Running Fusion with Rosetta 2 on Apple ARM-based M1 Chipsets

keqingsong
Community Manager
Community Manager

Running Fusion with Rosetta 2 on Apple ARM-based M1 Chipsets

keqingsong
Community Manager
Community Manager

July 5, 2023 Update 

Hello all, the current Insider Build of Fusion now has native Apple Silicon support, and as you read some of the latest comments in this thread, the results are looking great. Our goal is make it available to everyone by our next product update, which should be happening towards the end of the month. If you want to try it now, you can sign up to join our Insider Program, and get access to the Insider Build. Keep in mind that once you become a member, you are under NDA and cannot sharing information publicly, with the exception of this particular project since it is already public knowledge. 

Click this link to sign-up and join: https://www.autodesk.com/campaigns/fusion-360/insider-program

Thank you to those you have who've expressed interested and have been testing it! Please continue to let us know about your experiences. 
___

 

November 23, 2022 Update

 

As you know we have been working closely with Apple on native support for Fusion on Apple Silicon Chipsets (i.e. M1 & M2). We are pleased to announce that we expect to achieve full native support by Summer of 2023.

 

As we have explained in this thread, the delay is a result of the need to ensure 100% compatibility between components from over 100 3rd party vendors including Autodesk.

 

If you want to access this functionality as soon as possible, please consider joining the Insider Program. If you have any questions on the topic please contact @Rajkumar.ilanchelian.

 

October 28, 2021 Update

Hey all, thanks again for the passionate discussion here. Even though we haven't chimed into this thread as much as we wanted, we are reading every single response and are actively working on getting Fusion to be natively supported on the new Apple chipset. Here's what I know from talking to the development teams: 
We are actively working on getting native support. This is still going to take some time because Fusion uses a multitude of services to work the way it does (Autodesk-owned as well as 3rd party) many of which are also not natively supported on M1 chipsets yet. We are collaborating closely with those teams to taking the necessary steps to ensure that the services we use are also natively supported. There is a lot of passion internally to get this done as well, so we definitely feel you. Again, I can't not say when this will happen, but as soon as we have something more concrete to share, we'll be sure to update you all. 

 

April 29, 2021 Update


We've been actively working on resolving the issues mentioned below and are glad to report that these issues no longer exist when running Fusion on the M1 chipset. We are also working closely with Apple and are in the process of certifying Fusion as 100% compatible running on M1 chipsets via Rosetta 2. 

In terms of running Fusion natively on the M1 chipset without Rosetta 2, we are still working towards this goal but is going to take some time to reach. We are confident to say that running Fusion on the M1 chipset via Rosetta 2 should be indistinguishable from running it on an Intel-based chipset, if not faster. 

If there are specific issues you've experience and are not mentioned below (strike-through items), please chime in and respond to this thread so we are aware and can look into it ASAP. Thank you for your continued support! 

 

___

 

Apple's original press release 

We are delighted to see Fusion being featured in the most recent Apple ARM-based M1 Macbook Pro announcement. Although Fusion isn’t natively compatible on Apple’s new M1 chipset architecture yet, Rosetta 2 should enable you to run Fusion*. We will be sure to keep you posted on our progress towards support of Apple’s new line of chipsets.   

 
   
* While much of Fusion 360 works as expected under Rosetta 2, we discovered that some Fusion 360 components were not yet compatible. If you run Fusion 360 using Rosetta 2, you may experience issues in these areas:  

·         Switching Team Hubs in the Data Panel  

·         Insert from McMaster-Carr  

·         Explore Generative Design and Electronics Cooling Simulation results  

·         ECAD Tool Libraries and Content Manager  

·         Local Simulation Solves utilizing NASTRAN  

 

If you rely on the impacted areas for your work, we recommend you to stay on Intel-based Macs until we have these issues sorted out.   


Keqing Song
Autodesk Fusion Community Manager
Portland, Oregon, USA

Become an Autodesk Fusion Insider



29 Likes
Reply
Accepted solutions (1)
201,936 Views
446 Replies
Replies (446)

mail
Participant
Participant

* worth mentioning that the (Electronic Design) Autorouter function is virtually unworkable on M1 (comparatively the same design will take 3mins to complete on a 2012 mac mini vs 30mins on an 2020 M1 mbp). 

0 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@mail thank you for your feedback! We will look into this.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
1 Like

oyvindTMNSU
Advocate
Advocate

Ok. So it doesn't have the performance boost like many other things on the new apple silicon? What do you think performance wise, M1 compared to a 2020 16" macbook pro Intel high spec, Regarding fusion 360?

0 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

I would base it off of your development stack. If I wanted to dual boot Windows/Linux and macOS, or use eGPUs, the x86-based Macbook Pro is going to be a much better experience for that due to current lack of support for those features with Apple silicon.

 

A brand new Mac purchased today is probably going to be supported for at least 4 years, given Apple's rate of development and OS support, but if you keep your devices longer than that, the M1 is probably going to be a better play for long term viability assuming ARM-based development and optimization ramps up while x86 dwindles. That is just my personal speculation, though.

 

What specific workflows or workspaces do you utilize most? eCAD, CAM, Generative, etc.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
1 Like

oyvindTMNSU
Advocate
Advocate

Ok. 

I will probably not keep it for more than 4 years since it's for professional use and I need it to be in the top performance wise. 

 

I'm using the CAD and Cam workspace most, but will soon be a frequent user of simulation as well. 

Truth is, I want to use all workspaces to build complete products 🙂

0 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@mail, I can certainly see a delay with this command. Would you be able to share the file in question?


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
0 Likes

mail
Participant
Participant

Sure, is there a way i can send file direct as opposed to posting on public forum?

 

I'll send a file I'm in the middle of laying out right now of which I did a comparison with no other apps open (100 x 80mm 2 layer board, 138 parts):

 

2012 macmini:  2mins

2020 MBP M1:  36mins

 

0 Likes

mail
Participant
Participant
* Just to clarify - this issue is not isolated to 1 file, it seems to occur on all files I've tested with the exception of a very simple board with under 5 parts.
0 Likes

rknall
Observer
Observer
When you do, also please take a look into DTKs no longer working. They used to work until the gold master of 11.0 came out


0 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@mail easiest way would probably be to either DM me the exported file and/or a link to it shared via your A360 drive (password protected, if you prefer). The comparison of durations is helpful, thank you for that.

 

@rknall the DTKs have never worked with Fusion 360, which is what inspired this post. The issues causing this were inherent to the hardware, and have been fixed in production M1 chips.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
0 Likes

centerline001
Explorer
Explorer

I am considering a Macbook Air M1 for my Fusion work, which consists of fairly simple assemblies of ten or so components and minimal rendering. Would the base (8GB RAM, 7 core GPU) be suitable for this work or would 16GB and/or the 8 core GPU be a worthwhile upgrade?

0 Likes

mnt_goat_76
Explorer
Explorer

Similarly, I'm looking to upgrade my hardware specifically for Fusion 360 to speed the toolpath calculations.

 

Sounds like the upcoming Apple M2 32-core processor (eventually 128 core?) might be worth waiting for, though it will force me to jump from Windows/ Intel.

 

Any thoughts on Apple's new 32+ core processors and your roadmap? Any testing you could share?

0 Likes

amcallister
Explorer
Explorer

Hi @keqingsong, what is the timeline for:

 

  • Full support of Fusion 360 on Rosetta 2
  • Availability of a Universal Binary for Fusion 360

We're planning for Fall 2021, and we want to advise Industrial Design students on purchasing appropriate hardware. At this point, I would be reluctant to advise incoming students to purchase an Apple M1 based laptop based on comments in this thread. 

 

Thanks,

Andrew.

4 Likes

kementze20
Observer
Observer

I am running fusion 360 (intel based with rosseta) on Macmini M1 16GB ram, (it doesn't runs fast in big projects with derived parts, too much time to update, not works professionally, I spend much more time for waiting.  

0 Likes

kementze20
Observer
Observer

I am running fusion 360 (intel based with rosseta) on Macmini M1 16GB ram, (it doesn't runs fast in big projects with derived parts, too much time to update, not works professionally, I spend much more time for waiting, some times has ram overload ( about 30gb) warning . Also, today i am drawing in fusion and sudenly Screen turned into blank green and Macmini restarted.

0 Likes

jamieothomas
Observer
Observer

hello there,

 

I have introduced fusion to my students and we are having amazing success with the software.

 

however, 1 of my students is not able to install/download/access the software on his mac.

 

the specs of his Mac are:

 

Version: 10.12.6

 
Processor: 2 GHz Intel Core i5
 
Memory: 8 GB 1867 MHz LPDDR3
 
I am not a Mac expert, but does anyone have any suggestions how I can get him up and running?
 
thank you in advance
 
Jamie

 

0 Likes

amcallister
Explorer
Explorer

System requirements for Autodesk Fusion 360 | Fusion 360 | Autodesk Knowledge Network

 

macOS 10.12 is not supported. High Sierra 10.13 is minimum. That is an ancient OS and they should try to upgrade to the newest OS their machine will support. @jamieothomas 

0 Likes

Berkamin
Participant
Participant

What's the latest news on M1 Mac support?

3 Likes

lance.carocci
Autodesk
Autodesk

@Berkamin, as far as I know, the experience is largely smooth and seamless via Rosetta 2. A Universal Binary is still the goal, and the migration of some of our development tools and dependencies to support Apple silicon is currently underway. We will provide updates as a native client begins to materialize.


Lance Carocci
Fusion QA for UI Framework/Cloud Workflows, and fervent cat enthusiast
0 Likes

oyvindTMNSU
Advocate
Advocate

Glad to hear that the plan is to make it native for new Mac's!!

Do you have an approximate time line? 

My current mac is too old now and I'm planning to buy the 16" macbook pro when its released. 

But I use fusion 360 at work every day, so I need it to work best possible

0 Likes