Now Available - Native Apple Silicon Editor Preview Builds

[KevinWelton]

Hi all,

Unity has been hard at work over the last many months creating a version of the Editor that runs natively on macOS hardware using Apple silicon. We’re happy to announce that we have a preview available for early adopters!

The preview is based on recent 2021.2 builds. We appreciate and encourage feedback from our community, including beta testers, plugin authors and package authors. Please send us your questions and make good use of the Editor’s bug reporting feature. You can log bugs right in the Editor by selecting the “Help” menu, then selecting “Report a Bug”.

The Apple silicon Editor at this time can only be installed via standalone installers. Direct download links will be listed in this thread for each update. Additionally, for each release we will share a list of known issues.

We really appreciate our community and the passion of our users. We look forward to releasing a version of the Apple silicon Editor in the near future once we’ve resolved some remaining issues and feature gaps.

Thank you for your support! The first build will be published soon.

• The Unity Desktop Team

-------- Installation Instructions --------

Update: Please be aware that Rosetta is currently required. The Unity Editor process is fully native, but some auxiliary processes are still x86_64-based and require Rosetta to launch.

You can download Apple silicon editor from Unity 2021.2 beta page:

Once you’ve downloaded the Unity Editor package and any desired target support packages, you’ll see icons like this for each download:

The first package you install should be Unity.pkg. This installs the Editor. Once Unity.pkg is installed, you can install any other desired target support packages you downloaded previously.

You can install a package by double-clicking on the package icon. It’s possible that macOS may not be able to verify the package. If you see a dialog like the one below, you will need to override the verification check.

To override the verification check, context-click (right-click) the package and select “Open”.The verifier will run again, and now it will produce the same dialog as before, but with another option to open it:

Click the Open button and you should now be able to install Unity. The recommended install location is /Applications/Unity/

Licensing
The best way to activate your license is to install the Unity Hub and activate the license there.

Unity Hub
Starting with Unity Hub version 3, you can use the Hub to install Apple silicon builds. Make sure you select the release with the “Apple silicon” tag, not “Intel”!

[KevinWelton]

Apple silicon Editor preview 2021.2.0a19 is available to download!

This is a preview build and will have bugs. Please report new issues in the editor by clicking the “Help” menu and selecting “Report a Bug”.

Known Issues

The CPU lightmapper causes the Apple silicon mac editor to crash
Importing an .mp4 or .mov crashes the Apple silicon mac editor
Apple Silicon Editor - Moving Timeline clip causes visual glitches
[GPU PLM][M1] Editor freezes during GI bake on Apple Silicon machine when certain lightmapping settings are used
[M1][macOS] Artifacts in Game and Scene view after opening certain a project on Apple Silicon machine
Plugin inspector in the editor doesn’t allow selecting CPU architecture for editor plugins

• Workaround: Use universal binaries for native plugins

[iOS] Some files in WebGL and iOS support installers have changed permission from 2021.1.0a2

• Workaround for WebGL: sudo chmod +r /Applications/Unity/PlaybackEngines/WebGLSupport/BuildTools/lib/modules/* as well as sudo chmod +r /Applications/Unity/PlaybackEngines/WebGLSupport/BuildTools/lib/modules_development/*

• Workaround for iOS: sudo chmod +r /Applications/Unity/PlaybackEngines/iOSSupport/Trampoline/Libraries/*

Unity Editor and Build Target Download Links

Unity Editor for Apple silicon
Android Target Support
AppleTV Target Support
iOS Target Support
Linux IL2CPP Target Support
Linux Mono Target Support
Mac IL2CPP Target Support
WebGL Target Support
Windows Mono Target Support
Documentation

[unity_519452B456189A511DC8]

wow… much appreciated

[VideoTutorial]

For anyone wanting to use this without installing Hub (e.g. not wanting to install Rosetta 2), follow these instructions for activating your license Unity - Manual: Manual license activation

[VideoTutorial]

After installing the editor I clicked to create a new project - nothing happens!

[Phil_Z]

Hi @VideoTutorial I am one of the developers who ported the Editor. can you describe what happened? Did the editor crash? What type of project were you trying to create?

[VideoTutorial]

@Phil_Z

Hi @VideoTutorial I am one of the developers who ported the Editor. can you describe what happened? Did the editor crash? What type of project were you trying to create?

Thanks for getting back to me and for porting the Editor.

I installed Unity.pkg, activated the license manually, and when running it I get the option to Open a project or Create an empty one. I clicked to create an empty one, selected the location, and then nothing happens. I do see a project directory with Assets, Logs, and Temp directories though.

[Wolfos]

Seems stable from first impressions. Substance plugin is broken but that’s something Allegorithmic will have to fix. Otherwise it loaded my huge HDRP project just fine.

Loading the editor is twice as fast, code compilation is twice as fast. Opening most menus is instant and play-mode performance is increased by 15ms!

[KevinWelton]

@VideoTutorial , does the dialog stay there, or disappear? Is the Unity process running?

[VideoTutorial]

@KevinWelton

@VideoTutorial , does the dialog stay there, or disappear? Is the Unity process running?

Upon opening Unity:

After selecting “Create empty project” and Choosing a location the dialog disappears. Unity appears to still be running in the Dock:

and in Activity Monitor:

At the selected location:

I hope this helps. I’m looking forward to using this. I don’t have Rosetta 2 installed (nor do I want to install it) which is why I’m after this native editor!

[KevinWelton]

@VideoTutorial , unfortunately running Unity without Rosetta at all isn’t something we support, nor have we tested such a configuration. We don’t have any machines without Rosetta, and there are still portions of Unity that run in external processes that are still x86_64. Though we are planning to remove those over time so all processes launched by Unity are native.

I will update the thread to post Rosetta as a requirement as I wasn’t aware it could even be removed.

It would help us quite a bit if you could PM me your Editor.log file (found in ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Editor.log) as it’s possible this issue is not related to a non-Apple silicon process.

[aromana]

@Wolfos

Seems stable from first impressions. Substance plugin is broken but that’s something Allegorithmic will have to fix. Otherwise it loaded my huge HDRP project just fine.

Loading the editor is twice as fast, code compilation is twice as fast. Opening most menus is instant and play-mode performance is increased by 15ms!

Thanks for sharing your experience!

By play-mode performance is increased by 15ms, do you mean CPU time is reduced by 15ms per frame? Or did you mean something else?

Also, how are assembly reload times vs non-native? I’m stuck on an aging MacBook Pro and desperate for faster editor performance, seriously considering just picking up a Mac Mini now that there are native preview builds of both Unity Editor and Rider…

[marwanzaky]

I believe the compiler is way faster than the non-native m1 version, very impressive!

[DrewFitz]

YES! Kudos to the team!

[DrewFitz]

@DrewFitz

YES! Kudos to the team!

First build: 4x faster on both rebuilding the project and domain reload on my 13" MBP!

[VideoTutorial]

@KevinWelton

@VideoTutorial , unfortunately running Unity without Rosetta at all isn’t something we support, nor have we tested such a configuration. We don’t have any machines without Rosetta, and there are still portions of Unity that run in external processes that are still x86_64. Though we are planning to remove those over time so all processes launched by Unity are native.

I will update the thread to post Rosetta as a requirement as I wasn’t aware it could even be removed.

It would help us quite a bit if you could PM me your Editor.log file (found in ~/Library/Logs/Unity/Editor.log) as it’s possible this issue is not related to a non-Apple silicon process.

Ah, so it is just the Editor component which is native. It’s worth clarifying that Rosetta 2 isn’t something that is removed, it is something that is optionally installed. Apple Silicon devices do not come with it installed - you receive a prompt to install it upon trying to run binaries compiled for intel/osx.

[Wolfos]

@aromana

Thanks for sharing your experience!

By play-mode performance is increased by 15ms, do you mean CPU time is reduced by 15ms per frame? Or did you mean something else?

Oh I didn’t check that closely. My framerate went from averaging around 20 FPS to 32. This is likely CPU time gained, but I think the 32 is GPU bottlenecked so might be even more in some projects.

[bricefr]

After installing and linking the binary to the Hub, I create a new project but whatever project template I use (URP, 3D, …) Unity starts and then crashes complaining about a missing template in the binary package.

[RobertOne]

Nice! can someone run this script on an empty project and tell me what compile times you get?

using UnityEngine;using UnityEditor;using System.Collections;class Compi -...

• now you got a new editor window under Window: Compile Times. You need to open that Compile time window and leave it open, otherwise it wont work.

• Create a empty new c# script and hit enter. unity starts the compiling process. And now you should have in the console something like this: “Script compilation time:1.532s” - this is the thing I wanna see Do it a few times. at the first try the time can be 4-5 seconds. after 2 or 3 attempts you should have a constant value

[VideoTutorial]

Opening a project