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Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

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Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#581

I know Apple has a translating feature called Rosetta. But what about virtual machines? Is it possible to run Windows 10 (not the ARM edition but the regular, full Windows 10) as a virtual machine on top of an Apple M1 chip? It looks like UTM ( https://mac.getutm.app/ ) enables this, although at a performance hit, but I don’t know how well it works in practice. What about Parallels - their website suggests you can ru…

Neither Apple, Microsoft, nor Parallels is planning to support x86-64 Windows on Apple silicon. You can run emulation software like QEMU and it works but it is very slow. UTM uses QEMU.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#582
post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably right. Maybe they have inventory to work through!

They also have a limited headcount and resources so they wouldn't want to announce M1x/pro/max for all machines now and have employees be idle for the next 3 months. Notebooks also have a higher profit margin, so they sell them to those who need to upgrade now. The lower-margin systems like Mini will come later. And the Mac Pro will either die or come with the next iteration of the chips.

The Mac Pro might be blocked, or still progressing, through design changes more so than chip changes.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#583

I always thought it was strange that "integrated graphics" was, for years, was synonymous with "cheap, underperforming" compared to the power of a discrete GPU. I never could see any fundamental reason why "integrated" should mean "underpowered." Apple is turning things around, and is touting the benefits of high-performance integrated graphics.

Perhaps with Vista? "Integrated" graphics meant something like Intel 915 which couldn't run "Aero". Even if you had the Intel 945, if you had low bandwidth RAM graphics performance still stuttered. Good article: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2008/03/the-vista-capable-de...

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Apple is selling M1 Macs like hotcakes, so it won't be too long until it'll be stupid not to support them. Also, texture thrashing isn't really an issue when you've got a shared CPU/GPU memory with 64 GB of space. Just cache like half the game in it lol

Apple had a shot at making Mac gaming a reality around 2019. They decided to axe 32-bit library support though, which instantly disqualifies the lion's share of PC games. You could still theoretically update these titles to run on MacOS, but I have little hope that any of these developers would care enough to completely rewrite their codebase to be compatible with 15% of the desktop market share.

Yeah, and they also deprecated OpenGL, which would have wiped out most of those games even if the 32-bit support didn't. I'm not expecting to see much backwards compatibility, I'm expecting forwards compatibility, and we're starting to see new titles come out with native Apple Silicon support, slowly, but surely.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#585
post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mistaken. On both PS3 and Xbox 360 CPU and GPU is on different chips and made by different vendors(CPU made by IBM and GPU by Nvidia in case of PS3 and CPU by IBM and GPU by ATI for Xbox 360). Nonetheless in PS4/XOne generation they both use single die with unified memory for everything and their GPU could be called integrated.

For the 360, from 2010 production (when they introduced the 45nm shrink), the CPU and GPU was merged into a single chip.

Yup. Prior they were absolutely different dies just on the same package

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#586
post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a tradeoff in terms of power consumption?

Huge, apparently. I just spent a bit over $7,000 for a top-spec model and was surprised to read that it comes with a 140 watt power adapter. Prior to my current M1 MBP, my daily driver was a maxed-out 16" MBP. It's a solid computer, but it functions just as well as a space heater. And its power adapter is only 100 watts.

They support fast-charging the battery to 50% in 30 minutes. That's probably the reason for the beefy charger.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a function of capability. I spent $4,000 on a 2019 MBP, including $750 for a Vega 20. It plays Elder Scrolls Online WORSE than a friend's 2020 with INTEGRATED graphics. (I guess Bethesda gave some love to the integrated chipset, and didn't optimize for the Vega. It hitches badly every couple of seconds like it's texture thrashing.) Whatever AAA games that might have gotten some love on the Mac (and there are…

Well, Apple is selling M1 Macs like hotcakes, so it won't be too long until it'll be stupid not to support them. Also, texture thrashing isn't really an issue when you've got a shared CPU/GPU memory with 64 GB of space. Just cache like half the game in it lol

There is 0% chance that game dev supports mac, it's a dead platform for gaming.

The downvote police is there, am I missing something? are they any modern game on mac?

https://applesilicongames.com/

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge, apparently. I just spent a bit over $7,000 for a top-spec model and was surprised to read that it comes with a 140 watt power adapter. Prior to my current M1 MBP, my daily driver was a maxed-out 16" MBP. It's a solid computer, but it functions just as well as a space heater. And its power adapter is only 100 watts.

the power supply is for charging the battery faster. the new magsafe 3 system can charge with more wattage than usb-c, as per the announcement. usb-c max wattage is 100 watts, which was the previous limiting factor for battery charge.

USB-C 3.1 PD delivers up to 240watts.

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#589
post #82

This is about the processors, not the laptops, so commenting on the chips instead. They look great, but they look like they're the M1 design, just more of it. Which is plenty for a laptop! But it'll be interesting to see what they'll do for their desktops. Most of the additional chip area went into more GPUs and special-purpose video codec hardware. It's "just" two more cores than the vanilla M1, and some of the effi…

> I'm still a bit sad that the era of "general purpose computing" where CPU can do all workloads is coming to an end.

They’ll still do all workloads, but are optimized for certain workloads. How is that any different than say, a Xeon or EPYC cpu designed for highly threaded (server/scientific computing) applications?

Re: Apple’s new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t answer for music, but as a developer a sure way to waste a lot of RAM is to run a bunch of virtual machines, containers or device simulators. I have 32GB, so unless I’m careless everything usually fits in memory without swapping. If you got over things get slow and you notice.

Same, I tend to get everything in 32GB but more and more often I'm going over that and having things slow down. I've also nuked an SSD in a 16GB MBP due to incredibly high swap activity. It would make no sense for me to buy another 32GB machine if I want it to last five years.

How do you track the swap activity? What would you call “high” swap activity?
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