Revisiting: Sharpcap doesn't see ZWO camera on Mac M4 using Parallels

[jimcutler]

I'm assuming this is still the case. Just checking in case anything has changed. Would love to use this wonderful program, but it doesn't see my ZWO cams. I've installed the latest ZWO cam drivers and ASCOM and NET. I saw a thread about a year ago that this is how it is. Checking to see if it's still so? Thank you!

Running Sharpcap on an M4 MAc with Parallels.

[admin]

Hi,

as far as I am aware there are still no signed ZWO drivers for Windows on Arm (which would apply to using ARM windows in parallels, or an ARM based windows laptop). There are some unsigned drivers that ZWO made some time ago but it's not trivial to get them to load (requires special tricks every boot up if I remember rightly). See the bottom of this thread : https://bbs.zwoastro.com/d/13554-asi-dr ... ilicon/150

Recent ToupTek astro cameras do work on Windows-on-ARM - this actually also applies to not needing special drivers on normal Windows either as they work using a built in Microsoft provided driver. There is also a ToupTek SDK for windows on arm, so in theory I could make a full ARM64 version of SharpCap, but there isn't really enough demand (or support from other manufacturers/devices) to warrant that.

cheers,

Robin

[jimcutler]

Thanks for the good reply Robin. I may have to get a Windows laptop as I very much want to use SharpCap. I live entirely in the Mac universe and use an iPad for ASIAIR. But for planetary, SharpCap it will be. Thank you for taking the time to reply.

[admin]

Hi Jim,

no problem. The lack of support for ARM64 Windows is a bit frustrating, but it is a bit of a chicken-and-egg thing... If enough people asked for it the manufacturers would start to support it (and I am pretty much set up to make an ARM64 version of SharpCap if that ever happens). However, ARM64 didn't take off as much as expected and people focusing on astronomy are buyng Intel/AMD machines because of the poor ARM64 support, so there is no demand...

cheers,

Robin

[Alanj49]

I have got Windows 11 running in Parallels on a Macbook M5 and I have got Windows to see the camera, a ZWO ASI432 by bypassing the unsigned drivers, but I cannot get Sharpcap to see it at all. Is there a fix for this please?

[admin]

Hi,

to be honest, I would have expected that to work once the drivers were installed and being used. Just to confirm, you can see the ZWO camera shown in Windows 'Device Manager', and it appears inside the 'Imaging Devices' section with no warnings or errors (no yellow/red marks over the device). If that's the case then SharpCap ought to see it.

I'm surprised at how long it has taken for ZWO to put together a proper signed version of their driver for ARM64 - after all, they put out a new version of the normal Windows driver recently, I would have thought that would be an opportunity to do the ARM64 version properly too...

The obvious workaround is to try installing 'normal' 64 bit Windows (as opposed to the ARM64 version) inside parallels. It won't perform quite as well, but it ought to sidestep the driver related issues. If you are largely running 'normal' Windows applications like SharpCap then your apps are running under emulation anyway in the ARM64 Windows, so I would have thought the performance loss wouldn't be too large.

cheers,

Robin

[protonwrangler]

I came here for this myself. Parallels confirms the ASI585 is wired to the Windows VM and in Windows' Device Manager it appears in the "Imaging Devices" category with a yellow mark and selecting Properties it tells me to install a new driver.

I've got the current ZWO Windows driver package (ZWO_ASI_Cameras_driver_Setup_V3.28.0.0.exe) which installed with no errors, and a reinstall tells me I have the version already installed and there's no change after reinstalling.

So yes, it looks like the driver is installed but refuses to load. I'm going to dredge out an i7 Windows 10 laptop.

[admin]

Hi,

I presume you are using the ARM64 version of Microsoft Windows - that would normally be the natural choice on an ARM based Mac as it runs without processor emulation. Unfortunately the main ZWO driver still doesn't support ARM versions of Windows, and the 'experimental' driver that they shared on their support forums needs special boot setup every time you restart Windows to make it load (and is now relatively old)

You could try installing normal X64 (Intel/AMD) Windows in Parallels (presuming here that Parallels supports CPU emulation) - that would likely let you get a working driver, but performance would probably be very poor.

There are a few cameras that can work without a driver from the manufacturer as they can use a built in Microsoft supplied driver (winusb.sys) - relatively modern cameras from ToupTek can do this (including the brands that they do OEM manufacture for), as can some recent QHY cameras. I would expect these to work (and have had some working on a pure ARM PC running Windows ARM version), but I have no experience for sure on the Mac/Parallels set up.

cheers,

Robin

[protonwrangler]

Thanks for the background information, Robin. Yes, it's ARM64 Windows 11.

A morning's research tells me Parallels and all the other virtualisation systems don't support binary translation of an Operating System.
All the x64/x32 compatibility on ARM relies on a emulation/recompilation in the OS, whether that's in the host or a VM guest. I'm going to register my need with ZWO and I've brought out my 2018 vintage Huawei Matebook X Pro.

Thanks again, and no reply needed.