 CPUs that would rival ARM, and the hype kinda died down. Then I never heard anything again. It seemed like the internet just stopped talking about it.

One of the big issues with Microsoft's previous attempt at Windows on ARM was that the emulation was appalling, non-ARM compiled software ran like death. The new chips were supposed to fix all that, but have they?

In terms of audio software, I fear a chicken or the egg situation where no one wants to be the early adopter, and no one wants to make the ARM version because there aren't enough people using them. With Apple moving to ARM at least developers were FORCED to release ARM versions because they were dropping x86, but Windows isn't going to be dropping x86 any time soon.

Basically I fear Windows on ARM is over before it even began.

Again.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

This popped into mind the other day and I imagined an announcement that DAW X is dropping support for x86 CPU's. A bit like 32 bit / VST2 etc.

Not going anywhere near it for years personally, if it ever becomes anything woth looking at. No need, no desire and for what great advantage ?

Deary me, how much time do they think people have ?

Maybe it will be my retirement laptop treat. Ahh happy retirement more pointless bleeding edge with nothing to actually show for it. Retirement being a very long way off I hope.

[merlyn]

Without a crystal ball prediction is a risky business. However ... my prediction would be that Microsoft will make a balls of Windows on ARM ... as usual.

[alexis]

Posting as I'm curious what the latest with Windows on ARM with audio is.

...

.
As of 5 days ago Pete Kaine said:

"... Building a custom PC or buying a tower for music creation: go with Intel/AMD, not Arm.

Laptop: strongly consider Arm, but we're not 100% there for music creation yet."

https://gearspace.com/board/showpost.ph ... stcount=94

Good enough for me to put aside the idea of waiting to buy a new specialty-built "music creation tower"

[ajay_m]

Products like the new M4 MacBook air are so far beyond anything available running windows, either on x86 or ARM, that it is unlikely that the Windows on ARM initiative will come to much.
The fact of the matter is that Apple's integration of software and hardware are far, far ahead of the competition and that gap is widening. I am a long term Windows user but to be candid if I were looking at replacing the current studio laptop, I would probably go with Apple. But Windows on ARM? I would not touch it with a bargepole.

[Eddy Deegan]

I am a long term Windows user but to be candid if I were looking at replacing the current studio laptop, I would probably go with Apple.

I just did albeit with a Mac Studio as opposed to a laptop. My 'old' DAW is a Windows 11 system, 32Gb RAM and an Intel i9 CPU. It's no slouch. The new DAW is a Mac Studio with a 16-core M4 Max and 64Gb of RAM. It took me 4 days to get all my shizzle replicated to the Mac but it radically outperforms the PC in every respect.

I added a 4Tb Corsaire EX400U SSD thunderbolt drive (just under 400Gb/sec transfer rate) partitioned into two 2Tb volumes, one for Time Machine and one to handle sample library storage. The latter is backed up manually to my NAS as Time Machine is smart enough to not back up volumes on the same physical drive as Time Machine itself.

Everything else is on a 2Tb Mac SSD internal drive. The first time I ran Presonus Studio One it scanned ~150 plugins in about 20 seconds and since then it takes less than 3 seconds to initialise. It takes less than 1 second to load 995Mb of samples into Spitfire's BBS Symphonic Orchestra plugin from the thunderbolt drive and when I did my first Time Machine backup, roundabout 600Gb, it completed in under a minute (tens of thousands of small files involved along the way). Since then, hourly Time Machine backups take about 5 seconds each including Studio One project files migrated from my Windows DAW. It's so fast it's almost funny.

As a bonus I now have sub-5ms latency under load and access to my years-old buys of Logic Pro X and Final Cut Pro having resurrected my old Apple account. I was pleasantly surprised I was able to install the latest version without additional spend. I doubt I'll use Logic anytime soon in anger but it's nice to have and I'd adopt it again in a heartbeat if Presonus end up making Studio One Professional a subscription only offering. They say they won't but their recent license changes bothered me and ... who knows.

But Windows on ARM? I would not touch it with a bargepole.

It'll probably be fine once it's settled down. I find Windows 11 a stable platform and at heart it's a very good operating system. My issues with it weren't anything to do with performance (even though the Mac has redefined that term for me), rather all about the manner in which Microsoft force upgrades and pollute the OS experience with so much stuff you neither want nor need. Windows is fine; it's privacy, invasive advertising/online content and endless fiddling-by-Microsoft that's the issue. I just got fed up with having to find ways to disable/block that junk. I use it on a Lenovo Legion i9-14900HX laptop for work all the time and it's well suited to that because I don't care about the laptop, only getting my work done and it delivers on that front.

It's what Microsoft do with/to their OS that's the real problem IMHO. I'll suffer it for work but not for my personal projects, which is why I abandoned it for my DAW. It wasn't cheap to get the Mac Studio but it was money well spent and if it lasts me 5 years, which I'm sure it will, then that's a £57/month investment.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

May I ask how much your new Mac was Eddy ?

[BWC]

I think he just told you.

and if it lasts me 5 years, which I'm sure it will, then that's a £57/month investment.

[Eddy Deegan]

May I ask how much your new Mac was Eddy ?

I think he just told you.

and if it lasts me 5 years, which I'm sure it will, then that's a £57/month investment.

The specification I ended up with (16 core, 64Gb, 2Tb) was £3,399 though some of that is pure Apple tax on RAM and Storage. If I'd opted to go with the default 512Gb system drive it would have been £2,799. If I'd opted for the latter but with 48Gb RAM it would have been £2,599 and if I'd gone for the minimum M4-based spec (14-core, 36Gb, 512Gb) it would have been £2,099. There's a calculator here where you can explore the options and see the costs.

Not required but I also got an Apple Magic keyboard with touch ID, though used Amazon for that as it was £160 as opposed to £200 from the Apple website.

I got the external 4Tb Corsaire drive for £359.99 (+ £5.48 delivery) from Scan.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Thanks Eddy £3,400 on the face of it is a lot of money for me. Though over say 7 years use period which is possible as per my last PC, a Mac is not ridiculous either. I understand it.

I run an i9 12900 system here at the moment in the mastering studio and am really happy with it. For a change I was happy with the performance over the 4 core system that went before it (it seems about 3 x faster by ASIO indication). It copes with my largely serial processing : "death to CPU" plug in chains very well, when necessary.

I have just ordered a SCAN custom 20 core silent Intel PC for £1,143.00 with Win 11 Pro which is on paper 15-20pct faster than the above, way more than necessary.

I did consider AMD, but stay with Intel despite a few reported gremlins which I am not concerned about after in depth reading.

That machine will be tested and sit here as redundancy which I really enjoy the feeling of. It can be put into service as my pro work machine or my hobby music machine, depending on what my computer future holds.

[merlyn]

... I watched with great interest at all the hype and excitement when the recent ARM Windows laptops came out, but initially there were a lot of reports of certain creative software flat out refusing to install as their installer software itself saw an unidentified cpu and wouldn't continue. But those developers (Adobe being particularly notable) said they'd fix it ...

As far as I can make out the problem with Adobe software was the lack of AVX2 in Microsoft's emulator. Great job guys. An x86_64 emulator without AVX2. The emulator is called Prism and, big news, it now has AVX2. This time around Windows on ARM seems like a slow burn.

As far as audio software goes there is a native ARM version of Reaper, Cubase is in beta and Ableton Live is 'not supported' so the emulator can't be all that. Good luck with drivers.

[alexis]

... Cubase is in beta ...

Now fully supported?

https://www.steinberg.net/cubase/release-notes/14/

[SafeandSound Mastering]

If there is one thing I have learnt over the years is new, when it comes to technology (especially very newly released tech) is often not always better. For computing you have to have to have your head over a lot of specs and still get caught out from time to time.

I see computers as just necessary items you need to get rock solid asap with the least fuss possible and then try and maintain that status. Most audio heads want to work effectively, efficiently and reliably on music and sound.

Then you are living the dream.

The computing side you have to know and investigate quite a lot whether you like it or not. I quite like it and I also do not like it. One must achieve the right balance of capability, performance, budget, longevity (and reliability) vs interest/tolerance level.

[merlyn]

I see. Yes, according to Steinberg it's now fully supported. If you're running Windows, ARM makes most sense for a laptop. ARM has good power efficiency which means better battery life.

x86_64 is still the choice for CPU power in a desktop, e.g. an M4 Max vs a 9950x :

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/62 ... ax-16-Core

Pure CPU power in a 9950x comes at the price of electrical power consumption, leading to heat, which means that serious cooling is required. It doesn't have to be annoyingly noisy if the right cooler is used.

[Jez Corbett]

according to Steinberg it's now fully supported.

But what about plugins and audio device drivers?

Thought I'd look up RME as a company that tends to be good with drivers and ... oh they actually have windows arm drivers already! Same with Focusrite supposedly.

But looked up a bunch of popular plugin developers and found nothing