What I can confirm is that we will never test nor support such a configuration. Sorry.

Now that the entire Windows ecosystem (Microsoft Surface, Acer, Asus, Samsung, HP, Lenovo, Dell) has gone Windows on Arm, will RME release native drivers for Windows' ARM-64 CPU architecture? Or at least will RME ensure compatibility with the emulation layer? I hope RME will at least consider it! I have three RME interfaces (UFX+, UCX II, and Babyface Pro FS), and I would like to use them on my new system. I hope the answer isn't that I need to sell it all and buy an inferior interface!

Not to mention the OP wants to use the interface in a Windows virtual machine on Apple hardware (now that is a perversion), which is not supported and never will be.

I already have a Surface Pro 7+ with the i5, with 5G, which I used for more than 4 years now. It performs very poorly and was the bane of my existence. It was holding me back. I couldn't even use certain programs I need to use. For example, DaVinci Resolve for editing videos for YouTube or otherwise: it's a no-bueno on my 7+. Certain plugins would struggle on it. Sampling libraries would be unstable and use huge amounts of CPU and Memory. Useless. Sure my RME works, but not much else.

The whole point of these devices is that they should be portable. If I have to carry an x86 Surface Pro to run my audio interface (and nothing else really) and an ARM-64 Surface Pro to run everything else, this is not going to work. I don't think that would work for most people, actually.

Edit:
Come to think of it, I actually also used an AMD laptop with a Ryzen 5, where I dual booted Windows and Linux (I did software engineering for >2 decades and have experience with both OS's). Linux is already ARM-compatible, and Windows's first foray into things ARM was terrible, but now the Windows experience is a lot better.

I would have to say that the difference between ARM-64 and x86 is night and day. Much faster, much more battery efficient, I don't hear any fans, and much more stable. I don't plan to go back. Even Linus Torvalds uses Linux on an ARM-based device. DaVinci Resolve 19 works on the Surface Pro 11, Reaper, and so many other programs I use.

I've done my research. It looks like to me like ARM-64 is here to stay, especially on Windows. I can easily see a lot of companies getting left behind and going the way of the dinosaur, unfortunately.

I think it may be best for RME to at the very least just ensure that it works via the Windows emulation layer for compatibility, even if there aren't any current plans to create native drivers. The Prism emulation layer appears to work very seamlessly for every program I've tried. There are just a few programs that don't work, really.

I do believe there should eventually be drivers and a compatible TotalMix experience. As a Linux user I can expect to be a second-class citizen and have to use class compliant mode, etcetera. But part of the reason why I still dual-boot Windows beyond compatibility is that I know that all the top companies are going to give it flagship attention. I don't expect to have the same issues on the Windows side. When Apple made the move to ARM, same thing. I think ARM is here to stay, and I don't think Intel's Lunar Lake and its battery life promises are going to steer it back to x86, because these CPU's will still have the same problems ARM solves including the thermal performance.

Anyway, this is just my opinion: All my years of building computers, programming them, using them... I've learned that my desktops and laptops are essentially the same components. I recently built a Mini PC with a 13th Gen Intel i7 for a project, and there was very little meaningful performance differences between the Intel Core i7-13700 used on desktops and the Intel i7-1360 I used in the Mini PC. They both have 13th gen CPU's. The memory also only differs slightly. There's just less room for expansion, less room for thermals, and less application for a powerful GPU. The essential ingredients are very similar. Of course we can into the technical nitty-gritty and argue about SoC's and the proximity needs for the memory to be close to them, etc! But my basic point is that the performance gains between tech of the same generation are going to be very roughly on par, except faster compared to the generation of tech before it.

In the same way, there's little performance difference in my experience between the Surface Pro line and a desktop I might build. The meaningful differences are going to be the form factor (it's portable!) and I/O, really. The Surface Pro 11 on ARM is faster than a 13th gen CPU. After getting the device, I can immediately tell the difference.

I hear what you're saying. However, I would say that it's new, I would not not quite classify it as niche yet. If it was just the Microsoft Surface line that went ARM-64 like with the Surface Pro lines that had the SQ1, SQ2, and SQ3 processors, I would say niche. However, this time all the major non-Apple manufacturers have gone ARM-64. So anyone who buys a reasonably decent non-Chrome-OS new laptop or 2-in-1 today will be on an ARM-64 device. I focused on Intel because they have  roughly 80% of the x86 CPU market, and AMD only roughly 20%. Of course I rocked an AMD CPU for quite some time, and they have been quite friendly to the Linux and FOSS community, but they too are being left behind. However, OEMs got on the Snapdragon X Elite bandwagon because there's a projection that 60% of their PC sales will be from Snapdragon X-based systems within 3 years -- that's a lot! They anticipate 30% of the PC market will be ARM-based within 2 years. Apple Silicon is already at 8-10%.

Windows 11 users are still only 31.6% of the marketshare compared to 64.14% on Windows 10. Of course it has something to do with the new higher hardware requirements for having Windows 11 that it's only 1/3rd of the current users, yet the pro audio market already has Windows 11 compatibility covered, even RME. (But it doesn't quite mean that Win 11 would be classed as niche, for example: Windows in total has 71% of the desktop marketshare and OS X only 15%.) If we were to compare all OS's including Desktops and phones, Microsoft is only second at 25% of all devices with the lions share going to Android at 45%, iOS third at 18.4% and OS X a distant fourth place at only 5.53%!!! However, major companies in pro audio still jump hoops to have MacOS compatibility, including RME. We're not going to be running audio interfaces from our phones, but I think you can appreciate the overall point.

I know it's a numbers game, but in 1-2 years, I don't think Windows ARM-64 will be only a small percentage of the users; I'm pretty sure you're going to see a lot larger of a number of individuals using Windows ARM-64 devices. I think it would become pretty awkward to not offer ARM-64 support. You could say that the previous Microsoft attempt at ARM was bad, but this time it's very different from the SQ# CPU days. Windows 12 is being worked on, and when it releases sometime next year it looks like that may do also do another market squeeze and push everything even more so towards ARM, although it may still have x86 compatibility.

I'm pretty sure ARM will overtake its competition, the Snapdragon X line also being RISC processors, and I don't think AMD's offerings will surpass the transition that's already taken place towards Qualcomm's chips, but I agree with you -- only time will tell! I agree with your actions/sentiment, I actually wouldn't be using Windows at all if Linux was compatible with everything for certain things I currently need to do. It's what we've got, however. I hope RME will strongly consider adapting support to ARM-64! We will see

Well I had the time to sit down and test things out. Of my 3 RME audio interfaces I tested my RME Babyface Pro FS in compliance mode, and Windows doesn't recognize the device: there are two warning symbols in the Device Manager. The audio interface isn't at all detected by the OS or any programs.

I understand what you're saying Kubrik, and I do get it having done software engineering in the past, especially developing software with device development on Windows and running into walls with many hours debugging. Regardless I don't think it's a great strategy to wait 2 years to see if things pan out and then start supporting people, in my opinion! I believe RME will lose business from sincere people (like myself -- I'm considering selling my audio interfaces, and it's shame because I think RME is the best out there!).

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/windows- … n-windows/

It hasn't quite been two years but there was a lot of promising stuff announced at the Snapdragon Summit. At the very least there is reason to hope that Windows Arm machines will not completely fail for pro audio for much longer, and indeed are poised to get some features (such as in-box USB ASIO drivers) ahead of x86. Native DAWs are actually appearing.

Places such as Scan and DAWBench seem to be treating the news seriously.

Manufacturers such as Focusrite and Steinberg are preparing dedicated Windows Arm drivers and "other companies working on optimized Arm64 drivers for their audio products as well". Thoughts on these developments in general? Does it change RME's stance at all?

Then Babyface Pro and UCX II should have worked when set to CC mode - they do under Windows 10 and 11. The in-.box driver has issues and limitations though, especially with higher number (than 2...) channel interfaces, so the UFX+ not working at all is the same on x86 and ARM platform.

@Idimata: unclear and misleading statements are not appreciated. In Pete's blog you clearly state that you tried BF Pro, UCX II and UFX+ in CC mode on a Surface Pro 11, which has Snapdragon CPU and runs ARM64. If none of them work there in CC mode then it is not us that need to work on that.

It's no wonder that Windows 11 is so badly received.

Keyword hardware requirements: Virtualization-based security (VBS) is so poorly designed and costs so much performance that CPUs manufactured before 2017 can no longer be used. In any case, there have also been massive complaints from the gaming community, which, like the recording industry, needs optimal performance without the VBS slowdown.
It is completely unacceptable that systems are slowed down so much by poor design that hardware replacement is unavoidable, and even the newer systems do not achieve the performance they could deliver.

Basically, this is an environmental scandal beyond compare. Why do we have to dispose of so many systems worldwide for a safety feature that certainly does not create absolute safety, which will never exist?

Specifically, my situation: why should I throw my two Xeon E5-1650v4 and E5-1680v4 based systems for Windows 11 in the bin? The CPUs are so powerful that they can play 400 tracks with 800 VST without cracking and also play games like Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Library, Black Myth Wukong or X4 foundation in Full HD using RTX4070.

Furthermore, Windows 11 is a "permanent construction site". Too many things are changing. Among other things, Microsoft has also removed things that later had to be reinstalled after complaints from users, including too much back and forth in this area. I wonder why proven concepts were removed or changed at all.

Especially the new administration menus are also just a nuisance. Every so often you have to scroll back and forth so much because the menus are simply badly designed. Some fonts are too large, and the spacing is too high, or too much has been packed into one menu. My guess: that's what you get when you give developers 4k monitors. Nobody thinks about the people who still use full HD anymore, so that the hardware requirements for games don't increase immeasurably.

Finally. I also don't trust Windows 11 systems according to privacy. With every release of Windows, EULAs have been modified, in which Microsoft grants itself more and more rights.

Especially, the implementation of AI is particularly daunting. Windows 11 uses AI to continuously analyze screenshots, storing content locally for up to 3 months—ideally on an AI chip, otherwise on the CPU. Data like text inputs and usage patterns can be uploaded to the cloud, where it may be analyzed for personalized ads. According to the EULA, anonymous data may be shared with advertising partners, raising privacy concerns for many users.

Microsoft claims strong encryption and local storage for Windows 11 AI data, with optional cloud use and user control. However, it's unclear how consistently data remains local and whether anonymous data may be indirectly used for advertising purposes.

In short: all in all, I see nothing but disadvantages in terms of performance and data protection by switching to Windows 11. I tried Win11 for a while on a 2nd disk but removed it for the above-mentioned reasons.

VBS requires specific support in the CPU. This is like saying DirectX is poorly designed because without a discrete GPU, it's slower. VBS is another security measure to help protect your computer, and it's also in Windows 10. And, if you don't want to use it, you can turn it off. But most people who think they don't need it, should probably be using it. It's one of the only ways to protect against kernel-model malware.

For years, virus and malware authors had nearly free rein on Windows. It resulted in a bad reputation and annoying third-party subscription AV products that would tank PC performance. So Microsoft started putting into the OS a lot of security measures like this and they have helped. Meanwhile, infection rates in other operating systems and phones are going up and they're having to implement functionally similar approaches.

No. It doesn't. The screenshot bit is Recall, which is available only on Copilot+ PCs, and is off by default. It's not uploading to the cloud for analysis or used for ads or anything like that. It's so you can make a query like "What was that blue car I saw in a photo a month ago?" But, again, it's opt-in. The recent news stories about this don't understand what a provisioning/feature package is in Windows and how it may or may not relate to something actually running on the PC.

Anyway, this is a forum for RME products, and this thread is specifically about the Arm driver, not about opinions on an operating system.

Pete