Any updates?

Hello all. 

I’ve sent the below to Joel but thought i’d post it here in case anyone else sees this thread.

We have confirmed the final Windows 11 release and softkey licenses work fine with OpticStudio 21.3. As for Apple machines: Since they are not an officially supported platform, we don't often test the Apple platform in house and so don't have any recent Apple hardware compatible with Windows 11.

I do anticipate that Intel CPU based Apple machines will work fine as they did before with Parallels or other virtualization software. For those with Apple machines using the M1 CPU’s, you would have to try Windows 11 ARM edition to see if things work as expected. Note that you would need to use the Final release, not an “insider preview” of Windows 11 since Zemax licensing doesn’t support preview editions of WIndows.

Microsoft officially isn’t supporting Windows 11 on Apple M1 machines - https://www.tomsguide.com/news/microsoft-confirms-that-windows-11-wont-support-apples-m1-macs .That being said it may still work (and Parallels has info on this as well), but it’s unlikely that any issues you have will have ready fixe especially from Microsoft. 

Please let us know if you try an M1 machine and if both Windows 11 and Opticstudio work for you.

Hi,

I am fully aware that Windows 11 ARM is the only true option for virtual machines on the M1 Macs. As of today, QEMU is the only solution offering emulation of Windows 10/11 x86, but I tested it to be too slow to be used with Zemax.

That said, Zemax installs fine on Windows 11 ARM. Yet, Zemax uses the Thales Sentinel licensing system, which is blocking its HASP driver on Insider Previews. I would like to understand whether the following would work:

• Download the latest HASP drivers for macOS from the official Thales website and install them on the M1 Mac. That would create a local licensing webserver at localhost:1947
• Patch localhost:1947 to the guest VM (be it with Parallels, UTM or other virtualisation solution). Now any calls to localhost:1947 from inside the VM should be redirected to the licensing webserver in macOS. Tutorial

The question is: if I then ran the Zemax installation in the guest VM, would it load the licensing system on this already existing webserver on the macOS host? If not, would there be a way to make it do so?

@Miloth That is an interesting idea for a workaround! It would only be useful to help Opticstudio use a network license though; there is no way to activate a Zemax license on OS/X directly. I have no way to test if this will work though. Let us know how it goes! 

Just an update - The sentinel licensing still isn’t compatible with ARM versions of Windows, they may have something next year. I don’t know if opticstudio itself will work as it has its own compatibility issues on ARM. I have also updated the offical Zemax article on Apple support here which reflects the current state of things. 

 https://support.zemax.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500005486721-How-to-run-OpticStudio-on-an-Intel-based-Mac-computer

Hi @Don Dickinson,

I can confirm that what I described in the post above works for network licenses. You just need to patch the keyserver 1947 port both on the VM and the host after installing HASP on the macOS host.

The only thing that does not work is checking out licenses or any interaction with the licensing driver that uses the Sentinel command line commands.

Hi

I wonder if anybody knows if the new Ansys version works on M1 computers with VM. It has a different license manager than Sentinel

Thanks

Roei

It seems that Microsoft now supports official Windows 11 license on Parallels. Can you test Zemax on Parallels for M1 Macs again, Don?

I really hope there’s a way to take Zemax around with my MacBook (currently installed Zemax student version on a home PC and used it with TeamViewer), so I could share my designs with my colleagues when the internet is not working too well.

Hi Everyone,

Has there been any update to the Zemax software that allows us to run it on Mac?

I’m eager to hear more!

Thanks,
Ashok

Hi Ashok

My personal experience is that Zemax is running on Windows 11 installed using Parallels VM, although there are several bugs and it runs significantly slower. I don’t know if there’s official support for this type of installation 

Thank you, @rremez , for the information.

The slower performance could be due to using a virtual machine? Which might not be fully utilizing the Mac's hardware. If that's the case, I don’t think we’ll be able to perform very intensive optimization and tolerancing tasks.

I’ve read the previous posts, which are 1-2 years old, and I was hoping there might be some updates that would allow us to run it on Mac (M1/M2/M3 chips).

Thanks,

Ashok

Hi all,

Just to recap my experience:  from 2015 to 2020 I ran Zemax on my Intel-processor based Mac using Parallels’ VM.  It worked fine.  In 2020 I traded my older Mac to a new, M1-processor based Mac, and to my great disappointment, could not anymore run Zemax even under Parallels’ VM.  I corresponded with Zemax Support from 2020 through January 2023.  We made some progress identifying why it did not run, but there was no horizon for fixing these issues.  Consequently, I stopped chasing windmills, and let both my Zemax and Parallels subscriptions lapse.  I have since run Zemax from the server of the college where I teach, through VDI.  In other words, my Mac is more or less just a terminal.

I don’t believe that ANSYS (the current owner of Zemax) is interested in pursuing this.  So my advice is - don’t waste your time, energy and money trying to get Zemax run on an M1 (and higher) Mac.

Joel

Hi Joel, I think you’re correct but are being a little unfair to Zemax. OpticStudio ran fine on Macs under parallels when Macs used x86 Intel chips, just like Windows machines. It runs fine on Linux using Parallels on x86 machines.

The M1 series is an entirely different processor. You would have to write a version specifically for it. 

Don’t waste your time trying to get OS to run on hardware nobody ever said it would run on. That’s precisely why they define the System Specifications needed 

Hi Mark,  I am sorry if gave the impression that I am blaming Zemax.  That was not my intention.  I understand fully well that M1 Mac is a completely different beast than the Intel-based one.  I also understands that M1 Mac is a small niche market.  I guess I was hopeful that, if the first hurdles (the License Manager, for example) could be overcome, it might be easy to get the whole thing run.  I also must say here that Don Dickinson from Zemax patiently tried to help me in my quest for “Zemax on M1 Mac,” and also equally patiently help me see why it wouldn’t fly.  As I said, I realized that I was chasing windmills.

So, Zemax OpticStudio is a great platform and I have found a way to run it using my Mac as the terminal.

All the best, Joel

Two other things to consider:

• The M1 chip is over 4 years old and the new M4 chips are 56% faster with common benchmarks
• Windows 11 is much more optimized than Windows 10 (or lower) to run an ARM64 emulation.

What I would be curious about is if anyone has any feedback on running OpticStudio on the Snapdragon X Elite chip?  This is ARM based, Windows 11 and seems to be what the next few generations of laptops will have until Intel can come up with a solution.  So if OpticStudio works on Snapdragon X Elite, then it should work on Bootcamp for M4 with Windows 11 (Parallels adds an extra emulation layer).

Hello all! 

I can share a bit of an update. Ansys is still not developing an ARM / Apple MX specific version, but I think the compatibility of X64 applications under Windowes ARM has gotten better. Anecdotal evidence from customers in the last few years is that the Ansys versions of OpticStudio works under Windows 11 ARM on Mac MX machines lately.  Of course mileage may vary, and we cannot guarantee it. 

However, note the legacy Zemax OpticStudio and Zemax license manager is no longer being produced as of Jan 2024, and I have not heard that it ever fully worked on Windows ARM, primarily because of Thales Sentinel licensing issues and the Zemax license manager app not starting.