Mac Mini m1 UltraStudio Mini issued?

[Nicolas Hanson]

Is there any issues with using the UltraStudio Mini to connect audio and a monitor to the new Mac Mini m1? 

[Mazze]

Drivers for Apple Silicon are beta - for a reason I guess.

I'd expect them to run, but the devil with those things is always in the details, that show up not working just when you need them.

[Bruno Mansi]

I did hear that you can't attach external GPUs  (eg. the Blackmagic eGPU ) to the M1,  so this may have implications for professional colourists. Don't know if this applies to any other external PCIE cards you might want to use. I can imagine that for those involved in music production, the M1 may be problematic as they often have a lot of legacy hardware hanging off their machines.

There's no doubt that these machines are going to be great for home use and occasional light work, but I can't see them replacing  (say) the Mac Pro  for professional use. Whether we'll ever see a M-chipped Mac Pro is another matter.

And of course, they're still continuing this trend of having nothing replaceable/upgradable, so they really are disposable when something goes seriously wrong with them.

Maybe we are reaching a point of the end of actual ownership of domestic computer products.  Just as many are switching over to car leasing as a more convenient way of having a motor vehicle (especially for electric cars),  there's no reason I can think of why it wouldn't work for home computers. With everything backed up in the cloud, if your laptop breaks or you suddenly want a more powerful model, your leasing agreement should be able to accommodate your wishes.

[Mazze]

I'm farily relaxed on the CPU-side of things. After all - how often do you swap out your CPUs?
Normally that goes along with a change of socket for the newer CPU, requiring a new mainboard, likely requiring new memory - and while you're at it, throw in a new GPU as well. So with a CPU upgrade, you're most likely investing into a complete new system anyways.
Not always, sure - but most of the time.

As long as the MacPro would allow to swap GPUs, which have smaller life/upgrade circles, and retains it's PCIe-upgradeability, I think we're fine. Whether M1 in laptops might be sufficient for professional work needs to be seen. I'm counting on the 16" Macbook Pro to be released later this year. It will have a more advanced version of the M1, and according to some strong rumours will reintroduce Magsafe, physical function keys instead of that silly touchbar and also have more i/o ports. Given the rather positive benchmarks on the M1 Mac Mini, I do have some hopes for the Macbook Pro to be pretty usable for professional workflows.

Whether it can also drive an eGPU needs to be seen, indeed. But then again... I've never been a fan of those christmas trees of a a mobile setup with all sorts of eGPU compromises trying to turn those laptops into high end machines. I'm not expecting Mac Pro-like performance out of a laptop.

[Bruno Mansi]

18 minutes ago, Mazze said:

Whether it can also drive an eGPU needs to be seen, indeed. But then again... I've never been a fan of those christmas trees of a a mobile setup with all sorts of eGPU compromises trying to turn those laptops into high end machines. I'm not expecting Mac Pro-like performance out of a laptop.

I think this is a very sensible approach. I guess the desire to try to get workstation-like performance out of a laptop is also fuelled by the fact that we're being forced into working remotely. We want the same experience at home as we get  at our office/facility without having to lug all that equipment home and annoy one's partner!

 

23 minutes ago, Mazze said:

Given the rather positive benchmarks on the M1 Mac Mini, I do have some hopes for the Macbook Pro to be pretty usable for professional workflows.

I did see that on Barefeats.com, they did some tests on storage speed between M1 and Intel Macs and their conclusion was... 'The M1 MacBook Pro's READ speed was slower than the 2020 MacBook Pro 13" but the WRITE speed was slightly faster.'

So, not everything is necessarily faster.  If disk throughput is important for your work, the M1s might not be the best option.  

At the end of the day, this is an ever-changing scenario. I've been reading that due to AMD and Apple's success with their chipsets, Intel are going to be introducing hybrid 12th generation CPUs, which look like being competitive performance-wise with Ryzen and M1.

[Luca Di Gioacchino]

I purchased the M1 Mac Mini and UltraStudio Monitor 3G and Resolve Studio (v 17) does not  pick it up.

[Nicolas Hanson]

7 hours ago, Luca Di Gioacchino said:

I purchased the M1 Mac Mini and UltraStudio Monitor 3G and Resolve Studio (v 17) does not  pick it up.

Download Desktop Video and if it's not visible there, you need to boot the Mac Mini  M1 and reduce the security.

1. Apple menu/ Shut Down.
2. Press and hold the power button until you see “Loading startup options”.
3. Click Options, then Continue.
4. Reduce the Security 

Now, Desktop Video will recognise your Ultrastudio.

[Luca Di Gioacchino]

Thanks, but I think I will wait until there is an official fix for this.   BTW - will this resolve the issue with OWC SoftRAIDs not being recognized by the M1 running Big Sur 11.2?  Right now, the only fix this is to revert back to 11.1.

Edited April 19, 2021 by Luca Di Gioacchino