New PixInsight 1.9.4: overall ~30% faster on Apple Silicon

Just yesterday upgraded to PI 1.9.4 on my new Mac Mini with M4 Processor

While reinstalling PI and the various scripts, realised that Veralux Suite after properly loading and updating is not working. The Process Console error says something like “sm” file missing or not available

After checking realised that the new 1.9.4 version for Apple Mac Silicon chip has done away with using the legacy Spider Monkey engine and has moved to new updated one

The resolution suggested is to wait for the Veralux developer to rewrite the code using the new Google V8 Javascript engine

This could be an issue on several other scripts which I have not yet checked

Request Ricardo Patternini or some one from Veralux development team to shed more light on this topic

PS : Just to inform that the same Veralux Suite works fine on Siril even on Mac mini M4 machine !

It isn’t necessary to install 1.9.3 to get all the scripts to work on a Mac. Just use the x86 version of 1.9.4 for Mac. This has included the legacy SpiderMonkey engine as well as the new V8 engine so you will be able to run all scripts that have been ported as well as all that have not. I can’t see any advantage in reverting to 1.9.3.

Aloke Palsikar · May 20, 2026 at 07:27 AM

Mike Cranfield · May 20, 2026, 06:14 AM

It isn’t necessary to install 1.9.3 to get all the scripts to work on a Mac. Just use the x86 version of 1.9.4 for Mac. This has included the legacy SpiderMonkey engine as well as the new V8 engine so you will be able to run all scripts that have been ported as well as all that have not. I can’t see any advantage in reverting to 1.9.3.

Thanks, but will the x86 version work on M4 Chip configuration of Mac ?

Yes - it will use the Rosetta emulation in the same way as 1.9.3 and previous versions of PixInsight did. At some point - I believe next year - Apple will stop shipping the Rosetta emulator with their OS but for now its fine and by then hopefully all relevant scripts will have been ported.

Michael · May 20, 2026 at 10:21 AM

Mike Cranfield · May 20, 2026 at 10:13 AM

Yes - it will use the Rosetta emulation in the same way as 1.9.3 and previous versions of PixInsight did. At some point - I believe next year - Apple will stop shipping the Rosetta emulator with their OS but for now its fine and by then hopefully all relevant scripts will have been ported.

Does anyone know, whether the x86 version of 1.9.4 has also solved the problems regarding windows, trackpad, mouse on Macs? Or is this only in the arm-version improved?

What problems?

The annotation script has also been updated. This means that if you have a custom icon on your desktop, you will have to recreate that. I use a heavily customised annotation script, and could not find a way to retrieve my old settings. Is there a way to do this? I started from scratch again and had quite a bit of work to do to get them all in.

Most customised icons are typically just a starting point from where you continue to fine-tune. And they can be easily recreated. But the annotation script is full of little settings on fonts, colours, sizes, widths etc for each layer. So tip for anyone who has highly customised icons that are not so easy to recreate, to write down/screenshot your settings before upgrading.

John Hayes · May 20, 2026 at 05:38 AM

abaxworld5000 · May 18, 2026 at 10:53 PM

I had to reinstall version 1.9.3 to keep working until someone stops blaming each other and provides a solution.

It’s a good effort and I like the snappy operation, but without all the scripts that I use, V1.9.4 is worthless. I also have to reinstall V1.9.3 so I’m not a very happy camper.

John

Or install the x86 version alongside the ARM version (in a renamed PixInsight directory). All scripts work in there (until Tahoe updates to the next version). Still getting all the benefits of the speed improvements, while crucial not-yet ported scripts can be run from the x86 version.

Paul Sanfilippo · May 20, 2026 at 11:30 AM

Willem Jan Drijfhout · May 20, 2026 at 11:07 AM

John Hayes · May 20, 2026 at 05:38 AM

abaxworld5000 · May 18, 2026 at 10:53 PM

I had to reinstall version 1.9.3 to keep working until someone stops blaming each other and provides a solution.

It’s a good effort and I like the snappy operation, but without all the scripts that I use, V1.9.4 is worthless. I also have to reinstall V1.9.3 so I’m not a very happy camper.

John

Or install the x86 version alongside the ARM version (in a renamed PixInsight directory). All scripts work in there (until Tahoe updates to the next version). Still getting all the benefits of the speed improvements, while crucial not-yet ported scripts can be run from the x86 version.

Hang on, so you’re saying it’s possible to install both Mac versions? That would be quite good to get the speed improvements for stacking but still knowing that you could bring that across to the x86 version where all your scripts will still work.

Yes this works too!

Ok, so I have successfully updated the x86 version and everything is running.

For those who know or have done this can I check the process for installing the ARM64 alongside the x86 version - because I don’t want to break anything.

Is it just a simple case of renaming the “Pixinsight” folder (which currently contains the x86) version to something else and then installing the ARM64 version, which I assume will then install into the new “Pixinsight” folder? This won’t affect the x86 install or and of its scripts/processes?

Thanks.

Paul Sanfilippo · May 20, 2026 at 10:51 PM

Ok, so I have successfully updated the x86 version and everything is running.

For those who know or have done this can I check the process for installing the ARM64 alongside the x86 version - because I don’t want to break anything.

Is it just a simple case of renaming the “Pixinsight” folder (which currently contains the x86) version to something else and then installing the ARM64 version, which I assume will then install into the new “Pixinsight” folder? This won’t affect the x86 install or and of its scripts/processes?

Thanks.

That is the correct process.

Michael · May 20, 2026 at 10:21 AM

Mike Cranfield · May 20, 2026 at 10:13 AM

Yes - it will use the Rosetta emulation in the same way as 1.9.3 and previous versions of PixInsight did. At some point - I believe next year - Apple will stop shipping the Rosetta emulator with their OS but for now its fine and by then hopefully all relevant scripts will have been ported.

Does anyone know, whether the x86 version of 1.9.4 has also solved the problems regarding windows, trackpad, mouse on Macs? Or is this only in the arm-version improved?

For PixInsight developers, at least the mouse part on Mac, that doesn’t exist ( you know, “can’t replicate” or “it’s not a bug” as they love to say ). And it’s a bug, but seems they don’t mind.

Michael · May 15, 2026, 05:55 PM

Eric Gagné · May 15, 2026 at 05:23 PM

I think you are not seeing much improvement in RC-Astro’s tools because they are processes, not script so they don’t benefit from the new V8 JS Engine.

And all 3 (BXT, NXT, SXT) are since years running natively on Apple silicon. So the performance improvement is already done.

this is neither here nor there, but the BXT, NXT and SXT processes for 1.9.3 and 1.9.4 (x86) are not apple silicon native modules. it’s not possible to link an arm64 binary into an x86-64 binary that is meant for translation by rosetta2. the package has to be all x86-64 or it can’t be translated. but what is true is that the amount of actual code in these modules is very small - basically just setting up the neural engine and/or GPU and then running it. so in that sense it’s natively running, but it’s not comprised of arm64 instructions.

on the other hand the BXT, NXT and SXT processes for 1.9.4 arm64 do contain arm64 instructions. but for the same reason we don’t see any speedup. all of the speedup in the past was due to the neural network running on the dedicated apple ML hardware.

John Hayes · May 20, 2026, 05:38 AM

abaxworld5000 · May 18, 2026 at 10:53 PM

I had to reinstall version 1.9.3 to keep working until someone stops blaming each other and provides a solution.

It’s a good effort and I like the snappy operation, but without all the scripts that I use, V1.9.4 is worthless. I also have to reinstall V1.9.3 so I’m not a very happy camper.

John

i know you are not using CN anymore, but there is a thread there in the software forum where people are tracking which 3rd party scripts have been ported. i actually used quen to port AberrationInspector, but someone else has done it too and posted a link to a repository containing a few ported scripts. PI will eventually port all the scripts that they have been distributing even though they have been written by 3rd parties, or at least that’s what they said. the 1.9.4 release today contains one more ported script (MakefileGenerator, so it’s really only for developers.)

hopefully you didn’t roll back to 1.9.3 before moving back to x86 1.9.4, because some users have reported problems with mixing 1.9.3 and 1.9.4 resulting in having to delete most of the cache files and other settings files in ~/Library/PixInsight to get things working again. the core settings file is definitely compatible between the arm64 and x86-64 versions of 1.9.4.

Michael · May 20, 2026, 10:35 AM

Trackpad erratically zooms - you move your mouse cursor, but the active window zooms instead.
Right mouse click does not show pixel values (exactly: shows the small window “somewhere”, mostly not visible).
Problems with 2 screens.
All known problems, many times reported by many, officially rejected as “not reproducible”.

i never had these problems but i do remember reading somewhere that 1.9.4 did fix some trackpad issues on the mac. this probably has more to do with a new version of Qt than anything else.

Hi all MacBook users.

Did the new 1.9.4 version solve the annoying “non-palm-detection” issue?
(I know … “it’s not a bug” … the PixInsight guys manage to not touch the touchpad with their palm 😂)