Mac Specifications

[trillbilly]

I'm under the impression that in order for VSTs to be compatible with either Mac or Windows, it must be exported from HISE on that OS.

Is this correct?

My current computer is a New Windows and HISE works great. For Mac, I'm looking to get a refurbished model. Most of what I find on Amazon are early 2015 models for a relatively good price.

Does the year/model matter for Mac/HISE compatibility?

Does the version of OS matter?

Can anybody recommend minimum MacBook requirements to run HISE?

[Matt_SF]

@trillbilly IIRC Christoph advised to use Mojave

[trillbilly]

@Matt_SF cool, thanks! I take it user the older MacOS doesn't affect VST performance on newer OS?

[DanH]

@trillbilly the only problem you will have (currently) is compatibility with M1 - search the forum there is lot of info on this. Otherwise Mojave (compiled plugins) should work with all current versions of osx.

[ustk]

@trillbilly The requirement to run Hise isn't high. But be aware that a 2015 mac might be or is already deprecated for the newest OS. Both of my macs (2013 and 2011) are deprecated for a Big Sur (and so for Monterey) so I'm now stuck with Catalina despite they are running very well and far from being outdated. Yeah, welcome to Apple's world...

This means releasing plugins might lead to issues later. For now, you can export from a previous OS version and it works on the last ones. But what will the future be I don't know. I know that I don't want a mac that risks being incompatible for future plugin releases. I would prefer to keep my powerful iMac for working on projects and buy a small but recent machine at least to test and/or export if not to work with it.

As for the resources, I guess that any recent machine will allow you to comfortably work with Hise, but it depends on the projects of course.

[d.healey]

I use a 2018 Mac Mini running Big Sur.

BTW I've compiled successfully in both Windows and GNU/Linux virtual machines. I haven't tried with a virtual Mac but if you can get it running I think it should work.

[ulrik]

@d-healey what windows emulator do you use? and in what os, macOS or linux?

[d.healey]

@ulrik VirtualBox - https://www.virtualbox.org/ - I'm using this in Big Sur but I also tested it with Mojave a couple of years ago. It should also work in Windows and I've used it on GNU/Linux but haven't tested compiling there.

[ustk]

@d-healey I definitely should use a VM instead of a too annoying dual boot...

[d.healey]

@ustk said in Mac Specifications:

I definitely should use a VM instead of a too annoying dual boot...

I was triple booting my previous Mac Mini but the new one only has a tiny unchangable ssd (128GB!) so I decided to go for bootcamp for Windows on an external drive and a virtual machine for GNU/Linux. But I think I'm going to move Windows into a VM too because it's a hassle to reboot the Mac and hold down ALT and hope that it decides to let me switch to Windows.