Hi all, long time Dorico user currently running the most recent version of Dorico 5. My Microsoft Surface finally died on me, and I’m thinking about getting a Surface Laptop, but in perusing the forums and the system requirements for Dorico I didn’t see mention of the new Qualcomm processors (Snapdragon X Plus or Snapdragon X Elite). Are these devices supported by Dorico, and/or has anyone else had success running Dorico on a 2024 Surface Laptop?
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There’s currently no ARM-native support for Dorico on Windows. I believe these devices can run x86 software under emulation/translation (like Rosetta 2 on macOS) but I don’t know what the performance is like.
I believe my colleagues in Hamburg have access to at least some ARM-based Windows devices, though I’m not sure whether the latest Surface Laptop is among them. We don’t have direct access to any such devices in the Dorico team itself, so we’ve not done any testing on these configurations.
As ARM SoCs become more prevalent in Windows devices, I expect we will add native ARM support, but there’s quite a lot involved in achieving that: not only Dorico itself, but also its audio engine (which is of course based on Cubase, itself a very large and complex application) and the Qt framework all need to be supported on ARM as well, not to mention VST plug-ins, etc.
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Thanks so much for the response, Daniel; makes total sense. There are times I like to be an early adopter, but as Dorico is my main use-case for the new machine looks like I’ll be picking a different option. Thanks again!
Have you decided on a new device in the meantime? If not: Microsoft released Meteor Lake updates to the Surface line in March. They have been somewhat flying under the radar though, because Microsoft chose not to advertise them almost at all, probably to keep consumers focused on the newer Snapdragon models. The Meteor Lake models thus are solely aimed at business users, so getting one could be not as straightforward as it is with a consumer model. Try looking for Surface Pro 10 or Surface Laptop 6, if there is still demand.
I looked into a variety of options but given my use cases and the folks I collaborate with I decided to go with a Macbook air. Thanks for the suggestions, though!
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