Geeks3D FurMark 1.37.2 for apple instal

When it comes to compiling code for Apple devices, there are a few things to keep in mind. In this case, I wanted to compile Geeks3D FurMark 1.37.2 and test its performance on my Mac mini M1. One of the key challenges is specifying the target architecture when using the command line with gcc/g++. This is because by default, the compilation process produces a binary for the arm64 architecture.

Using Xcode 12.3, I was able to generate a hybrid executable that packs both x86_64 and arm64 code. To my surprise, all of the GeeXLab OpenGL code compiled successfully without any issues. The source code is based on makefiles, which made it easy to compile the core libraries from the command line.

In terms of performance, the M1 GPU has a FP32 performance of 2.6 TFLOPS (source). This is comparable to other mid-range graphics cards like the Radeon RX 560 or the GeForce GTX 1650. The M1 chip itself is a System on a Chip (SoC) that includes an 8-core CPU, an 8-core GPU, as well as other components like a neural engine, memory, and input/output interfaces.

I recently purchased a Mac mini M1 to test GeeXLab with the new Apple Silicon M1. Overall, I was pleased with the experience and look forward to continuing to explore the possibilities of this new hardware.