Kubrak wrote:Exactly MC! Latest WinOnARM trial, the third one, is as succesfull as the previous two. And x86 (at least by AMD) may deliver the same power efficiency as ARM without any compatibility issues on Win.... So, why anybody wants ARM on Win is beyond my comprehension capabilities.
Trials to push ARM to Win seems to be like trials to manufacture round square.
@idimata MS Surface 7 Pro (i5) runs with RME interfaces just great. It is passively cooled and one may get one secondhand for about 400 EUR. (Later models or i7 models are not passively cooled.) Even better is MS Surface 7+ Pro that has easily replacable SSD and i5 version is still passively cooled. Also it is last Surface that has classical CPU and not big.little....
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.