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Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

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Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#361

Post by macintux »

throw0101a wrote: post #348
macintux wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.diyphotography.net/this-700-computer-can-edit-8k...

That's nice. But what does CPU/GPU horse power have to do with memory? If I want to spin up a bunch of VMs to do pre-commit test builds in clean environments, and each need RAM for the OS and user land, being able to edit a lot of raw video does nothing for me. I'm generally fine running macOS (or Linux), but sometimes I need to boot up Windows in a VM for specialized apps: how do I assign >16GB of memory to it if I…

So far as I can tell from this thread, the open question was: can these computers edit 8k video?

The answer per that video seems to be yes, with limitations.

I’m not trying to assert anything about anyone’s needs.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#362

Post by Spivak »

NoSorryCannot wrote: post #355
goatinaboat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've read here and there, don't know how credible it is, that Apple uses emojis as a carrot to encourage people to take the update. It is a cheap and immediately gratifying feature whereas users might not care about or understand the more substantive parts of an update.

I mean why should most users even care about the details of any update? It’s a box that runs the software they actually care about. It’s primary purpose is to get out of your way and feel invisible. I feel like people on HN overestimate how much people care about operating systems.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#363

Post by wsc981 »

megablast wrote: post #97
ianhowson wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think retain/release perf has anything to do with memory consumption, but I have seen a bunch of reviews claiming that 8GB is perfectly fine. This is fascinating to me, because: (a) every 8GB Mac I've used in the past has been unusably slow (b) since upgrading my 32GB Hackintosh to Big Sur, my usual 40GB working set is only about 20GB. (c) My 2015 16GB MBPr with Big Sur is also using about half as much physic…

Every 8gb mac I’ve used before was fine, and that was with running Xcode, Firefox, photoshop, mail, terminal, and other programs.

Have you tried doing Android dev using an Android emulator on an 8 GB Mac? Perhaps in combination with Xamarin?

I did and performance was horrible. For just iOS or macOS dev, 8 GB could be fine though.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#364

Post by ianai »

nemothekid wrote: post #352
ianai wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tfa says the hardware optimization for ARC is to the point of being bespoken. Hardware will always beat software optimization. Further, the other GCs have much higher ram overheads than this combined, bespoke system. Apple has decades of proven experience producing and shipping massively over engineered systems. I believe em when they say these processors do ARC natively.

I’m not denying that Apple has better ARC performance. It’s that I don’t understand how an application would use less memory on ARM than x86. I’d expect the ARM code to run faster (as a result of being able to do atomic operations faster), but I don’t see how that translates to less memory usage

Read up on the performance overhead of GC across other languages. They’re messy and can lock up periodically. They take up significant ram and resources.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#365

Post by alwillis »

sneak wrote: post #190
jolux wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hey another emacs user! You can turn off all the telemetry in macOS and they ask you if you want it on when you setup the computer. Agree to disagree on Big Sur, I love the new look. Keep in mind they’re calling it macOS 11, so there are probably bigger and less superficial changes down the road.

> You can turn off all the telemetry in macOS and they ask you if you want it on when you setup the computer. That's false. You can turn off OS analytics but there is tons of telemetry built into almost every Apple app, separate from that, that you cannot disable. It tells you about it on first app launch. Open Maps, for example, and it will tell you about the unique, rotating identifier it uses to track your searche…

Additionally gatekeeper OCSP checks on app launches serve as telemetry in practice, and this has no preference or setting to disable it.

This is just a check that the developer's certificate hasn't been revoked or expired. I wouldn't call it telemetry.

Apple has said they're working on allowing users to opt-out of Gatekeeper checks if that's what people want.

Details—https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/16/checks-on-executable-cod...

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#366

Post by AtlasBarfed »

pcr910303 wrote: post #133
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…

While I won’t go that far, arguing that macOS with a Windows 95 UI is a good idea, I do agree that Big Sur’s current UI is a mess. Traditional macOS users valued the Mac user interface deeply, and IMO that was why while iOS 7 got a big refresh, macOS got a much smaller one, only with flatness refinements. Big Sur feels like the iOS 7 for the Mac, and I’m very sad that I’ll have to wait at least 4~5 years to see the n…

I can't understand why a company obsessed about thin minimalism can't apply the same thing to their OS.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#367

Post by ggm »

betaby wrote: post #180
qz2 wrote: post #22

Even as a miserable pessimist I just bought an M1 Mini today. It cost two months of train season tickets which I don’t have to pay for any more!

What ticket costs 500+tax per month?

Commute from the 2hr circle to central London by train. A one-month season ticket is GBP500 Cambridge-London

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#368

Post by pram »

fsflover wrote: post #42
azangru wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's not as good as Apple yet, but getting there IMO: https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 .

lol this is just delusional. The Librem is the build quality of a generic Chromebook. Maybe competitive with Apple in like 2006, as in the polycarbonate MacBook!

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#369

Post by hu3 »

kevindong wrote: post #332
hu3 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not far, really. Android phones with Qualcom Snapdragon 865 scores better than an Intel i7 7700HQ (4 cores, 8 threads) on Geekbench on multi-core and ties on single core while using a magnitude less energy. While this i7 model is not new, it's not the "U" low voltage processor version. I could see Qualcom getting fancy and trying to scale their processors at 5nm. https://browser.geekbench.com/android_devices/one…

The last time the i7-7700HQ was sold in a Mac was for the mid-2017, 15" MBP. The current gen (late-2019) base model 16" MBP uses a i7-9750H. Single core performance is ~17.5% better and multi-core performance is ~51.2% better than the 865. The numbers are still surprisingly close given that the Snapdragon uses significantly less power. https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/intel-core-i7-9750h

Oh wow. I was not expecting the Qualcomm 865 to be anything close to an i7-9750HQ in single core performance.

Shows how poor is Intel's form lately.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#370

Post by elcritch »

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 actually really want to run native Linux on these new chips. Don't know why but the thought of modern "big sur" macOS on such beautiful hardware seems a bit sad to me. KDE/Manjaro has made me pretty happy lately and the battery life could make an amazing linux laptop. Of course you could run CDE or XFCE to get your Win95 DE. ;) Well in a few years when hopefully Linux supports M1 devices. Till then probably have to play with a PineBook or something.
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