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Rosetta 2
- Thread starter EugW
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It's also been on Android for years as well, so Microsoft has a lot of experience dealing with the differences between x86 and ARM.
Same differences. I think Word is largely the same by now, but Excel for Mac still lacks Power Pivot and Power Query, Outlook lacks a number of sync features with Exchange and Sharepoint, Powerpoint lacks some animation features, all lack certain VBA features. And I believe that's by far not even everything.
That's a whole different discussion, though.
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I came across this discussion on Twitter recently:
It seems Apple's chips have some hardware optimizations for running x86 code.
It seems Apple's chips have some hardware optimizations for running x86 code.
The changes in architecture have always been great for purging chaff.
Firstly it would be a good idea to not make wild assumptions like this.
We know Rosetta 1 was not as bad as "40% native" performance. It was pretty good. Sure it wasn't perfect but it was still a respectable level of performance. Also you need to realise that we're talking older code here in the apps. Back in the day, the newer intel versions of apps were just better than the older PPC versions of the apps. They ran better. Not because of Rosetta. Because the newer intel code worked better on intel machines. Better than the PPC code on PPC machines too. The exact same thing will happen with Intel vs ARM.
Also “applications translated at install” to me means, as much of the code is translated as possible from Intel to ARM when you install the app. So you're actually installing a part translated for ARM app. It's not 100% Intel native anymore. Unlike Rosetta 1 where the code was translated from PPC to Intel while the app was running, which hits the app performance a little more.
I could be wrong on this, but that's how I see it.
Can we assume Boot Camp is toast?
Based on exactly how it runs on Intel Macs - Yes. However In the future Microsoft might engineer an ARM solution.
Agreed. It's always good to remove apps and other files you've not used in years. "Maybe I might use it in the future" . . . but now you can't ever use it again. Great excuse to trash those old apps.
Not a fan of most of this guys videos but he includes some interesting tweets from a few developers on Rosetta 2 and porting x86 apps. (skip to 9:25)
I was more interested in the first 2/3 of the video, as I did not realize that TSMC was so far ahead of Intel in the process game. Working on both 3nm and 2nm before Intel can even get 10nm to large scale production is a big boost to TSMC going forward. With early reports regarding porting to Apple Silicon being so positive, the possibilities that can arise from this switch are endless. The examples regarding the graphics performance were also eye opening to me.
For those who can't stand that guy's robotic style of talking: he cites exactly three tweets regarding Rosetta 2. One is pure speculation (some guy *thinks* Apple Silicon might be able to execute x86 faster than actual x86 CPUs), one is vague (Rosetta is "shockingly performant, given what it's doing"), the third and last one confirms Rosetta 2 is able to run an x86 command line tool (cmake).
I actually took the time to look at the tweet parts , I think you are downplaying it a little no ? they all seemed positive ranging from surprised to be able to port so easily (doing full ports in few days) to actual performance of a port render that was ran vs a MBP16 which he claimed to be faster and much cooler to the touch when comparing the 2 machines.
The few geekbenches out there already demonstrate that Rosetta 2 on the dev kit is faster than some currently shipping Intel chips.
I only quoted the tweets related to the topic of this thread, which happens to be Rosetta 2, and neither the ease of porting to Arm, nor the thermal properties of the DTK.
The keyword here is "some", none of which are used in current Macs. Even the slowest, lowest powered MacBook Air scores higher on average than the DTK with Rosetta 2.
That was not specified. The dev kit running software in emulation is not faster than the 2020 MacBook Air, no, but it is significantly faster than the 2019 MacBook Air. That's pretty impressive, which is what they were saying.
Furthermore, this A12Z is effectively a 2 year old chip, and is very likely significantly slower than what the slowest Arm MacBook Pro will have.
There don't seem to be any comparable benchmarks for the 2019 MBA that I'm aware of to support that claim. And even the GeekBench results for the 2018 MBA are only slightly lower than Rosetta 2's performance on the A12Z, when taking into account that the MBA only has two cores.
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Yesterday’s proclamation that Rosetta 2 in some instances perform faster than native Intel applications is a bold statement.
I suspect adoption of Apple Silicon hardware will greatly depend on how well Rosetta 2 truly performs. If people find a seamless transition, more will jump on board which in turn may drive developers to write Universal version of their apps.
I suspect adoption of Apple Silicon hardware will greatly depend on how well Rosetta 2 truly performs. If people find a seamless transition, more will jump on board which in turn may drive developers to write Universal version of their apps.
I think the more important metrics here are functionality, stability, and reliability. We already have apps that don't run at all under Rosetta 2.
I'm thinking of buying a new Apple silicon Macbook Air but am not quite sure if it would support what I need to do. I currently have a windows laptop where I use the Citrix Workspace client to connect to my machine in the office. I know that Citrix has a MacOS version of the client but would that work with the new Macbook Air (via Rosetta 2) or is that something we don't know yet?
I'm not sure if I posted this is in the right forum so apologies in advance if not.
I'm not sure if I posted this is in the right forum so apologies in advance if not.
VPN software is supposed to be one of the classes of software that may be problematic through Rosetta.I'm thinking of buying a new Apple silicon Macbook Air but am not quite sure if it would support what I need to do. I currently have a windows laptop where I use the Citrix Workspace client to connect to my machine in the office. I know that Citrix has a MacOS version of the client but would that work with the new Macbook Air (via Rosetta 2) or is that something we don't know yet?
I'm not sure if I posted this is in the right forum so apologies in advance if not.
As for Citrix, my Mac Intel version works fine with my workplace but there is one caveat, which just irritates me to no end. In the Windows version, Citrix on my client PC automatically maps my local printer to the remote host Windows computer. That means say I click on a Word document on the remote PC, if I decide to print it, it will automatically print to my local network printer.
However, on my Mac client, the local printer is not seen. I was googling around and I THINK it requires an additional driver to be installed, but on the server side. Our IT department has looked into it, and first isn't convinced that's the case, and second, isn't keen on installing new drivers on their side. Their solution for me is if my Windows client machine works fine, then just use the Windows machine and not the Mac. I can see where they are coming from, but it's annoying as this one little glitch is enough to prevent me from replacing my Windows machine with a secondary Mac Pro I have. Sure I can email myself the document or whatever to look, but it's an extra set of steps I definitely don't want to deal with.
But like I said, there is no guarantee Citrix will even work with M1 Macs, because VPN software in general is one of the difficult classes of software to get working properly. FWIW though, Citrix says their latest version runs on Big Sur... but that's on Intel. Not validated on M1 at this time.
I would wait until others can be the guinea pig testers.
1. Rosetta 2 sounds like it's way more improved from its PowerPC-to-Intel Transition predecessor. Performance levels were akin to that of the native performance with the 2020 Intel MacBook Air that just got discontinued yesterday. That was coming from the DTK; M1 Rosetta 2 performance may be even greater. Though, if your apps are already utilizing Apple technologies, your mileage will likely be better.
2. Bugginess will be relative, just as it was last transition.
3. Compare benchmarks for the out-going 2020 Intel 10th Gen based MacBook Air. Considering the original PowerPC-to-Intel Rosetta basically ran PPC apps with G3 performance levels on Core Duo Macs, I'd say that you're looking at way better than 50% native. But your mileage will likely vary based on apps.
4. "Applications translated at install" means that Rosetta 2 will translate 64-bit Intel to (64-bit) Apple Silicon at the time that you install the app, rather than at the time you launch the app (which was how the original PowerPC-to-Intel Rosetta worked; it's also how drag and drop software installations will still work in Rosetta 2; only Intel apps installed via an Installer .pkg or .mpkg package file or via the Mac App Store will be translated at install time. Anything else is still done at runtime. So, you might not even feel much of the speed penalty this time (as it will have already been paid at the time of install rather than at launch each time).
5. Boot Camp as we currently know it on Intel Macs will be toast, yes. Microsoft does have an ARM64 variant of Windows 10, but they only license it to OEMs for now, making it difficult to buy a copy to install on an Apple Silicon Mac or a virtual machine solution for Apple Silicon. Apple has stated that they don't intend to have other operating systems direct boot on Apple Silicon Macs, but this may be that they only want to support Microsoft and there are hurdles in the way. Boot Camp for Intel Macs didn't appear until Intel Macs had been shipping for three months. It's very likely that Microsoft and Apple are having many private talks about this even still. So, I'd stay tuned. In the meantime, if you need Windows or any other x86 operating system on your Mac in any capacity, I'd get an Intel Mac while they're still being produced and sold.
Here is a clue. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-silicon-c55b603e-14a6-4b69-bdc0-2bb4c9a36834
The first launch of each Office app will take longer as the operating system has to generate optimized code for the Apple Silicon processor. Users will notice that the apps 'bounce' in the dock for approximately 20 seconds while this process completes. Subsequent app launches will be fast.
Thanks for that excellent explanation but I posted that message 5 months ago. Most of that had since been addressed. Still, your explanation is clear yet succinct so I’m sure many (like myself) will appreciate it.
Now that M1 Macs are out there, is there any more information of how Rosetta 2 works? Does it produce a translated app? If it does, does that mean that translated app will thereafter run without Rosetta 2? So that when Rosetta 2 is no longer included in MacOS that translated app will still run?