VST3 Plugins and VST instruments on ARM?

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hi -

Does anyone know if iLok supports ARM use yet?

Are any of the major VST3 plugins and VST instruments still unsupported?

Thank you for any info!

Addendum: As of now, the iLok help page says it doesn’t support Windows on ARM, or Copilot Plus PCs:
iLok License Manager - iLok Help

Any experience with VST3 plugin problems, or VST instrument problems - please LMK.

Thank you!

2

And …

Here is a list of what brands are compatible with ARM:

Windows on Arm Compatibility Guide | Sweetwater

So, along with the iLok info from above (not compatible with ARM as of today), I guess I answered my own question iLok License Manager - iLok Help .

Thanks, me :grin: !

3

Fall 2025 Windows Musician Technology and Arm64 Update - Windows MIDI and Music dev

iLok rumored to be WoA compatible later this year.

So many others that I use are uncertain or just plain incompatible (e.g., Toontracks, Izotope, IK Multimedia, Musiclabs, Nektar, TC Helicon, UJam).

Other big players not on board with WoA as of now (including “No official announcement”) include : Celemony, Kontakt Player, Slate Digital, Slate Audio, Sonarworks.

I’d think these companies would feel the pressure of a deadline, with more and more W10 users switching over to W11.

I just got a my first W11 computer, Microsoft Surface 11, for mainly non-musical use, 32GB RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Snapdragon X 12 core X1E 80100, 3.4 GHz. I hope one day it’ll be pretty good for portable DAW work. It’s nice to know that even now I can use Cubase Pro and at least a few plug ins on it.

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iLok will be Summer/Fall of this year. It’s taken them some time to get this together, but they’ve also had to wait on us for some emulation changes. Unsurprisingly, copy protection software uses APIs and instructions differently from most other software.

Many other plugins can run under emulation. The primary issue is that many of them have installers which don’t recognize Arm64, and so they revert to installing only a 32 bit version, thinking if it’s not Intel/AMD x64, then it must be x86. In many cases, if you can install them on an x64 PC, you can just copy the files over. Far far from ideal, but it can sometimes get you out of a pinch.

Most plugin companies aren’t going to port to Arm64 unless their customers ask them to. In some cases, just fixing their installer would make it possible to use them under our emulator.

Pete
Microsoft

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