Ableton Live 12 on Windows ARM

[Kannan.Balasubramanian]

I'm currently using a Windows x64 based machine for my full production.

With manufacturers launching ARM based Windows machines in the coming months, is there a possibility for Ableton Live to be compatible with these machines?
I'm especially looking at Windows ARM based tablets where I can do quick sketches when I get an idea.

Does anyone have any idea?
I have not seen much information about Ableton Live on Surface Pro X as well.

[nullwerk]

I have a windows dev kit with a snapdragon processor in it, running the latest insider build of Windows 11 24H2.

I can confirm Ableton does not run on Windows-on-ARM at all. The application simply crashes at launch.

[jonljacobi]

I did manage to get it to run using Parallels on the Mac Studio. But the x86 emulation done by Windows ARM is so slow, it's basically useless for CPU-intensive programs like DAWs, video editors, etc. If X Elite supports the little endian addressing mode (x86) that Apple Silicon features, then you might at some point get decent x86 emulation on Windows ARM. But Microsoft will have to program it in first.

So for now, no. But maybe for the future.

I wrote an article about Windows on M1 Macs that explains some of this in greater detail.

https://www.macworld.com/article/331825 ... works.html

[nullwerk]

I did manage to get it to run using Parallels on the Mac Studio. But the x86 emulation done by Windows ARM is so slow, it's basically useless for CPU-intensive programs like DAWs, video editors, etc. If X Elite supports the little endian addressing mode (x86) that Apple Silicon features, then you might at some point get decent x86 emulation on Windows ARM. But Microsoft will have to program it in first.

So for now, no. But maybe for the future.

I wrote an article about Windows on M1 Macs that explains some of this in greater detail.

https://www.macworld.com/article/331825 ... works.html

Just a note: you ran this test 3 years ago? You need Windows 11 24h2 for the latest emulation layer (prism) to actually test this level of compatibility. Considering this was just released to the insider builds, you might want to consider revisiting this.

[Rivanni]

Just a note: you ran this test 3 years ago? You need Windows 11 24h2 for the latest emulation layer (prism) to actually test this level of compatibility.

If you run it on a last-gen ARM Surface laptop, yes.
If you run Windows ARM in a virtual Windows machine on Apple Silicon (as jonljacobi described), you don't. This has worked for years but performs poorly.
But these are two completely different scenarios, and you cannot compare the emulation in Parallels with that of Prism.

Since there is no Windows ARM version of Live, it will run under Prism. I assume and hope this emulation performs way better than the one in Parallels.

[nullwerk]

Just a note: you ran this test 3 years ago? You need Windows 11 24h2 for the latest emulation layer (prism) to actually test this level of compatibility.

If you run it on a last-gen ARM Surface laptop, yes.
If you run Windows ARM in a virtual Windows machine on Apple Silicon (as jonljacobi described), you don't. This has worked for years but performs poorly.
But these are two completely different scenarios, and you cannot compare the emulation in Parallels with that of Prism.

Since there is no Windows ARM version of Live, it will run under Prism. I assume and hope this emulation performs way better than the one in Parallels.

Per my reply above: It doesn't run on Windows 11 with snapdragon chipsets at all. Nothing.

But I was curious about the actual Parrells performance under the latest Win11 build, not necessarily a comparison between the two.

[jonljacobi]

Thanks for the info. It was three years ago with whatever version or WFA was available, and not directly comparable. I'll have to revisit. I have no X Elite and have no plans to get one, but I was looking at the Signal65 emulation results, and they seem to be quite good for x86.

But the main takeaway I meant to present is that Apple Silicon has a little-endian addressing mode (macOS is big endian) which eliminates the byte-swapping that must be done by the emulation layer if it's not present.

However, just reading another article, it claimed that ARM is bi-endian and can use either mode so maybe the Apple guys just took better advantage of this.

When you say Live doesn't run, do you get a message of some sort? Does it just die trying to boot?

[jonljacobi]

deleted

[nullwerk]

Thanks for the info. It was three years ago with whatever version or WFA was available, and not directly comparable. I'll have to revisit. I have no X Elite and have no plans to get one, but I was looking at the Signal65 emulation results, and they seem to be quite good for x86.

But the main takeaway I meant to present is that Apple Silicon has a little-endian addressing mode (macOS is big endian) which eliminates the byte-swapping that must be done by the emulation layer if it's not present.

However, just reading another article, it claimed that ARM is bi-endian and can use either mode so maybe the Apple guys just took better advantage of this.

When you say Live doesn't run, do you get a message of some sort? Does it just die trying to boot?

Crashes at launch, no message appears.
Logs Event ID 1000 in the application log.
Faulting application name: Ableton Live 12 Suite.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x66163aa1
Faulting module name: Ableton Live 12 Suite.exe, version: 1.0.0.1, time stamp: 0x66163aa1
Exception code: 0xc000001d
Fault offset: 0x000000000407b9c1
Faulting process id: 0x283C
Faulting application start time: 0x1DAB6C8A7158C90
Faulting application path: C:\ProgramData\Ableton\Live 12 Suite\Program\Ableton Live 12 Suite.exe
Faulting module path: C:\ProgramData\Ableton\Live 12 Suite\Program\Ableton Live 12 Suite.exe
Report Id: caa9721a-aea6-4efb-bbfd-c7f3dd5f88da
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

That said, I had a brief interaction from an MS team member on social media that confirmed my suspicions. They state that ARM64 audio interface driver compatibility and DAW compatibility is a "corner case".
So, MS obviously isn't quite there yet.

We'll see. But Ableton definitely won't work come this June when the new ARM devices hit the shelves. And there clearly is a lot of native ARM64 driver work to be done for customers such as ourselves. But at least they've addressed the shotty performance for a core suite of their apps, browsers, etc.

Maybe 2025?

[jonljacobi]

Yup. Not ready for prime time. I will say that the Mac folk (as annoying as Apple can be) nailed the transition. I had no issues running x86 stuff when I had to. Okay, some problems were reported, but given the seismic shift...

[connermovie]

ableton live 11 work wall on arm but ableton live 12 cant install because it check if there a amd or lntel cpu and not got arm in it the best way around it is useing ableton live 11 for the time bring

[Rivanni]

Yeah, Ableton must adjust the check in the Live 12 setup to include ARM.