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M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

eclecticlight.co

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Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#211

Post by masswerk »

wubrr wrote: post #143
zaphar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CLI tools/shell is attempting to follow more-or-less standardish unix/linux setup but fails pretty hard, with many of the same commands existing but behaving just differently enough to be annoying. They wasn't following unix/Linux standards they are following unix/bsd standards. Standards that predate Linux and for some of us are very familiar indeed.

What standards are those exactly? Everyone knows that macos (and windows) took a lot from unix/bsd. But that does not mean they are actively following any kind of reasonable modern standard. And saying they might be following some 30 year old supposed bsd standard is pretty hilarious for an OS that portends to be cutting-edge, intuitive and well-integrated.

Hum, BSD is still very much around.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#212

Post by sroussey »

scrlk wrote: post #167
blktiger wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't all of the new M3 Macs announced the same price as they previously were or lower? Same with the recently announced iPhones? Or am I mis-remembering? Seems like prices not increasing given all the recent inflation are actually a price decrease pretty much across the board not an increase on the average selling price?

Entry level pricing for a MacBook Pro now starts at $1599 rather than $1299.

And it has a downgrade from a Pro chip to a non pro chip.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#213

Post by Someone »

skuhn wrote: post #190
wubrr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all. As a single example - macos comes with an extremely outdated version of GNU bash (3.2) from 2007. And yes, this has consequences in that many modern bash scripts depend on bash 4+ (current latest GNU bash is 5.2+).

Unfortunately this will never be fixed. It's not a technical problem. They refuse to ship software licensed under GPL v3, and bash 3.2 is the final GPL v2 version. I hate it.

I wonder why they haven’t fixed it yet by removing bash and the other GPL-licensed tools. Even if they currently need one to boot the system, they have the resources to change that.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#214

Post by thrwy_918 »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #202
shepherdjerred wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I know, this isn't some artificial limitation that Apple imposes. Adding support has a cost that most customers don't need to pay. Regardless, most people aren't going to be plugging in three monitors into their laptops, so most people aren't going to care about this.

If I ever have to try to plug more than two monitors into a laptop at that point I'm going to start asking myself why I'm not just buying a tower instead. The whole point of laptops is portability.

> The whole point of laptops is portability.

Many people want portability, but also want to use external displays at home or at the office .

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#215

Post by karolist »

wubrr wrote: post #205
karolist wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an issue even if you say it is. Takes 1 minute to setup brew on a fresh Mac, third party or not who cares when it's open source, apt is also open-source and in the same sense a third party someone develops, you just get that with the base Debian like systems, if we start counting the minute wasted to setup brew then you waste more time to install Debian in the first place, Macs come pre-installed.

It literally is an issue, and the fact that you're pointing out a potential solution should make that obvious to you. Many software companies (including FAANGs) have basically given up trying to support building/running most of their software on mac for these exact reasons, and they have really tried - dedicating hundreds of experienced engineers to the problem.

I call BS on the FAANG statement. I work at FAANG and 80% SWEs use MBPs, actually if we go by literal meaning of FAANG company list, they do not even focus on desktop software and are mostly web companies and the tooling is all backend where SWE machines do not do any heavy lifting.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#217

Post by baz00 »

shepherdjerred wrote: post #126
jader201 wrote: post #121

It’s ridiculous that the base and Pro only support 1 and 2 external displays, respectively. Want 3 monitors? Have to pay for the Max. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/02/m3-chip-still-supports-...

From what I know, this isn't some artificial limitation that Apple imposes. Adding support has a cost that most customers don't need to pay. Regardless, most people aren't going to be plugging in three monitors into their laptops, so most people aren't going to care about this.

Intel support 4 displays on a bottom end i5-1235U.

Even my crappy little Lenovo M600 with an N-series Celeron supports 3 displays. Two 4k ones fine. I didn't have a third to test it with.

It's either an architectural fuck up or intentional segmentation.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#219

Post by AtlasBarfed »

Exoristos wrote: post #178
wubrr wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the support for even one monitor is by far worse than windows or linux IMO. - Monitor randomly resets/readjusts for no apparent reason. Like multiple times every hour. - Windows disappear, become inaccessible after moving between monitors, even though it still open and active according to doc/task list. - Why can't I move a window to a monitor/workspace that has a maximized window? Like, you can do it by un-m…

I've both used Macs for decades and at one time worked in enterprise Mac technical support, and I've never seen this stuff happen.

I've used multi-monitor dev setups and large screen setups in mac laptops for, christ, 15 years.

I've seen all of those things listed.

It would be one thing if OSX/Linux/Windows UIs would just stay at their basic usability from around 2010. They haven't. They just get steadily worse.

OSX has been the most stable of them, quirks and all, even with a goddamn architecture change, but its closed hardware, a forced upgrade cycle, and bad backwards compatibility.

Linux once would just rewrite window managers every 5 years as soon as they got stable, now Linux is rewriting with Wayland and Vulkan, and ... about 5 years in they'll probably start rewriting those once they get a little stable.

Windows? Committed UI suicide with the tiles and two desktops thing in Windows 8. Now there's ARM in the future and a break with the only thing it has going for it: backwards compatibility.

But yes, everything the author complains about happens in OSX with laptop + monitor / dual monitors, and even without with disappearing mouse cursors.

Re: M3 Macs: there's more to performance than counting cores

#220

Post by upget_tiding »

sroussey wrote: post #210
kylec wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to spend a minimum of $2000 though, the new $1600 MacBook Pro also only supports one external display.

Yeah, the new MacBook Pro with a non Pro or Max chip is essentially an Air with a couple extra ports. I don't think they should have released it.

It's better than the 13" MacBook Pro with touchbar that it replaced.
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