Starting in November 2020, we've identified a problem with Cinema 4D Lite that impacts users who meet both these conditions:
Students with this setup report the following versions of Cinema 4D may be laggy or inoperable:
This is technically a software problem with Big Sur — due to the new requirements for Metal and 3D acceleration — and not a hardware problem.
These are the solutions we've been able to verify will work:
Downgrade your operating system from Big Sur to Catalina. You'll probably find Cinema 4D isn't the only app running slowly on Big Sur — software makers need time to update to new standards like Metal.
Catalina will run any supported version of Cinema 4D on any architecture, including all versions of Cinema 4D Lite. Here's a guide on how to downgrade.
If you're using the full edition of Cinema 4D, you can download a slightly older version, R21. We've received reports that R21 will work on Big Sur, even with Intel graphics. Here's where you can download past versions of Cinema 4D.
We realize this isn't a convenient solution, but the M1 is specifically designed to handle Big Sur's graphics requirements. All versions of Cinema 4D, including Cinema 4D Lite, will work on Big Sur with the M1.