Am I the only one who's not noticing any difference between Office on Intel/Rosetta versus Office on Silicon? Not noticing any speed improvements. Still takes an age to open any office file or app too, unless previously recently opened and still in the RAM cache. Using 16.44 for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook.
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Office on Silicon
- Thread starter ajaan
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macOS 11.1, MS Office 365 v16.44
I just opened a 2-page and a 230-page MS Word document as a comparison.
Both were open and I could type on them within three seconds.
These were both from a cold MS Word start with the programme not open.
I use no MS Word Plugins or funny dictionaries (just German, English and Swedish, which I assume are all preloaded.)
I just opened a 2-page and a 230-page MS Word document as a comparison.
Both were open and I could type on them within three seconds.
These were both from a cold MS Word start with the programme not open.
I use no MS Word Plugins or funny dictionaries (just German, English and Swedish, which I assume are all preloaded.)
The biggest difference in performance i notice between the AS native version and Rosetta version is that doing changes in heavy excel workbooks are faster on the AS native one.
The only other difference I really notice is that RAM usage is reduced to 50 % or even 30 % of the rosetta version for the same app.
The only other difference I really notice is that RAM usage is reduced to 50 % or even 30 % of the rosetta version for the same app.
Same here. Massive improvements in terms of launch times and reduction of memory use. Overall, very very snappy.
This is in the same sequence as you see in my video. I did close the Office apps before I opened these files so it opened the apps and then the files. I didn’t reboot though. I mean, I also don’t reboot often. Just close the lid and open - that’s about it.
That's not going to give you a very accurate test result. The second time you open a program will always be faster than the first time after a reboot. Even with closing the program, things are still cached. You'd get a much more accurate result if you did a reboot in between.
I would reboot if that is my usage pattern but it isn’t - I don’t reboot both my Intel-based MBP and M1-based MBP. It just doesn’t make sense to reboot unless there is a software update that forces the laptop to reboot. I just close the lid when I am done and open the lid when I want to work - for that usage pattern, M1 works really great and is much much quicker than an Intel-based MBA or MBP.
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This is terrific. Thank you for sharing. I regularly need to deal with huge customer management and sales data, with several 100,000‘s rows and a couple hundred columns. My work-issued laptop is just a pain for that (might be because IT installed the 32-bit excel versin on it?), best I‘ve seen is in Parallels on my personal i7 Mini 2018. Your results encourage me to upgrade to an Apple Silicon mac at some point (but I won’t do it just to solve a work-related problem)
Now I know that Excel is definitely not the best tool for dealing with such data sets, but it has been accepted as a de facto „standard“ as hardly any company (including my employer) is willing to invest in something else. Microsoft, if you read this, 1) please be grateful for the monopoly position you are enjoying here, and 2) do your customers a favor and really, really optimize Excel for big data.
Sorry for the digression, let‘s come back to the topic of this discussion.
Is this with the universall Office Apps or intel versions? Your video was published before the release of universal versions.
Universal apps. I installed the beta builds that have support for M1 since the day MBA was launched.
Still takes forever to launch on my 16GB M1 Air. It’s still faster on an older Lenovo laptop with SSD drive. I don’t think the Mac version will ever run as fast as it does on Windows 10. Other than Safari, Mail and other Apple apps, I really don’t see a big difference between my 2019 Air and my new M1 Air. Boot up is a little faster but not night and day. When a laptop turns on and the OS is up in under three seconds, I will be impressed. 😀
Office apps run way faster for me in my M1 MBA than in my Surface Pro 6. It’s especially noticeable when you are working with large files.
I agree with the OP. Particularly for excel files (file size > 50MB). It takes the same amount of time as it took in the previous version. Also facing tremendous lag while navigating through 1,00,000 plus rows.
Microsoft Word though is snappier than previous version.
Microsoft Word though is snappier than previous version.
Strange I find the UA version beats my x1 carbon 7th gen on large excel and PowerPoint files. It’s like instant don’t even see the splash screen just boom on the windows it runs through the flash screen for like 6 a. Then it will open. Certainly also faster than on my MBP 2019 i7. YMMV. Buy the way I’m impressed even using parallels and a windows 10 VM and the native office arm64. Excel beats the native Intel. I think is due to thier new architecture and blinding Ssd.
There is a impact of SIP on the speed of the opening of the apps on the first run after reboot.
This both applies to Office apps but other large apps (Affinity Serif package)
If you feel like trying for yourself - try temporarily disabling SIP and running the them after reboot.
First launch is instantaneous with SIP disabled, while with SIP on - its not differing much vs Rosetta.
Since SIP is more agressive on non-Apple signed apps - Office 365 installed from the App Store will have slightly faster loading than the Volume License 2019 Office packages installed from MS.
On the Silicon version, in Word, they broke saving a file to an encrypted HFS disk
Save without exiting and the name in the menu bar changes to WRD000 then WRD001 etc. These are also hidden flies and deleted on close so you lose and edits after the first save.
Don't save but try to quit, it asks if you want to save the file. Obvious answer is Yes. The file with your changes gets saved, but then you are immediately presented with a dialog box saying it couldn't be saved because a different process is accessing it, would you like to save it under a different name...
Worked fine on Intel
Problem solved: YOUR M1 MBP.
I'd look at what you have installed, what you have running in the background, and how you've configured your system.
I'm with @Ultron: It takes about a second for Word to open and Outlook is just as fast.
Office was working really great for me on an M1 Mini & MBA with the Dev channel update
(think it was Dev - might hav been Beta - can't recall)
I will say that it didn't feel super lightning faster or anything.
(yes, I confirmed it was Universal and not Intel w/ Rosetta)
Just worked - which is what we want of course....but it wasn't some mega warp speed upgrade or anything.
I suspect much more can be done by MS to make it better over time on ASi
(think it was Dev - might hav been Beta - can't recall)
I will say that it didn't feel super lightning faster or anything.
(yes, I confirmed it was Universal and not Intel w/ Rosetta)
Just worked - which is what we want of course....but it wasn't some mega warp speed upgrade or anything.
I suspect much more can be done by MS to make it better over time on ASi