Windows ARM native support

[dperenic]

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, a 12-core Arm chip, has been making waves in terms of performance and efficiency. It's safe to say that the future of PCs will be (at least partially) ARM-based:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/copilot-plus-pcs

A native ARM build of Photo Mechanics on Windows that leverages all ARM CPU instructions and capabilities would improve speed of Photo Mechanics and thus user experience.

[cliffetzelphoto]

As I was just told by Kirk in my request for an iPadOS version of PM (Also ARM Instruction set), they don't have the resources to develop for the platform/hardware.

Personally, that response is a slow lingering decline and potential demise of the company.  I wish it were otherwise.

[Kirk Baker]

Cliff,

As I was just told by Kirk in my request for an iPadOS version of PM (Also ARM Instruction set), they don't have the resources to develop for the platform/hardware.

Building PM for Windows with an ARM processor isn't nearly as difficult as creating a bespoke iOS version of Photo Mechanic.  Rebuilding PM for ARM on Windows would be a much more doable task and within our abilities/resources.  We'll watch the market and see how it develops.

-Kirk

[David Maginnis]

I'm no techy expert, just a freelance sports photographer, but I'm contemplating upgrading my existing DELL XPS13 to one of the new DELL XPS 13 9345 with the snapdragon X -Elite processor to avail of the better battery life. 
Will my existing version of PMv6 still work on this new machine or is it not compatible with the new processor?

[ahoward]

I'm no techy expert, just a freelance sports photographer, but I'm contemplating upgrading my existing DELL XPS13 to one of the new DELL XPS 13 9345 with the snapdragon X -Elite processor to avail of the better battery life. 
Will my existing version of PMv6 still work on this new machine or is it not compatible with the new processor?

While we have not tested Photo Mechanic on any ARM-based Windows computers, we've received reports from several users of these computers that Photo Mechanic runs for them without a problem.

[rdungan@gmail.com]

I just upgraded to a machine with the 12-core snapdragon X, assuming no issues based on this thread. I'm experiencing serious performance delays while cropping. Any tuning suggestions that I can try?

[Kirk Baker]

I just upgraded to a machine with the 12-core snapdragon X, assuming no issues based on this thread. I'm experiencing serious performance delays while cropping. Any tuning suggestions that I can try?

Specifically, what part of cropping is having delayed performance?  While resizing the crop?  Rotating the crop?  Starting the crop?  Ending the crop?

-Kirk

[dperenic]

I’m finding PM 6.0 build 7285 to be stable on my Snapdragon system, but some tasks are very slow.

For example, with a folder of 256 Fuji RAW+HIF files, it takes about 30–60 seconds to render thumbnails in the Contact Sheet. While rendering, Task Manager shows all 12 CPU cores maxed out, but disk I/O from Photo Mechanic stays between 10-18 MB/s which well below the >1 GB/s capability of the SSD.

For comparison, I opened the same folder in Capture One’s Culling view (which also only renders the embedded JPEG from the RAW). It’s also an x64 app, but it generated all thumbnails in just 2–3 seconds.

If you are interested in investigating this performance gap, I’m happy to run additional performance or diagnostic tests and share the results.