So... who is running an M1 Mac?

Thanks @Norm

4.0.1 :upside_down_face:

Didnā€™t get a notification that an update was available, but updated and working now!

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My 16GB, 512SSD M1 came last week and loving it so far! Quite the update to my 10 year old Hackintosh I built. Everything works great, even apps that arenā€™t ā€œoptimizedā€ for the new chip. Doesnā€™t even blink when I have multiple browsers open, multiple tabs and running several apps at once.

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Iā€™ll be curious to see what sort price/performance ratio we will see with later models. In the past Iā€™ve ended up paying out for top spec computers to ensure reasonable performance for 5+ years but that may not be necessary in future. It may also take a while for developers of older apps to rewrite their software and make full use of all those extra cores, assuming theyā€™ll bother.

Hey @pruthe how is the M1 working for you?

Hi @PeteSharp!

Iā€™ve got it running!!! Seems very fast compared to my Mac Pro (Late 2013). The main performance thing I notice so far is how fast web browsing is. Web pages load very quickly in Safari.

Right now, installing needed apps onto the M1. Got Forklift installed and running. Also installed Blocs4 and tried loading one B4 project. It does load and I can view project objects. I did a quick export of this project and uploaded to my web site. Everything looked OK except Swiper2 sliders were not full page and looked like a regular carousel. I then remembered that I didnā€™t load in Swiper2 (and other) bric to Blocs, so likely thatā€™s the problem.

I tried to view installed brics using + in edit window, but then Blocs crashed. Again, this might be related to missing bric(s). Also noticed a few other Blocs quirks, but just havenā€™t had time to fully test out. When I get more time, will try out more things. Iā€™m sure Norm will want to do some more M1 testing on Blocs when he gets a chance.

Regarding other things Iā€™ve noticed so far on M1, hereā€™s my current list.

  • Not able to adjust brightness for my external monitor. Brightness control shows max setting, but cannot adjust one way or the other.I Googled about this and found some other people saying similar thing. Iā€™m guessing Apple will fix in later update. Not a major problem for me right now as I can view on screen OK, itā€™s just slightly too bright.
  • I have 2 Promise Pegasus2 R4 drive enclosures (Thunderbolt 2). Had to download M1 compatible driver + utility before it worked. M1 compatible Pegasus driver only available recently.
  • I have 2 OWC (TB2) and 2 Akitio (1-TB2, 1 TB3) drive enclosures using Softraid software. Had to download M1 compatible Softraid beta driver + utility before it worked. This beta only became available recently,
  • I have 2 Sans Digital (USB) drive enclosures using Softraid. If I try to connect these, it gives a panic. I have tech at Softraid forum looking at this to fix.
  • Note that to install the Pegasus and Softraid drivers, it was necessary to go through a one time procedure to change the Boot policy setting. This is new for M1/OS11. I found the procedure to use in a doc at the Promise web site.
  • I noticed when trying to shut down M1 with all working drive enclosures connected that during shut down a panic/restart will occur. I found that if I remove some of the enclosures, it will shut down cleanly. Iā€™m currently trying different drive configurations to see if I can fix. I might ask Softraid guys if theyā€™d look at this later, but donā€™t want to bug them right now since theyā€™re looking at the other problem for me.

Thatā€™s what I found out so far using M1 Mac mini. In general, my M1 Mac mini is running well and I really like performance increase. Besides Blocs, Iā€™d like to look later at how Final Cut Pro works on M1.

Hope this helps others considering getting a M1 Mac. :slight_smile:

pruthe

Update - For my external monitor, apparently there is no Apple provided brightness control. On Big Sur, the brightness control is shown in the Display control panel, but does not allow any adjustment. On Catalina, there is no brightness control shown on the Display control panel. So for my external display, I need to manually adjust brightness on the display itself. I read somewhere online that on some Apple provided external displays the brightness control in the Display control panel may work.

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We hope to get Blocs running flawlessly on all M1 Macs early next year, still a few odd bits to sort out.

Please keep notes and send them over when you encounter issues.

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Nice over view @pruthe thanks. :grin:

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Iā€™m still rocking a 2018 MacBook Pro i7 thatā€™s hooked up to two Thunderbolt Displays via a TB2 to TB3 adapter. I love my setup. I nearly splurged on an M1 Mac mini, but apparently it canā€™t do two Thunderbolt Dispalsy off itā€™s Thunderbolt Bus. Iā€™m thinking this means that they are going to price the Mac Pro replacement much lower, or theyā€™ll come out with a Mac mini+ or something, or just a new model in a smaller enclosure that can do two 2K displays on one Thunderbolt Bus.

I broke down and purchased the base model of the M1 Mac mini while my 2017 MBP 15ā€ was in for a second battery replacement after 2 months. I have it connected to a 4K 32ā€ monitor and to an Thunderbolt OWC Envoy Express that I put a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB drive in. I got to say I am rather impressed, the native apps run great, played a lot with Final Cut and the beta of Davinci Resolve. As well as the Affinity group of products (Photos, Designer, and Publisher). I canā€™t wait until Blocs and the Adobe suit go to universal binaries.

My work computer is a 2019 MBP 15ā€ 32gb, top processor, etc. and sure it can do more, but man the fans sound like it is taking off when I have it running on 2 4K 27ā€ monitors and do moderate task. The M1 jus feels snappier when launching native appsā€¦

On GitHub you can find some apps that could work with your monitor, and allow you to control it from menubar. I donā€™t know which monitor you have so I cannot tell you wish one is the one you need unfortunately, but there are plenty to choose from

Hi @Gianni

I have a Crossover 404k UHD monitor connected via a display port connection. Iā€™ve had it for a number of years. Itā€™s my understanding that there may be a problem with an app controlling the monitor brightness on the M1 Mac mini. Here are some links I found that describe the problem.

Iā€™m not sure my monitor has DDC/CI control. Thereā€™s not a brightness control showing when the monitor is connected on my other Catalina/Mac Pro system. When I get a chance, I might try adding one of these apps on this system to see if it works there. Will let you know if it works. :slight_smile:

pruthe

MacBook Pro 16gb ram 1Tb SSD. super fast but Iā€™m having randon crashes in Blocs. For some reason evertime I try to do an ā€œundoā€ function either from the keryboad OR the edit menu, I crash. Also, I can only have a couple programs open Becuase Blocs is eating up resources like crazy!

Ordered my 16Gb 512Gb Mini last week, getting here mid January, after my 2011 27ā€iMac internal hard drive died. Fortunately, happened on holidays and no deadline for the moment. Very exciting to hear Blocs runs wild on the new Macs.

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Runs well but boy do I get a hell of a lot of random crashes, I can have 2 or 3 within the space of 2 minutes.

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For those with M1 Macs you may notice more random crashes.

This is caused by the fact the new systems have the crash reporter set to crash on exception, this has not been the default case for Mac apps until now and it only applies to M1 Macs.

Although we test in house on an Apple DTK Mac, Iā€™ve also prepped My intel Blocs development workflow to take this new default crash system into consideration, so expect the next few releases to improve stability on M1 Macs considerably.

Iā€™ll most likely have a new version of Blocs out at some point next week.

Apologies for the bumpy start for those using M1 Macs.

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No problem @Norm, Itā€™s only just launched really so bound to be issues which we all know will get fixed by yourself. Happy New Year.

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My Random crashes are actually getting worse. Started with only occasional keyboard input crashes. Now itā€™s just plain anytime any place.

Is Blocs pretty much stable now on the M1 or is it safer to stick with Intel?

Runs near as dammit perfect on my M1 Macbook Pro. Canā€™t honestly say it runs worse than my iMac , but in fact is smoother.

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It works like a charm on a Macbook Pro M1 with 16G ram. Me happy. Apple salesman more happyā€¦

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