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  • Vienna suite OK on Apple Silicon [Edit: Logic only]

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    The website says only Vienna Suite Pro is compatible with Apple Silicon, but my Suite is working just perfectly on MacMini Pro 2 with Sonoma 14.7.1.

    Wrong info on the website?


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    Is it a recent machine with one of Apples M-CPU's? Are you sure that you're using Vienna Suite in Apple Silicon native mode then, not "just" Rosetta?


    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • Yes, I did not mention the machine correctly. It is indeed a Mac mini M2 Pro. I have never at any instance installed Rosetta for any of my software.


  • I have verified things and it turns out that somehow (I do not know how this is possible) Rosetta was indeed installed on my machine. I certainly never took the initiative to install or gave consent at any time, or was asked at any time to install Rosetta. How can this be??


  • I'm no Mac-expert by any means, but isn't that just part of the OS? I'm under the impression that it's up to the user to decide whether an app runs in Rosetta or native, isn't it?


    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • Yes Dietz, that is what I thought too. The information I can find is that when you install an app that requires Rosetta you will be prompted. I copied the enclosed info from the support site of apple. Also because Vienna Suite is not an app, but a collection of plugins in various formats, in none of those plugin files do you see mentioned "Open using Rosetta". So I cannot even verify if the plugins from Vienna Suite run via Rosetta? I manually checked every app in the application folder and none has "Open with Rosetta" ticked, in particular not Logic. It's a mystery to me.

    Cheers, Bob


  • Most Host apps will not even see plugins that are not apple silicon ready. An exception to this is Logic Pro. It has a process called AUHostingCompatibilityService which allows loading non-Apple-Silicon plugins even when not running in Rosetta mode. My understanding is that this process is specific to Logic Pro as it uses proprietary APIs that are only available to Apple.

    So in the case you can run your non-apple silicon ready plugins without installing Rosetta but understand these plugins are basically running in a special rosetta-like process anyway and their performance is not optimized for apple silicon.


  • Thank you dbudde for your very informative reaction. I got Pluginfo from the App Store and could verify that indeed the Vienna plugins are non-native Apple but Intel 64. The mystery to me which remains is how and when did Rosetta get installed on my Mac? I have only got applications that are native and the info from Apple above seems to suggest that I should somehow have been prompted to install Rosetta when installing something non-native. I am absolutely sure I never got such a prompt. Are there instances where installation of Rosetta gets done automatically together with another installation? Is it because the only non-native stuff on my Mac are plugins and not apps?


  • @songman said:

    Thank you dbudde for your very informative reaction. I got Pluginfo from the App Store and could verify that indeed the Vienna plugins are non-native Apple but Intel 64. The mystery to me which remains is how and when did Rosetta get installed on my Mac? I have only got applications that are native and the info from Apple above seems to suggest that I should somehow have been prompted to install Rosetta when installing something non-native. I am absolutely sure I never got such a prompt. Are there instances where installation of Rosetta gets done automatically together with another installation? Is it because the only non-native stuff on my Mac are plugins and not apps?

    So which host app are you running? If Logic, then you don't need Rosetta installed nor do you need to check run in Rosetta mode in the app inspector. It will work with both Intel only plugins and Apple silicon ready plugins. You can check to see if the process called AUHostingCompatibilityService is running in Activity monitor. This is the only way those plugins will work unless you've checked run in Rosetta mode in the app inspector.


  • I am running Logic 11.1, the AUHostingCompatibilityServce is running and I have nowhere ticked any Rosetta. Plugins don't have that possibility anyway.


  • @songman said:

    I am running Logic 11.1, the AUHostingCompatibilityServce is running and I have nowhere ticked any Rosetta. Plugins don't have that possibility anyway.

    Right. It's the host app that has the option to use Rosetta or not. At any rate this is working as I would expect it to. You don't need Rosetta for Logic. If you have any other host apps you will see that you need to check the "Open using Rosetta" option for it to see/use the Vienna suite plugins. And those other host apps will require you to install Rosetta if you have the Open using Rosetta option enabled.


  • @songman ... I'll change the thread's topic accordingly to the recent findings. 😊


    /Dietz - Vienna Symphonic Library
  • OK great Dietz!


  • I was playing around with uninstalling Rosetta to see what apps that claim Apple Silicon compatible, but really aren't yet. Most of the problems I ran into were things you need to run once and then rarely ever again. Like for instance, the VI Directory Manager is still Intel only. Also, most 3rd party App installers don't work without Rosetta. This includes Vienna Assistant. So even though VA is Universal, when you go to install Vienna software the installers require Rosetta. This is likely when you enabled Rosetta and just forgot about it.

    Most third party software installers that I use have this issue. When I searched why this is happening, several developers pointed out that there is a switch in the installer that needs to be set so that the installer will run in ARM64 mode. I haven't verified this, but it makes sense that this would be an issue if the installer defaults to x86 mode.


  • This article provides some background and requirements for platform installation on macOS.