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An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

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221–230 of 454 posts

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#221
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, it’s like a freaky experience. I run mostly from the browser but have a couple of things going at the same time. One thing I noticed is the blazing fast typing on the Mac. There is an ever so small lag on windows in perceptible when using it. But, when you type on the Mac you notice it, and the brain just feels good using it. I have no idea if this is a real thing, but it’s similar with scrolling, you touc…

One of the reasons iOS feels smoother than Android is because the render loop of the OS is decoupled from the app. The apps aren’t allowed to introduce jank, so if you’re scrolling a webpage and stuff is loading simultaneously, iOS will be way smoother. I think this is also why they can have such low latency on inputs, for example with the Apple Pencil which is much lower latency than the surface pen or the android s…

Android has had a separate "render thread" for ages, though it's per app and runs in the app process. Some animations run on it, but many do not. You can't access it directly from within the app.

The thing macOS on M1 does very cleverly is scheduling threads on cores. IIRC all UI threads run on high-power cores, while all background tasks run on low-power ones. So they never interfere with each other. iOS probably does the same; Android probably does none of this.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#222
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not entirely accurate. iOS indeed uses a client-server UI model, kind of similar to X11. Along with submitting “widget” hierarchy updates, it also supports submitting “animations”. The downside is that the animation states are not truly accessible by the actual app after it submits them. The scrolling animation is 99.9% of the time implemented as a client-side animation timer submitting non-animated hierarchy…

> Along with submitting “widget” hierarchy updates, it also supports submitting “animations”. Is that how all these third party iOS apps all have completely consistent “pop” animations on long press?

No, that would be OS-provided GUI components (or sometimes manual reimplementation), similar to how most win32 apps had the same right-click menu behavior.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, the M1 feels very performant with 8gb (I have MBP and Mini 8gb variants) compared to my 16gb Intel MBP and my 32gb Hackintosh. That said - it’s not magic. 30 tabs in Chrome is a lot if you’re not using a tab suspender extension. But one thing I do notice is that when a Rosetta 2 app is running, the entire machine seems to take a hit. I would check the architecture of your apps and see if you have any x86…

Lol 30 tabs is a lot? I'm running 32 gb ram on windows i7-6700 3.4 ghz on mini ATX and currently have 883 tabs open, using marvelous suspender and few other tweaks, but still have 95 windows opens (1 tab typically alive in each window minimum excluding my suspension blacklist...). Also have photoshop, notion, and a few other apps going and am running smoothly at 40-70% cpu utilization and 85% memory...

> using marvelous suspender

Did you even read my comment?

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#224

The M1 line up seems great but... I'm very surprised by all the comments from people discovering what a quiet computer is like in 2021. I've been running PCs so quiet they're inaudible since, what, nearly two decades now!? (since basically the first consumer SSDs started hitting the market: don't remember when that was but it was a long time ago) An ultra quiet PSU, a gigantic CPU heatsink, a huge CPU fan running so…

Computers like the "HUAWEI MateBook X" are fanless with a powerful CPU (10th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-10210U Processor, 1.6 GHz 4 cores, Turbo up to 4.2 GHz). https://consumer.huawei.com/en/laptops/matebook-x-2020/specs... I have used also a Surface Pro for a long time, and not being modern as this new Apple laptop, it is a full-fledged Windows 10 machine that can run any programming IDE, virtual machines, etc. and comple…

I didn't downvote. But I assume it's because he's focusing on heat mitigations which are old, while the point of the matter is the M1's produces less heat in the first place.

There's some obvious advantages to avoiding the creation of heat. Advantages that mitigation does not realize.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#225
post #25

Pre M1, I've always preferred a PC. When I'm using a laptop, especially doing real work, they heat up, the fans go crazy, the laptop is hot to the touch and everything slows down. It almost makes you anxious. You're wondering if it's about to crash or go on fire. I've always kept a Desktop PC on the go for this reason, a well cooled desktop just doesn't have these issues. With a laptop, I always feel like I'm comprom…

"the fans go crazy, the laptop is hot to the touch and everything slows down."

So you installed Gentoo, what's your problem? 8)

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s some deep dive articles on the way the input loop works. But OP is correct, and the reason iOS feels smoother. Android has a lot more UI lag.

I don't think Apple has any special tricks for input loop. Some Android phones really have input lag, but it is not caused by CPU load. For example, on my phone, there is approximately 100-150 ms lag between tapping the screen and registering the touch. The lag is not caused by CPU load, but by slow touch sensor. I don't think Apple has any smart code optimization tricks. Either they have a faster touch sensor or jus…

They do! See https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2015/233l9q8h... and the corresponding WWDC session on them minimizing the input-to-display time.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#228
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PC originally meant "IBM PC desktop clone". You're misremembering history. It eventually evolved into that, yes. Apple didn't really buy into that until the "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads.

And even then they still used the PowerPC chips and branding.

Yep! Never thought about it that way, but indeed, PowerPC was a smaller not-server chip intended for personal computers.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#229

I’ll wait for the Pro… But honestly - the last Airs and Pros are a joke especially while using a second Monitor. The Pro has a known bug and can get pretty slow. The Air - unresponsive as hell if a second monitor is used and u are in a virtual conference with screencast and cam on. We must always look at the price value tag and at that point Apple really disappointed recently. Don’t get me wrong… I am a Dev and i app…

Strange... I frequently dock my M1 Air to a 3840x2160 display and it can easily run my 30+ track Logic Pro session without any perceivable throttling.

I believe he's referring to the previous generation of Air's, not the M1 version.

Re: An app for M1 Macs that plays the sound of a fan as CPU usage goes up

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. I've always thought it was more of a result of our current display technology? Digital displays buffer an entire frame before they display it. Sometimes several frames. And the refresh rate is usually 60 Hz so each buffered frame adds a delay of 16 ms. CRTs on the other hand have basically zero latency because the signal coming in directly controls the intensity of the beam as it draws the picture. Anyway, is it…

CRTs are potentially worse. It takes the electron beam 16 ms to paint the screen. If the electron beam is halfway down the screen and you change a pixel right above where the beam just painted, you'll have to wait 16 ms before you see anything change. All CRT displays attached to computers in the last 40 years were driven from memory buffers just like LCDs, and those buffers were typically only allowed to change whil…

> CRTs are potentially worse. It takes the electron beam 16 ms to paint the screen.

Back when I had CRTs, 60Hz displays were the older, less-common, cheapo option. I'm having a hard time remembering a CRT display that wasn't at least 75Hz (I believe this was the VESA standard for the minimum to be flicker-free), but most of the monitors I used had refresh rates in the 80-90Hz range. I remember a beautiful higher-end CRT that had a refresh rate around 110Hz.

85Hz gives you a frame time of 11ms, which doesn't sound much better, but is a 30% improvement over 16ms.

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