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

[keqingsong]

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. 
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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! 

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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.   

[albertson.chris]

Apple Silicon native Fusion 360 was just released to those who are members of Autodesk’s “Insider’s” program. Basically this means M1/M2 native Fusion is in an invite-only Beta test. My experience with this is that it is faster but I still see some of the same quirks. I have not seen a full-on crash yet but I’ve not used if much yet either.

Autodesk seems to be using “QT” for the GUI library. If the Mac version of QT has bugs, those bugs would be present on both the native and Rosetta versions of Fusion 360.

My first-hour impression is that things that were slow are not slow now. But still, Autodesk is using a multi-platform layer so the result is not comparable to a true-native app that is written in Swift and uses the “metal” API, like Final Cut Pro or Pixelmator

To tell the truth, I write software too and I doubt I’ll ever write something that is very tied to Apple-only APIs. I typically write on Linux and if it also happens to work in a Mac, that is an added plus.

My use for Fusion is robotics. I design the mechanics using Fusion and the software in Linux.

[smjEX9KK]

I've found the Apple Silicon / ARM beta _so_, _so_ much better.

On my 2021 Macbook Pro M1 Pro (16GB) it actually almost feels snappy and the hourly crashing that I had seems to have gone (yet to use it in anger though).

Starting and closing the app is still incredibly slow, it can take up to 3 minutes just to start without opening a project, but once it's running it's a lot better.

Tasks that used to peg one CPU core to 100% now seem to sit around 40%.

Memory usage remains high at around 3GB without any projects open.

I use fusion for designing 3D printing objects.

[j_borD8QNR]

HI, 

So I am in insider program how do i get this beta version ?? 

cheers 

[smjEX9KK]

https://feedback.autodesk.com/key/Fusion360Insider

[The.Broken.Engineer]

Yes, if you are an insider member then you get early access to new versions _before_ it releases. 

Important notes:

1) You have to agree to a NDA

2) Send them bug reports if you notice any problems, remember beta is still test software so expect problems and report them when found.

Don't let point 2 scare you away however; the software is very stable by the beta stage which means it is very useable. I have been testing the insider release for about 16 hours now for the latest release (that may or may not be the Apple silicon release - am not disclosing what this release is so as not the break the NDA as per point 1) and have only found one issue and it is not a show stopper. 

Hope this helps,

Ta,

./M

[The.Broken.Engineer]

Insiders is not invite only, you apply to be part of the program then you go through an easy approval process. So why waste time, apply today!

[keqingsong]

Just updated the original post. Really appreciate everyone's comments and sharing their experience with it so far, keep em coming! 

[alannguyen]

It's such a minor thing, but yet one of the most annoying thing is when the UI begins leaking and overlapping on top of other applications I have in focus when fusion is hidden or supposed to be behind something. I wish they'd fix that, I don't believe I'm the only one, and I've been led to believe by someone from autodeks that it's just a thing to accept. It's too bad Mac's aren't considered real engineering machines, with Apple Silicon hopefully one day.......

[florian.dester]

Agree. Same thing on my 2 Macs. Quite annoying as you already said. Fingers crossed

[hijazh]

This is such an infuriating bug! As you say, it's minor in the grand scheme of things but it's been an issue for as long as I can remember.

[brandonXNQ6E]

+1

This is the only reason I cannot use Full Screen mode, it's very annoying.

[j_borD8QNR]

Great, thanks for that, ive got this „insider version” and its much much much much better really goood, im programming Injection molds so i got loooooots of surfaces to generate and its fast „ for now i hope XD”as Windows version 

cheers 

[FrodoLoggins]

"With our latest July 2023 product update right around the corner, we’re excited to announce that you’ll soon be able to run Fusion 360 natively on Apple silicon computers... However, some individual processes and back-end services still temporarily require Rosetta 2 to be installed for Fusion 360 to run."

How long is temporary?

"This should not impact the performance of how Fusion 360 runs on your machine."

Fingers crossed.

[15mre]

Performance has been much better overall in the responsiveness of graphics. I was very close to building a gaming PC as Manufacture 5-axis Machine Simulation was almost unusable prior. The update has put that off for some time. Thanks!

[siltronic]

Hello, has anyone a benchmark between Intel MAC and M2 PRO (or other mac silicon) with this new fusion 360 version ? Thanks you !

[FrodoLoggins]

Any idea on when Fusion will be 100% native? I remember the original blog post mentioning some parts of Fusion still require Rosetta 2 or something.

[qkarmark]

agreed, mine has done that all the time, even after the update. it is frustrating!

[FrodoLoggins]

When will Fusion fully support Apple silicon?

[dr_frag]

Would be nice to have Fusion 100% native on AS. I notice several slowdowns and screen redraw issues still remain in the Insider build 4 months after the main application became a universal app. This is on my M2 Pro (upgraded 12-core CPU) Mac mini with 32GB system RAM.

[albertson.chris]

Yes, I am running Fusion 360 on an Apple M2 Mac every day. It works well and is fast enough. HOWEVER, it is obviously using some kind of graphic library and not directly using the Mac APIs. So it is not nearly as good as a “real” native Mac app. There are also some graphic artifacts and crashes, but not worse than I saw on the Windows version. Still, it works well enough. Some of my models have hundreds of parts with fasteners and modeled threads. Robotic projects with a dozen motors modeled to include ball bearings and fasteners and parametric gears are completely “do able” in Fusion on Mac. This was in the past completely impossible.