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.   

[gennady.plyushchev]

Exactly the same: you workflow is wrong :). I am doing this professionally for over 20 years with different CAD systems, still my workflow is wrong :). I have Mac Air M1 16Gb: for most of the things: I click and wait, click and wait, and this waiting time adds up.

[philletourneau]

I'm now running Fusion360 on a 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro with 32 core GPU and 32GB memory. It's definitely faster than my 16" Intel, and I'm happy about that.

I haven't had any strange behaviours or crashes. I look forward to the day that Autodesk can ship a native Apple Silicon version, but for now my experience is okay.

[oyvindTMNSU]

How is it possible that people have so completely different experiences using fusion 360 on Mac m1 chips? Exactly same hardware, it should not be possible... ?

Some say it's useless and other that it's completely fine. Apple use it as an example on their launch off M1, as a software you can still without problems. It's so confusing.

How is the native support going? Still can't really understand why it can not be shared a timeline. I have read that there are other packages and so on that it not yet ready for native apple silicon. But I think it sound strange that it cant be given any timeline at all... ?

Im Just extremely ready and impatient for fusion to work perfectly on these new machines

[gennady.plyushchev]

For me it works, but it is painfully slow. As I wrote: you click and wait, almost every time. In my case Fusion eats almost 8Gb of Ram, even with not complicated designs. So I would recommend to run it on at least 16Gb Mac.

Unfortunately, Fusion is the single professional option for the CAD on Mac.

Absence of the timeline means that it is not going to be done in the next 12 months.

[qkarmark]

this topic is honestly not my expertise, but I want to say part of your troubles 'could' be the amount of RAM (er, not enough RAM). We took my friend's MSI laptop to get upgraded from 8GB to 32 GB: it didn't completely get rid of those horrid "(Not Responding)" messages, but it sure helped. The application now starts up faster, it has fewer lags when panning, rotating etc, and saving / opening files is quicker too.  

Obviously the more complex the model becomes then the harder the computer generally needs to work (don't quote me, but I think I read in these forums that VRAM / graphics cards are not terribly important with CAD applications, but rather raw processor speed, threads, cores etc and the amount of RAM.  )

[sgingras]

I just hope that people reading this thread realize that there is bugs with running fusion on Intel and Windows also. 
Not all weird behavior is de facto the fault of M1 chips. 
Have you gone through the common steps to identify the root of the problem?

[wkrp28]

You're right that Fusion has plenty of bugs and anomalies on all platforms - too many to be honest. However, while I can't speak for others, I have an Intel Mac and an M1 Mac so I can do direct comparisons on the same files, the same workflows, etc.

I can get Fusion work done on an M1 Mac, but it is clearly not what it should be. I continue to be amazed by the performance of even a 16GB M1 Air when running native apps from other vendors and look forward to the day when I'll be able to realize that potential with Fusion.

[TrippyLighting]

---

@oyvindTMNSU wrote:

How is it possible that people have so completely different experiences using fusion 360 on Mac m1 chips?

---

Because the problems that some folks have posted here in this thread are not specific to the new mac M1 chips.

They are rather general performance problems that also occur on any other mac or PC platfiorm.

It is foolish to assume that those would just disappear by using a new computer.

[oyvindTMNSU]

Thats a shame if it's not going to be done in the next 12 months... i think that it quite passive for such a big company as autodesk... if the general performance boost of these macs are for real.

[TrippyLighting]

Before posting such comments, please have the basic curtesy to read through the entire thread. Then make educated decision whether your post contributes anything of any value!

[BeauSlim]

I think some people take it the wrong way when someone asks about their workflow.  They are simply suggesting that you aren't using work-arounds for some Fusion360-specific limitations that can really hinder performance. 

For example, the "multiply faces not bodies" thing.  Sometimes this can be a huge pain in the butt to accomplish, and is more work than more intuitive ways of doing things, but it can reduce a recompute time from many minutes to almost zero time.  And oh-boy does creating a repeating pattern in a sketch and then extruding from that make Fusion unhappy. 

At least for me (a somewhat experienced non-pro), these were not obvious issues. 

[lightsnsiren797E3E3]

I posted a separate thread in this forum section about my problems, but they might be applicable to this topic as I'm using an M1 MacBook Air. Here is the link:

https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/fusion-360-support/fusion-dropping-model-parts-and-failing-calculatio...

Basically, once my models reach a certain level of complexity, especially with any kind of complicated filets or other mods, the model starts dragging and it will even drop parts of extrusions and fail calculations for different filets and edits. 

[Cap2020]

Just for your information.

M1 MAX MacBook Pro - Windows Developer REVIEW | Visual Studio, 3DS Max, Revit, Parallels...

[GFIMachining]

Any updates on this?

[rileyaT95SP]

I have found Fusion on M1 to be a whole lot more stable when I disable gesture-based navigation in preferences.

I then use an app called Middle to give me middle mouse for panning (need to turn on 3 finger drag in accessibility too).

It's really odd but I was having no end of crashes and freezes before I turned that setting off.

Fusion still runs terribly though and that's on a 16" M1 Max with 32GB!

[TrippyLighting]

@rileyaT95SP you need to provide more details when you make statements like "terribly rough".

Your experience is contrary to what I've heard from friends and also different from what most folks report in this thread.

How does your M1/Rosetta experience compare to prior macOS experience on Intel hardware?

[rileyaT95SP]

It's better than it was but then my old Mac was old.

When I say rough, for example, panning and rotating with the gesture navigation (2 fingers to pan, shift+2 fingers to rotate, pinch to zoom) runs at a very low frame rate. Maybe 10fps or lower. With gesture navigation turned off (2 finger clickdrag for rotate) or using a mouse, it runs at a much higher frame rate of 60+ fps.

When opening complex designs that run fine on my PC (i5 8-series, 32GB RAM) they will frequently crash Fusion 360 on the Mac when opened (beachball sits spinning forever). The whole experience is just kind of laggy when compared to running on my PC or even my Windows Laptop (Ryzen 5, 16GB RAM).

I guess my expectations might be higher than is reasonable due to the blistering performance of this Mac with absolutely every other workload I throw at it.

[TrippyLighting]

Great feedback!

I run Fusion 360 on a 2017)MacBook Pro and find trackpad navigation insufficient and slow for my work even on this hardware/software combo that had much more time to mature. I work a lot with lofting and surfaces and with the loft dialogue open Fusion 360 starts drawing the labels for the profiles and rails. That makes trackpad navigation completely useless as there is a several-second delay!

As such I only use the trackpad on rare occasions where I find myself without a mouse.

Are you able to share one of these laggy assemblies?  

[Cap2020]

Hi,

I will soon buy the MAC MAX GPU32.
My idea is to virtualize Fusion360 on windows with parallel desktop pro while waiting for Autodesk to switch to ARM...

[rileyaT95SP]

Don't. You can only virtualise Windows for Arm and Fusion runs utterly horribly on that because you are handing off the translation from the very efficient Rosetta 2 to the horrible Microsoft x86 emulation layer.