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Alibre on M1 Macbook?

Has anyone tried running Alibre in parallels on the new M1 Mac systems?

I'm doing some research into potential PC upgrades for the near future. One option that caught my interest are the new machines based on Apple silicon. There are rumors M2 might not be too far around the corner and the M1 systems offer a lot of 'bang for your buck'.

I know a lot of people have had luck running Alibre and other apps on the intel based macs, but M1 is based on ARM.
 
No one's tried it to see if it works then? Oh well... I suppose I could just use a monitor switcher when the time comes* :confused:

* Probably in a year or so if I can save the money.
 
Hi, I am actually running it on a M1 mac book pro, via parallels, on windows 11. Actually until version 24 it was working flawlessly, although I must admit that I did not work on big projects yet. But opening projects that I made previously (including rather complex ones) was not a problem. On the contrary, I found it very fast compared to my previous system, which was already a mac book pro on parallels, but with intel.
However, I just noticed today that the installation of v25 fails. I'm opening an issue on that right now.
 
Hi, I am actually running it on a M1 mac book pro, via parallels, on windows 11. Actually until version 24 it was working flawlessly, although I must admit that I did not work on big projects yet. But opening projects that I made previously (including rather complex ones) was not a problem. On the contrary, I found it very fast compared to my previous system, which was already a mac book pro on parallels, but with intel.
However, I just noticed today that the installation of v25 fails. I'm opening an issue on that right now.
Thanks! I'm glad to hear that it's possible to run Alibre on Mac. I'm going to wait a bit for the ecosystem and hardware to mature. Right now 3D rendering is very slow on the M1 chips, but supposedly Apple will be addressing this with later chips. Not to mention ongoing software optimization.
 

Daniel-B

Member
Hi, I am actually running it on a M1 mac book pro, via parallels, on windows 11. Actually until version 24 it was working flawlessly, although I must admit that I did not work on big projects yet. But opening projects that I made previously (including rather complex ones) was not a problem. On the contrary, I found it very fast compared to my previous system, which was already a mac book pro on parallels, but with intel.
However, I just noticed today that the installation of v25 fails. I'm opening an issue on that right now.
Thanks from me, also! I've recently upgraded to an M1 mac book pro, and am very interested in the prospects for running Alibre on it. You've definitely saved me some time.
 
@Sascha Uncia and @Daniel-B, glad this was helpful. I'm currently still struggling with V25, for the moment unsuccessfully (https://www.alibre.com/forum/index.php?threads/v25-installation-fails-on-windows-11-for-arm.23536/). But the architecture (ARM) seems to be the issue there, not virtualization (parallels).
In any case, depending on the usage you plan for Alibre on the M1, it's worth mentioning that running on a VM is not officially supported. Not sure if they consider that Windows/ARM is supported, or not, since apart from apple M1 there are not many systems out there yet capable of running alibre on ARM (for the moment, probably mostly table - I don't think it will run on raspberry Pi yet...) and de facto the only way to run alibre on ARM is probably on an apple M1 via virtualization.

If the system works (as it has been for almost 10 years for me), and you use it mostly for hobby, then good for you. If you need to use it professionally and it does not work, you might be in trouble... That is definitely something to take into account.

ARM has plenty of advantages over intel/amd architecture. Let's hope the Alibre team will keep the door open to this promising architecture.
 

Bud

New Member
I am having the same problem. V24 works well. V25 will not install. I thought it my be because I am in a Domain some I ran as administrator and still no install.
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Despite Mac and ARM not being officially supported, because v24 was reported as working this has been looked into.

Some changes made to v25 installer to make it more reliable for most users had an unintended side effect in that it might not detect when Visual C++ is installed in ARM. Some changes to the way the installer checks for Visual C++ have been made and tested satisfactorily. V25 SP1 which is currently being worked on will include these changes.
 

Tompsk

New Member
Hi DavidJ,

Has there been any update on this. I'm at the point of jettisoning my PC as I'm tired of the perpetual problems with Windows. Has there been any indication that V25 and V26 can be run on the M1 or M2 Macs?
 

GeorgD

Member
I've had a Macbook Pro 16" for 3-4 weeks. I installed Parallels 18 Alibre v 26 to test it. I was surprised at how well it works compared to before. I've only noticed the slightest reduction in speed. But since I only have the variant with 16 GB RAM, I could imagine that with 32 GB + this would also be even smoother, since my Windows Pc uses 32 GB.
 

Tompsk

New Member
That's great to know. Thank you. I was looking at the M2 Air, so it'll have less horsepower, but your information is extremely helpful.
 
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