Mac M1 support

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strawbale
Posts: 8
Joined: 26.03.2020 14:56

Mac M1 support

Post by strawbale »

Any plans or, better even, time line for Apple's Mac M1 support?
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Catherine
Posts: 1156
Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Catherine »

No special support is required to run our software on M1 because Apple promised all existing applications will continue working, and according to the first reviews, they do work pretty well. So I expect our current software will run without issues.

As for native support for this CPU, it will of course be provided as well but we don't have a time line since it's hard to say when the new Mac Mini will be obtainable in our country. We intend to buy one as soon as possible and start experimenting right away.
strawbale
Posts: 8
Joined: 26.03.2020 14:56

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by strawbale »

Thank you.
alex_vv
Posts: 4
Joined: 25.11.2020 16:37

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by alex_vv »

Update as of Nov 25. The current newest version kinda runs on my M1 mac.

Works:
- Jpeg import and render (all 3 methods, really fast)

Kinda works
- Raw In (Crashes as soon as I hit render with the build in Adobe DNG convertor, previews are really slow with a manually installed one from Abobe)
- When I say slow, I mean that it takes a good minute per image to show the preview.
- However renders are fairly quick. It takes 45 seconds to open and render 17 uncompressed a7III raws using method A

Does not work:
- OpenCl (Error on start "Failed to initialize OpenCL acceleration. Hardware configuration might have changed or hardware not supported. Please check Preferences. Error text: CL_BUILD_PROGRAM_FAILURE")
- Benchmark (will run all the way to the end but crashes as soon as it hits 100%, if I had to guess I'd say it's a gui problem)
- Do those benchmark numbers get stored in a file somewhere I could grab them from?
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Catherine
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Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Catherine »

Thank you for the the detailed info!

1. "Crashes as soon as I hit render" - that sound like Adobe DNG converter was not installed; or perhaps the path to it in Helicon Focus Preferences - Integration was wrong. The crash itself is an error that we've just fixed in the new Helicon Focus 7.6.6 (released just now), but if it was caused by the missing converter then installing it fixes the problem.
2. OpenCL not working - this is not usually needed on Mac, but it looks like with M1 we will need to tweak the code and adjust it for the new hardware once we get it (the hardware).
3. The crash in benchmark should also be fixed in the new version.
4. No, the benchmark results are not stored. You can choose to submit them to our database, but once you close the dialog, the only way to get the numbers back is to run another benchmark.
alex_vv
Posts: 4
Joined: 25.11.2020 16:37

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by alex_vv »

Hi Catherine,

The new update (7.6.6) does fix the crashing issues with the benchmark. Strangely though I had to manually download from the website, the check for update inside HeliconFocus did not find an update.

Yup. I figured out after posting and installed the DNG convertor.

As for OpenCL, without it turned on it seems like my GPU is not being engaged at all (based on readings from other software). The benchmark and any rendering appear to only use the CPU, which gets a modest benchmark score of 124MP/s.
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Catherine
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Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Catherine »

That's right, OpenCL is the technology we use for utilizing the GPU for computations, and without it only the CPU remains.
We haven't yet announced the new version 7.6.6 through the auto-update system so it's normal that "check for update" doesn't see it yet.
GetUp
Posts: 10
Joined: 04.11.2019 13:59

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by GetUp »

I have 7.6.6 HeliconFocus Pro, and it fails to run with GPU accelerator, when it enabled on M1 MacMini. It falls back on CPU, as I understand.
Walter72
Posts: 6
Joined: 19.02.2021 20:06

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Walter72 »

Just updated 7.7.2 on my MacMini M1 to see if hardware acceleration would work now. There is a new option in the performance-settings, I can choose Apple M1 in thes settings. Sadly it does not work. Starting Helicon Focus it fails to initialize OpenCl acceleration. Error Text: CL_BUILD_PROGRAM_FAILURE
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Catherine
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Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Catherine »

OpenCL is not supported on M1 and it's not likely to be supported in the future.

Now that we've purchased M1 specifically in order to provide this functionality, we seem to have found that Apple does not support OpenCL on M1 at all.
Walter72
Posts: 6
Joined: 19.02.2021 20:06

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Walter72 »

Wow, this is very sad, but thank you for your hard work.
I just will take my time to stack the images - as my M1 does too. :?
Alnitak
Posts: 7
Joined: 15.04.2018 16:23

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Alnitak »

Catherine wrote: 17.06.2021 20:19 OpenCL is not supported on M1 and it's not likely to be supported in the future.

Now that we've purchased M1 specifically in order to provide this functionality, we seem to have found that Apple does not support OpenCL on M1 at all.
Any plans to move on to supporting Metal on MacOS? I use your product extensively and would love to see full Metal support going forward--and it seems like with the move the M1 architecture you're going to have to support Metal to stay relevant on the Mac platform.
solarez
Posts: 1
Joined: 27.10.2021 18:53

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by solarez »

The current state of the Mac or better macOS is that OpenCL is officially dead. Metal 2 is the way to go. Apple announced that in 2018 already. They did that the same time they announced the end of OpenGL support. So I guess I’ll have to check my M1 Max MacBook Pro that arrives tomorrow and do some benchmarks. I’ll post an update here.

It would be really helpful for further planning to know a little bit about your road map.
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Catherine
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Joined: 29.04.2019 22:38

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by Catherine »

We managed to support OpenCL on M1 and plan to have it enabled in the next version to be released. If would like to test the beta before official release, please contact us at support@heliconsoft.com.
slutsteg
Posts: 4
Joined: 28.02.2020 02:35

Re: Mac M1 support

Post by slutsteg »

Opelcl that’s end of life? You should look at metal
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