On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:15 AM, Bill Roeding - W4BRZ wrote:
I use WFview and SDR Control, both very nice and preform well on my Macs. I use JS8Call with WFview and FT8 on SDR Control.
Bill;
Your response doesn't address the fundamental question you originally asked (restated here)...
>> How well do the
Windows-only VARA HF and/or VARA FM (CPU-intensive radio-modem) programs run?
on a M1 Mac?
This question can only be answered by Mac users who have actually used VARA HF and/or VARA FM on a Mac with a M1 CPU, on a "guest" Windows operating system, under a hypervisor such as Parallels, VMWare, or Virtualbox. I should have directed my previous comment to Tim KM4ESU and Glenn W5MTR, who, so far, are the only participants on this topic who actually appear to have done this. Erik OH2LAK also reported "
It works OK for me. I'm running the Windows11 VM provided with Parallels exactly on a M1 Mac Pro", but didn't respond to my question about whether he was actually able to make successful connections with other RMS gateway or P2P stations.
Tim said "I have run VARA on my M1 Mac and Windows 11 ARM64 as well as packet for winlink", which suggests he's referring particularly to VARA FM. He also went on to say "I have not tried VARA HF...". Glenn W5MTR said "
I was able to run VARA FM (and Packet) using VMWare and the Windows 11 ARM beta release. At home the contacts were fine..."Bill... while the JS8Call and FT8 apps you mentioned do a substantial amount of DSP (Digital Signal Processing), they are available as "native" Mac apps, which can be very effectively translated into efficient M1 code, by the "Rosetta 2" emulation system that is built into MacOS for M1 Macs. This avoids both the the overhead of operating a "guest" Windows OS under a hypervisor (i.e. Parallels or VMWare) and the "Just In Time" emulation of VARA HF/FM x86 code into M1 instructions, that must be performed by the MacOS.
For Windows-only CPU-intensive DSP (Digital Signal Processing) software, such as the VARA HF and VARA FM radio-modem programs, there may be a minimum level of M1 performance, and/or Windows VM configuration, that will support reliable operation of these programs. I thought it would be helpful for other participants to know what actual M1 Mac Tim Glen were using, and what the hypervisor (Parallel, VMWare) settings were for their "guest"?Windows 11 VM.
Mark - AD7EF
Mark Davis