Mac OS¶

As noted in System Requirements, the Windows version of SIMION is tested, confirmed to run quite well, and is officially supported by SIS on Intel-based Mac OS X via these three methods: CrossOver Mac, VMWare Fusion, and Parallels Desktop for Mac.

In Summary, there is not a native binary build of SIMION 7.0/8.0/8.1 for Mac OS. Nevertheless, you can achieve quite good results running SIMION 8.1/8.0 (maybe SIMION 7 too) on an Intel-based Mac if you use a Windows compatibility layer (CrossOver Mac) or a virtualization layer (VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac). Options for very old PowerPC-based Macs are more limited. The main possible methods of running SIMION on a Mac are listed below, listed roughly in decreasing order of preference.

Option #1: Windows Compatibility Layer: such as CrossOver/Darwine on Intel Macs - These include the commercial CrossOver Mac, which is based on the open Darwine (Wine) project. CrossOver is generally recommended over Darwine since there are reports (as of early 2007) that it works smoother in general, it is quite inexpensive, and we currently only have reports of running CrossOver. Crossover/Darwine is currently only expected to possibly work on Intel-based Macs (not very old PowerPC-based Macs); this is made possible by the Apple switch to Intel Processors (wikipedia). CrossOver runs SIMION at native speeds within Mac OS via Wine technology, similar to how a number of users have already been successfully running SIMION under Linux via Wine (comment: the particle flying stage seems to be about half speed compared to option #2 below for reasons not yet determined). CrossOver Mac was officially tested, confirmed to work quite well, and is formally supported by SIS for use with SIMION 8.0. See screenshot [*1] below of SIMION 8.0.x under CrossOver Mac.

Option #2: Virtualization Layer: such as VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac on Intel-based Macs. VMWare Fusion and Parallels were both officially tested, confirmed to work quite well, and are formally supported by SIS for use with SIMION 8.0. There also have been reports for SIMION 7.0. These run at native speeds. Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac and related virtualization products have not been tested but might work too.

Option #3: Emulation software - such as Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac might allow SIMION to be run on an older PowerPC-based Mac, but it would not be expected to run at native speeds. There have been a few unconfirmed reports of using Microsoft Virtual PC, but we are not aware to what extent this works. We believe there was some annoyance with the mouse in the Modify screen in SIMION 7 (if there are issues, SIMION 8 may very well run better there). CPU emulators generally cause a good performance decrease, and this would not be an ideal setup for a computationally intensive application like SIMION; however, it could be sufficient for some things.

Option #4: Native compilation of SIMION to Mac OS binaries is currently not provided, nor is it much a development priority because CrossOver Mac on Intel Macs is expected to be a very suitable option, so time/effort is likely better spent on other things. In theory, it would be possible to compile a non-GUI version of SIMION 8 (with only the command-line interface) under GCC without much difficulty, and this is an option in the future. In theory, it would also be possible to compile a GUI version of SIMION 8 as well since the SIMION 8 GUI is migrating to a cross-platform framework, but it would likely require some porting effort in practice (it still has Win32 code), and that effort if at all may well instead go elsewhere.

Any further reports or tips on running SIMION under Mac OS are appreciated!

[*1] Thanks to Ryan Ringle at TRIUMF for initial reports of running SIMION 8.0.x under CrossOver Mac (2007-02).

[*3] Thanks to Elizabeth MacDonald for initial Parallels report. Related discussion: SIMION Discussion Group Post 1810.

SIMION 8.0.x under CrossOver Mac. From Ryan Ringle/TRIUMF. 2007-02.

SIMION 8.0.3 and SL Tools under Intel MacBookPro (combined screenshots), 2007-08. From Elizabeth MacDonald.

Formal support for Intel-based Mac OS X running Windows version of SIMION¶

Running the Windows version of SIMION 8.1 (and 8.0) on Intel-based Mac OS X is formally supported via the following three methods. (Note: very old PowerPC-based OS 9 Macs will generally not work well or at all.) These methods have been tested by SIS and work quite well.

CrossOver Mac (Windows compatibility layer) - see Issue I464 [ http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/ ]

VMWare Fusion (virtualization) - see Issue I466 [ http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ ]

Parallels (virtualization) - see Issue I465 [ http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ ]

Other less-formally supported methods may work as well, particularly virtualization software like VMWare/Parallels. See also http://www.simion.com/info/Mac_OS .

Windows Licensing: Using CrossOver does not require a Windows license. Using virtualization software like Parallels and VMWare VMWare does require you have and install a licensed copy of Windows into the virtual machine (Windows is purchased separately). The CrossOver method can be more cost effective.

Performance: Both CrossOver and virtualization (VMWare and Parallels) run largely at native speeds, though CrossOver particle flying seem about half speed (when this was last checked in SIMION 8.0 during around 2008).

Memory usage: 32-bit SIMION (8.1 and 8.0) under both Parallels, VMWare, and CrossOver has a memory limit of roughly 1.2 GB, of 130 million points, or higher per PA (when the “–reserved-memory” option is used). This may depend on guest OS and virtual machine memory allocation settings (which were not fully explored during testing). 64-bit SIMION 8.1 running in a 64-bit virtual machine (not 32-bit CrossOver) should not have this limitation. As of this writing, there is not a 64-bit (Wine64) version of CrossOver.

Excel (conditionally supported): Controlling Excel from SIMION is only supported via virtualization (i.e. Parallels/VMWare not CrossOver) and only if Excel is a Windows version installed on the virtual machine. As of 8.1.0.20, examples can alternately use gnuplot.

Old version notes: SIMION 8.0.5 may freeze when using CrossOver versions prior to 7.10. Either upgrade CrossOver to >= 7.10 or downgrade SIMION to <= 8.0.4.

Summary: SIMION 8.0 and 8.1 run well on all the above options. There may be some slowdown in particle flying under CrossOver. If you want integration with (Windows) Excel you should use virtualization (VMWare or Parallels), but if you want better integration with OS X applications you might want to instead use CrossOver since SIMION will then run more like an OS X application. SIMION 7.0 works ok on all the above but seemed to run most smoothly under Parallels (SIMION 7.0 does some tricky things with the mouse that cause some non-critical mouse behavior issus under CrossOver and VMWare).

Notes: Added December 2007.

Formal support for CrossOver Mac on Intel-based Mac OS X¶

Overview: As of December 2007, SIS is formally supporting running the Windows version of SIMION 8.0.x on Intel-based Mac OS X via a third-party application called Codeweavers CrossOver Mac. This means that this combination generally runs quite well, and has been tested by SIS. You could run into a few minor issues as discussed below, but SIS can help with some setup questions and intends to patch SIMION if any incompatibilities are discovered.

Version compatibility: SIS testing was performed on the following configuration. Newer versions, as well as older versions, likely work as well (or better), and other users have already successfully tried other versions.

CrossOver Mac 10.1 on Max OS X 10.5.8 with SIMION 8.1.0/8.0.6.
CrossOver Mac 6.2.0 on Mac OS X 10.4 with SIMION 8.0.4/8.0.3.

Performance: It has been noticed that particle flying performance under CrossOver Mac (at SIMION 8.0 in CrossOver 6.2.0), even in batch mode, is roughly half that when running under virtualization software such as VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop for Mac. Other operations such as refining are much less affected. This behavior also seems to affect Wine/Linux and therefore is probably related to the Wine technology used by CrossOver. This might be improvable in the future. Nevertheless, SIMION performance is quite reasonable under CrossOver Mac.

Memory: Maximum memory per PA (using “–reserved-memory” command-line option) is about 1.2 GB RAM, or 130 million points. This is somewhat below the Windows XP limit but might be improvable in the future. (tested CrossOver Mac 6.2.0) As of this writing, there is not a 64-bit Wine64 version of CrossOver, so you’ll only be able to run the 32-bit version of SIMION 8.1 or 8.0 (for other notes on Wine64, see Linux).

Installation Stall: when installing SIMION, the CrossOver Software Installer may appear to stall for a few minutes (displaying message “Installing Unsupported Software”) before the SIMION installer window appears. This is OK. (Note: this was no longer observed when testing SIMION 8.1.0 on CrossOver 10.1.)

Right mouse button: SIMION uses the right mouse button for operations such as zooming and rotating, but the default mouse on many Macs lacks a right mouse button. It is recommended you replace the mouse with a two-button USB mouse (a USB mouse taken from a PC will work). The mouse scroll button doesn’t entirely work in text boxes and Modify 3D screen though (minor issue).

Clipboard: Printing to Clipboard doesn’t seem to do anything. However, you can print to a file (PS or EMF) and load in another application. A screenshot can be taken using %-Shift-3 (entire screen), %-Shift-4 (rectangle), or %-Shift-4 then spacebar (window), which is saved as a file on the desktop (see “Shortcuts for taking pictures of the screen” in the CrossOver help).

Excel (not supported): Communication between SIMION and Excel via the COM/OLE interface does not seem supported on the Mac. A few of the Lua user programs in the SIMION examples are designed to use this feature for real-time data reporting, and to use these examples successfully you will need to modify these programs a bit to output data somewhere else (e.g. to a simple text file). (Update: As of 8.1.0.20, most examples can alternately use gnuplot.) There are two reasons for Excel not being supported currently. First, the native Mac version of Excel 2004 does not support COM. Though you can install the Windows version of Excel (which does support COM) on CrossOver, CrossOver COM support appears very limited, though it might be possible by installing “DCOM95/DCOM98”. We have not yet had success doing this. (And you may be interested in outputting your data to some other program.)

Command-Line Usage: To run SIMION from command-line, select “Programs|Run Command...” menu item from CrossOver and click “Debug Options|Open Shell”. From the shell run

cd ProgramFiles/SIMION-8.0/ cxstart simion.exe –nogui fly examples/quad/quad.iob

Additional Comments from Testing:

PRINTING: works

OPENGL (Modify 3D view): works.

BATCH MODE: works.

Opening Notepad (e.g. “User Program...” button in View or os.execute “notepad” in Lua: works.

Opening web browser (e.g. “Docs” button and “Check for Updates”): works.

Copy/Paste from Log Window: works.

os.execute(“start notepad results.csv”) in geometry_optimize example does nothing (returns 9009). However, os.execute(“notepad results.csv”) works and does not block.

JavaScript search in Supplementary Docs (SIMION 8.0): works.

SIMION 7.0 Notes: SIMION 7.0 has also been known to work under CrossOver but there are a couple issues. There are some mouse behavior problems where the mouse moves to the center of the screen whenever the mouse is clicked. Relying more on the keyboard can work around this. Resizing the SIMION 7.0 window can sometimes cause stabilility problems, though pressing the Window close button in the upper left title bar and then selecting No can reset it.

Formal support for Parallels on Intel-based Mac OS X¶

Overview: As of December 2007, SIS is formally supporting running the Windows version of SIMION 8.0.x on Intel-based Mac OS X via a third-party application called Parallels Desktop for Mac ( http://www.parallels.com/en/products/desktop/ ). This means that this combination generally runs quite well, and has been tested by SIS. You could run into a few minor issues as discussed below, but SIS can help with some setup questions and intends to patch SIMION if any significant incompatibilities are discovered.

Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac on Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4. running Windows 2000. SIMION 8.0.3/8.0.4.

Performance: Refining and flying run at roughly native speeds.

Memory: PA size of 125M points works. Using –reserved-memory only allows minor increases (e.g. 150M points).

OpenGL: Open GL (3D viewing in Modify) works well except resizing window (and mouse scroll bar) may cause OpenGL window to become blank. A workaround is to close and reopen the window.

Parallels Coherence display mode: works.

CPU SSE2 Warning: SIMION reports that SSE2 is not detected (even though the CPU does have SSE2) and reverts to non-sse2 mode. This can be ignored (minor performance impact).

Excel: Controlling Excel in Parallels works providing a Windows-version of Excel is installed on the virtual machine (tested Excel 2003/Win2K). The native Mac version of Excel does not provide a COM interface. As of 8.1.0.20, examples can alternately use gnuplot.

SIMION 7.0 Notes: SIMION 7.0 also works well under Parallels.

Formal support for VMWare Fusion on Intel-based Mac OS X¶

Overview: As of January 2008, SIS is formally supporting running the Windows version of SIMION 8.0.x on Intel-based Mac OS X via a third-party application called VMWare Fusion for Mac ( http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/ ). This means that this combination generally runs quite well, and has been tested by SIS. You could run into a few minor issues as discussed below, but SIS can help with some setup questions and intends to patch SIMION if any significant incompatibilities are discovered.

VMWare Fusion 1.1 on Intel-based Mac OS X 10.4 running Windows XP. SIMION 8.0.4.

Performance: Refining and flying run at roughly native speeds.

Memory: PA size of 180M points works (when using --reserved-memory=1.8G command-line option).

Mouse scrolling: The scroll bars in the Modify and View screens behave a bit oddly (but are usable) since VMWare is not locking the mouse cursor position on the scrollbar when the mouse button is pressed down.

Printing: Works provided a printer is setup in VMWare.

Copy/Paste: VMWare seems to only copy/paste text (not images) between the guest and host OS, but there are various ways to use SIMION’s printing or Windows screencapture (e.g. F13) to write an image file in windows and then drag and drop the file onto the OS X Desktop.

OpenGL: OpenGL mostly works exept some crashes were noticed when switching in/out of OpenGL under VMWare’s “Unity” mode. The workaround is to use the Window or Full Screen modes or avoid OpenGL in Unity mode.

VMWare Unity display mode: generally works, but see OPENGL comments above.

Excel: Controlling Excel in VMWare works providing a Windows-version of Excel is installed on the virtual machine (tested Excel 2003/Win2K). The native Mac version of Excel does not provide a COM interface. As of 8.1.0.20, examples can alternately use gnuplot.

SIMION 7.0 works ok under VMWare. Some of the mouse behavior is awkward (e.g. selecting a rectangle in View/Modify screens).

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