Windows ARM64 support

[SteynGuelen]

Hi, I'm using a Surface Laptop 7 which has a Qualcomm ARM processor/gpu.

When installing in Blender, I get this error:
pcb3d_importer: This platform (windows-arm64) isn't one of (windows-x64, linux-x64, macos-x64, macos-arm64)

Is ARM64 support on the roadmap?

[30350n]

The blocker here is skia not supporting (or atleast not offering pre-built wheels) for win-arm64.

[30350n]

Related: skia-python#318

[HinTak]

Hmm, a little surprised that somebody wants this, but I am adding win11 arm builds to kyamagu/skia-python#314 . Give that a try when the CI wheel build finishes.

[HinTak]

There is a good chance that I don't want to do arms windows skia-python m87 (skia m87 itself didn't support arm linux nor arm windows; and doing skia python m87 for arm linux has been painful), so I'd like you guys to try moving to the m1xx to see if you are missing anything.

[30350n]

Cool, thanks a lot for that! What's the reason for all the 1xx builds being marked as beta/prereleases?

[HinTak]

It looks like we (skia-python) are dependent on numpy being more available on win on arm : numpy/numpy#22530 (comment) . As for the beta/prerelease status, it is mostly that some portion of m87 functionality was moved
kyamagu/skia-python#304 - and we haven't figured out what the corresponding replacements are, or even whether they should be provided / anybody needing them. Historically, skia-python m87 was quite exhaustive - that is a good thing as it covers a large portion of skia, but a bad thing when you realise about 20% of API changes between m87 and m116!

[HinTak]

I think with m134/m136 we cover about 93% of m87 - but the remaining is hard, and we don't know if anybody need/want the remaining.

[30350n]

I'll take a look at it sometime next week. I'm really only using skia in one place to rasterize some svg files, so we should probably be fine.

[HinTak]

The svg module went non-experimental in m88, and got some improvement / enhancement since; so this is definitely an area where you'd benefit. There is an outstanding svg-related enhancement (kyamagu/skia-python#307) which might worth you commissioning/ sponsoring me to get it done 😉

[SteynGuelen]

If someone is in the same boat as me, the x64 version of Blender does work on my ARM machine with this plugin. It's quite slow, so take your time.

Thanks for the work so far!

[HinTak]

Aparently python being x64 on arm windows is known actions/partner-runner-images#85 - but 3.11 / 12, 13 native are available for arm windows.

[HinTak]

I have submitted numpy/numpy#28836 - and AFAIK we are dependent on that (or something similar / equivalent) being merged into a numpy release before skia-python can add arm windows support.