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Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

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Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#901

Post by derefr »

DonaldPShimoda wrote: post #859
derefr wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it won't help in areas that Apple just organizationally doesn't care about/doesn't have the bandwidth for because that's not a technology problem I would posit that Apple is always going to keep macOS working on some workstation-class hardware, just because that kind of machine is what Apple's software engineers will be using internally, and they need to write macOS software using macOS. Which means one of two thin…

> I would posit that Apple is always going to keep macOS working on some workstation-class hardware, just because that kind of machine is what Apple's software engineers will be using internally, and they need to write macOS software using macOS. I hope I'm not out of line here, but this is not what a "workstation" is. "Workstation" actually has a specific meaning in the realm of enterprise computing solutions, and d…

Apple develops not just macOS, but also application software like Logic and FCPX. The engineers writing that code need to test it on full-scale projects (probably projects on loan to them from companies like Pixar.)

But moreover, changes to foundational macOS libraries can cause regressions in the performance of this type of software, and so macOS developers working on systems like Quartz, hardware developers working on the Neural Engine, etc., also work with these apps and their datasets as regression-test harnesses.

See also: the Microsoft devs who work on DirectX.

All of this testing requires "workstation" hardware. (Or servers, but Apple definitely isn't making server hardware that can run macOS at this point. IIRC, they're instead keeping macOS BSD-ish enough to be able to write software that can be developed on macOS and then deployed on NetBSD.)

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#902

Post by rsynnott »

_a1_ wrote: post #517
crazygringo wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, I'm utterly baffled by all the people claiming that 8 GB isn't enough for the average user. The only situation I ever ran into where it was a problem was in trying to run multiple VM's at once. Otherwise it's just a non-issue. Programs often reserve a lot more memory than they actually use (zero hit in performance) so memory stats are misleading, and the OS is really good at swapping memory not touched in…

> Otherwise it's just a non-issue. Nah, sorry, but you're wrong. I had to upgrade my laptop because I wanted to run Firefox, IntelliJ IDEA and an Android emulator on the same machine. Nothing else. This was not possible on 8GB ram. So it's not like multiple VMs are needed and above scenario is pretty average for a common mobile developer (but still not an average user, I admit) Second thing is, lots of games require…

> an Android emulator

Well, that's one (largish) VM.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#903

Post by rsynnott »

jdminhbg wrote: post #30
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…

iPhones and iPads also have relatively small amounts of RAM compared to Android devices in the same class, so I wonder if Apple is doing something smart with offloading memory to fast SSD storage in a way that isn't noticeable to the user.

For those, Apple's favored approach to memory management (mostly reference counting) absolutely _is_ an advantage over Android's (mostly GC). That's not relevant when comparing an Intel and ARM Mac, tho.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#904

Post by rsynnott »

Slartie wrote: post #765
alphachloride wrote: post #258

What does it mean to be an 8-core GPU? 8-CPU I can understand. But I thought GPUs were supposed to have a lot more cores for parallelism.

It means absolutely nothing. Because every GPU vendor has a different notion of what a "core" is. Some count the smallest parallel execution unit as a "core" and thus boast chips with thousands of "cores", some group these smallest units into larger units and count those as a "core", which results in smaller numbers of "cores" per chip. I would guess Apple is doing the latter. I don't think that it's possible to deli…

Yeah; Apple claims 128 "execution units" and 24,576 concurrent threads (I assume something analogous to SMT going on there, though I don't know enough about GPUs to be sure).

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#905

Post by rsynnott »

exoji2e wrote: post #548

"iOS software uses reference counting for memory management, running on silicon optimized to make reference counting as efficient as possible; Android software uses garbage collection for memory management, a technique that requires more RAM to achieve equivalent performance." This statement is nonsense. Reference counting is typically used in garbage collection. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_counting It…

> Reference counting is typically used in garbage collection

While you _can_ implement a garbage collector with reference counting, and in the broadest possible definition of 'garbage collector' you could call Apple's use of reference counting a garbage collector, no, what people typically call garbage collectors are not, today, typically primarily dependent on reference counting.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#906

Post by coldtea »

metalforever wrote: post #761
coldtea wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the developers and power users that still use desktop machines/towers are either very cpu-power-hungry niche exception, or the more backwards ones, and thus least likely to influence/be imitated by anyone...

Or ...they're old and cant see the tiny laptop screen or get back pain when using a laptop all hunched over. To be honest, I don't know how anyone does serious work on them.

You can connect a laptop to 2-3-4 externals screens. Which many do. You don't need a tower for that.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#907

Post by coldtea »

Plasmoid2000ad wrote: post #774
coldtea wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the developers and power users that still use desktop machines/towers are either very cpu-power-hungry niche exception, or the more backwards ones, and thus least likely to influence/be imitated by anyone...

Apple itself is selling it's new chips as making faster devices. If only a niche want that speed, Apple probably wouldn't be pushing it as part of the pitch so hard.

That would be if everything else was equal. Everything else is NOT equal. People also want portability, small size, battery life, etc.

If more than a niche had speed as its sole priority, then they would already use desktops, but most (80%+) use laptops today.

But of the majority that uses laptops, most would like a faster machine. Just would prefer it was also a laptop.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#908

Post by jhgb »

notriddle wrote: post #808
jhgb wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the case with Java that it will do this because you do have the memory to spend on it? Generally this "handling the mess afterward" involves some kind of nursery or early generation these days, but their size may be use-case-dependent. If tuned for a 8/16 GB environment, presumably the "sawtooth" wouldn't need to be as tall.

Yes, but the reason it does it is to make it fast. The shorter your sawtooth spokes, the slower your app.

Slower in what metrics? Latency? Throughput? Not to mention that the behavior may strongly depend on the GC design and the HW platform in question. It seems far too difficult to make a blanket statement about what is and isn't achievable in a specific use case.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#909

Post by vetinari »

rbanffy wrote: post #795
niea_11 wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use apple products but I think the high price of a workstation is not something specific to Apple. From a discussion I had with a friend recently, I found that Precision workstations from Dell or Z workstations from HP have similar prices for similar performances (sometime prices can reach 40k or 70k dollars). When comparing Mac Pro to an enthusiast pc build, yes the mac pro is "overpriced", but the mac pro i…

> I think the high price of a workstation is not something specific to Apple. A professional workstation, with support, services, guaranteed replacement components, guaranteed service-life, maintenance contracts and so on is very different from an enthusiast-built machine. It's like comparing a BMW M3 to a tricked out VW Golf. You can fit a bigger, badder engine under the VW's hood, stiffen the suspension, replace th…

Well, VW does sells tricked out VW Golf, straight from the factory (GTI, R) :) Though it is more competition to M135i than M3.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#910

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

headmelted wrote: post #809
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The machines have always commanded a premium for things that enthusiasts don’t see value in (I.e. anything beyond numeric spec sheet values), so most critics completely miss the point of them. It's not just intangibles. I really like using Macs, but my latest computer is a Dell XPS 17. This is not a cheap computer if you get the 4k screen, 64GB of RAM and the good graphics card. At those prices, you should consider…

Yes and no. To be honest I did the same back-of-the-napkin math that you did prior to buying my MBP - the thing is the TCO is even worse if you customise the machine. Example - a Mac is a Mac for resale purposes - if I attempt to later sell an XPS that I've opened up and put an SSD in and a couple of SODIMMS - I now need to recoup my cost on all of those things. The problem is that if someone is looking at a used XPS…

I wasn’t trying to address the resale value. Only the tax part. The perception of the tax comes from Apple simply not offering compromised parts for a particular set of parameters. And other manufacturers willing to sell at large discounts regularly!
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