Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

singhkays.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#101

Post by nojito »

darren_ wrote: post #87
brundolf wrote: post #25

This is fascinating: > Retain and release are tiny actions that almost all software, on all Apple platforms, does all the time. ….. The Apple Silicon system architecture is designed to make these operations as fast as possible. It’s not so much that Intel’s x86 architecture is a bad fit for Apple’s software frameworks, as that Apple Silicon is designed to be a bespoke fit for it …. retaining and releasing NSObjects i…

This quote doesn’t really cover why M1 macs are more efficient with less ram than intel macs? You’ve got a memory budget, it’s likely broadly the same on both platforms, the speed at which your retains/releases happen isn’t going to be the issue. it’s not like intel macs use GC where m1 uses RC. (It explains why iOS does better with less ram than android, but the quote is specifically claiming this as a reason for 8G…

The quote right after explains your concerns.

>The memory bandwidth on the new Macs is impressive. Benchmarks peg it at around 60GB/sec–about 3x faster than a 16” MBP. Since the M1 CPU only has 16GB of RAM, it can replace the entire contents of RAM 4 times every second. Think about that…

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#102

Post by gpderetta »

trevyn wrote: post #27
berkut wrote: post #15

I don't quite understand how 'retain' and 'release' can be more memory efficient on Apple Silicon than x86.... I can understand how they can be more efficient from a performance standpoint in terms of more efficient reference counting, but I don't understand how that translates to less memory usage which is apparently what's being argued... ? Unless on x86 some of the 'free's when the ref counts hit 0 were being batc…

They stuff the reference count in the unused bits of the 64-bit pointers.

How would that work? The refcount need to be on the pointee, not on the pointer.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#103

Post by sedatk »

berkut wrote: post #15

I don't quite understand how 'retain' and 'release' can be more memory efficient on Apple Silicon than x86.... I can understand how they can be more efficient from a performance standpoint in terms of more efficient reference counting, but I don't understand how that translates to less memory usage which is apparently what's being argued... ? Unless on x86 some of the 'free's when the ref counts hit 0 were being batc…

Reference counting releases memory as soon as it gets dereferenced, while GC cleans up memory periodically, which means higher memory usage (more than what's actually in use at any moment).

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#104

Post by estebank »

ubercow13 wrote: post #80
brundolf wrote: post #25

This is fascinating: > Retain and release are tiny actions that almost all software, on all Apple platforms, does all the time. ….. The Apple Silicon system architecture is designed to make these operations as fast as possible. It’s not so much that Intel’s x86 architecture is a bad fit for Apple’s software frameworks, as that Apple Silicon is designed to be a bespoke fit for it …. retaining and releasing NSObjects i…

How does this work? Isn't reference counting a lot of +1 and -1?

It is a lot of atomic +1 and -1, meaning possible thread contention, meaning that no matter how many cores your hardware has you have a worst case scenario where all your atomic reference counted objects have to be serialized, slowing everything down. I do not know how ObjectiveC/Swift deals with this normally, but making that operation as fast as possible on the hardware can have huge implications in real life, as evidenced by the new Macs.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#105

Post by apatheticonion »

neilpanchal wrote: post #4

I just got one. I’m blown away by the speed as well. Chrome runs insanely fast! Alas, it’s not developer ready yet. Brew is a mess. Docker doesn’t work. PyCharm is WIP although can use x86 version. I was skeptical of the hype but this little laptop has made me realize how slow everything else is. Unfortunately, while the hardware has accelerated far beyond expectations, the software - specifically MacOS BigSur is a m…

> I want macOS that has a UI of Windows 95. That would be totally insane on Apple Silicon.

So much this. I used to run Windows 7 in classic mode and really liked the low footprint, no nonsense appearance. Windows 10 has no such mode.

I wonder if we will see Linux support

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#106

Post by treis »

neilpanchal wrote: post #4

I just got one. I’m blown away by the speed as well. Chrome runs insanely fast! Alas, it’s not developer ready yet. Brew is a mess. Docker doesn’t work. PyCharm is WIP although can use x86 version. I was skeptical of the hype but this little laptop has made me realize how slow everything else is. Unfortunately, while the hardware has accelerated far beyond expectations, the software - specifically MacOS BigSur is a m…

>I just got one. I’m blown away by the speed as well. Chrome runs insanely fast!

I've got a 5ish year old desktop and Chrome runs, afaict, pretty much instantaneously. At least I don't notice a perceptible delay. I'd be interested to see a side by side comparison of page renders on M1 vs an older laptop.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#107

Post by [deleted] »

CountSessine wrote: post #78
trevyn wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They stuff the reference count in the unused bits of the 64-bit pointers.

Yikes. That's the same shenanigans that got them into trouble with the 68000. Everyone stuffed data into the top 8 bits of pointers because even though the 68000 had 32-bit addressing registers, it only had a 24-bit address bus and the top 8 bits were dontcare's. Then, the 6802x came out with more address lines and... ...and that's basically why x86_64 was specified to require a particular bit pattern in high-order b…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#108

Post by titzer »

goatinaboat wrote: post #19
neilpanchal wrote: post #4

I just got one. I’m blown away by the speed as well. Chrome runs insanely fast! Alas, it’s not developer ready yet. Brew is a mess. Docker doesn’t work. PyCharm is WIP although can use x86 version. I was skeptical of the hype but this little laptop has made me realize how slow everything else is. Unfortunately, while the hardware has accelerated far beyond expectations, the software - specifically MacOS BigSur is a m…

It’s not fashion. Unfortunately you are wrong. Everything we call tech is in fact driven by fashion. My older version Mac is badgering me to upgrade to Bug Sur. Top feature: 100 new emojis. That is what Apple prioritised. Why the hell are emojis even part of the OS let alone its top feature! Truth is GUIs are done, were a decade or more ago. All there is left now is change for the sake of change. And Apple can’t thin…

I think you're getting downvoted just because you said "you are wrong", when the rest of your comment, though a little grumpy, isn't that far from the truth.

UIs are definitely fashion. We're going round and round in circles and things aren't getting better, IMHO.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#109

Post by victor106 »

> A task like editing 8K RAW RED video file that might have taken a $5000 machine before can now be done on a $699 Mac Mini M1 or a fan-less MacBook Air that costs $999

That’s insanely great. Maybe I am exaggerating but Apple’s M1 might be the best innovation in the tech industry in the past 5 years.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#110

Post by eulers_secret »

azangru wrote: post #28
jrm4 wrote: post #6

At the risk of being that (Linux) guy -- What is gained here if we're just still applying faster cycles to Apple-esque wasteful (and perhaps harmful, as we're apparently learning re: their telemetry) software? If people really dig their Apple stuff, great. But I think its worth thinking about the likelihood that a "slower" computer running Linux could probably serve the actual user better in terms of "getting stuff d…

Another linux guy here, on the market for a new linux laptop. After reading the article, which linux-compatible laptops, would you say, come the closest to compete with the new generation of Apple products? Long battery life, plenty of power, good screen, good speakers? Is it the inevitable Dell XPS 13 and Thinkpad X1 Carbon, or are there any other darlings among the linux community?

Tiger Lake matches M1 in single-core perf, but gets trounced in multi. AMD has some good options, but I haven't seen a thin&light style AMD based laptop come out yet.

Check out System76, their Linux support is unparalleled. The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though.

I got the XPS 13, myself, but it still requires 'tweaks' - like running thermald master so your system doesn't throttle down too much after a short 'boost', and running kernel 5.10 because it allows your CPU to enter the PC10 power-saving state (Ubuntu's oem-5.8 may have this backported, I haven't checked).

As always, install your favorite user-agent spoofer as well. I just ran into a problem with some web videoconferencing software that works fine, but you have to tell it your running Win/Chrome.

This is why people say desktop Linux isn't here yet. It kinda is, but only if you're an expert (or want to be forced to become one)... I still love it, though, and always will.

Post reply on HN