Experience with IMatch on Apple M3

[Rene Toepfer]

Hi,

I use an M3 Macbook Air (24 GiB RAM) since several months. Now I think about to install Parallels to run Win11 and IMatch on my Macbook.
Before I do the effort in installation and configuration Parallels, Windows and IMatch, has someone experience with a similar installation and wants to share them? How is the performance? Must something be considered?

[Mario]

As far as I know, Parallels cannot simulate an Intel/AMD compatible environment on M* Macs. And there is of course also no dual-boot anymore. Apple burned that bridge with their M* processors.
Or, maybe, Parallels has been changed to simulate an Intel/AMD processor architecture on M*, I don't really follow Apple's product outline.

[Jo]

Based on comment by @Mario I didn't expect this to work, but gave it a try anyway. The version of Windows 11 running under Parallels Desktop is Windows on Arm, which has got a Prism emulator to run x86 and x64 apps. So in theory IMatch *could* run on it.
In my test it didn't though. I've got Macbook Air M3 with 16GB of RAM. Windows seems to run fine and for instance Ultraedit (x64 version) seems to run ok. IMatch (unregistered version 2025) got installed, but didn't launch. No error message, but a couple of errors in event log, see below.
Based on this, I guess a native Windows on Arm laptop would be a no-go as well. An Intel/AMD is the hardware to run IMatch.

Error msg 1:
Faulting application name: IMatch2025x64.exe, version: 25.1.0.7, time stamp: 0x67a71913
Faulting module name: IMEngine6Ex64.dll, version: 25.1.0.7, time stamp: 0x67a71856
Exception code: 0xc000001d
Fault offset: 0x00000000000012b0
Faulting process id: 0xC50
Faulting application start time: 0x1DB7ADA00074266
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\photools.com\imatch6\IMatch2025x64.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files\photools.com\imatch6\IMEngine6Ex64.dll
Report Id: ed160cf4-dd15-4b40-ba79-476a4dd25cf7
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
-----
Error Msg 2:
Windows cannot access the file  for one of the following reasons: there is a problem with the network connection, the disk that the file is stored on, or the storage drivers installed on this computer; or the disk is missing. Windows closed the program photools.com IMatch because of this error.

Program: photools.com IMatch
File:

The error value is listed in the Additional Data section.
User Action
1. Open the file again. This situation might be a temporary problem that corrects itself when the program runs again.
2. If the file still cannot be accessed and
   - It is on the network, your network administrator should verify that there is not a problem with the network and that the server can be contacted.
   - It is on a removable disk, for example, a floppy disk or CD-ROM, verify that the disk is fully inserted into the computer.
3. Check and repair the file system by running CHKDSK. To run CHKDSK, click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click OK. At the command prompt, type CHKDSK /F, and then press ENTER.
4. If the problem persists, restore the file from a backup copy.
5. Determine whether other files on the same disk can be opened. If not, the disk might be damaged. If it is a hard disk, contact your administrator or computer hardware vendor for further assistance.

Additional Data
Error value: 0x0
Disk type: 0x0

[Mario]

Does the prism emulator support the AVX processor feature?

[ColinIM]

I'm watching this with great interest ... to put it mildly.

There's a thread on this Parallels forum relating to the AVX instruction extension(s) and Apple M* series silicon  ...

https://forum.parallels.com/threads/avx-avx2-instructions-directx-12.355989/

That thread was opened in 2021 and is still open for contributions.

The spokesperson for the parallels team has acknowledged that the AVX / x86 instruction extensions have not been emulated in parallels, and sadly - although understandably - they're unable to give any hints on whether it (AVX) will ever be emulated.

(I'm sure most of us accept that any 'emulation' in software of such a complex CPU hardware extension would run tortuously slowly, but - until we know more - or until we can someday test it in real life with IMatch (for example) - we can't judge how feasible emulation will be.)

[Mario]

The idea of AVX (and all it's successors) is to process matrices fast. Very fast. Intel/AMD implemented it for the past decade. Apple decided to implement their own matrix functions in their M* cores. No emulation layer exists yet, as far as I know.

The Intel/AMD layer on Windows 11 for ARM has AVX. I assume Microsoft and Qualcomm planned for that, since AVX is used by many advanced software products, from video processors to image editors to - IMatch

I'm not sure where Windows ARM is going. Intel/AMD have released new processor generations which match the Qualcomm CPUs in battery lifetime and performance more or less. They are a bit more expensive, but can run all Windows software written for the past decade. No compatibility issues, no emulation layers slowing down things etc...

[Rene Toepfer]

Thanks for your replies. It seems that it does not make sense to run Imatch on Parallels. If within Parallels another emulation must be used it sounds not very performant.