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Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

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Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#211

Post by MBCook »

wpm wrote: post #174
MBCook wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree except the machines are so low spec I don’t think they’re a good experience. An M1 is great. But RAM and storage won’t hold up as long. I suspect they can sell them at that price and still make a killing, and all the equipment to make chassis/etc is already paid off.

Storage can at least be expanded externally, if at a cost of speed, reliability, and convenience. For the RAM, 8GB is not enough, but in fairness, when the system can page out at 200GB/s, paging out doesn't hurt nearly as bad. Its only when things have to thrash the page file that it becomes readily apparent on these (say, an application needs to have more than a few GB of stuff resident in memory all the time).

I agree. If you’re using a lot of cloud services (Google Docs, iCloud Drive, Spotify, etc) you can get by without a lot of storage these days.

But even if 8 GB of RAM holds you today, will it hold you five years from now?

Or are you going to have to get rid of the computer much faster and buy another one by then.

Whereas simply doubling the RAM would likely extend the life a significant amount.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#212

Post by itsmek »

kevincox wrote: post #210
stouset wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am nowhere near an expert or even a particularly well-informed person here, but my idle speculation is that online technical spaces are a place where you can have much more freedom in comfortably choosing the outward persona you wish to present. In meatspace, if your physical appearances and your chosen persona don't match up in ways that some people find disagreeable, many people will go out of their way to let yo…

But by this logic roughly half of the population is trans, but the vast majority are afraid to present as such. The actual number of trans people is surely impossible to know due to these societal pressures but I find it hard to believe that almost half of the population is trans. I suspect there are other factors.

My read is that post is not arguing what you think (that it's caused by freedom to present how they feel and that it's a representative population) but instead that it's caused by a selection effect. But this argument is implied so I see why you mistook it.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#213

Post by stouset »

itsmek wrote: post #212
kevincox wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But by this logic roughly half of the population is trans, but the vast majority are afraid to present as such. The actual number of trans people is surely impossible to know due to these societal pressures but I find it hard to believe that almost half of the population is trans. I suspect there are other factors.

My read is that post is not arguing what you think (that it's caused by freedom to present how they feel and that it's a representative population) but instead that it's caused by a selection effect. But this argument is implied so I see why you mistook it.

That's correct. I suspect there's a selection effect where people who struggle with these challenges in their lives find comfort in a space where they can present as the person they want to be without constantly being questioned, attacked, or otherwise made uncomfortable. And that's not because this industry is more enlightened, but because it's much easier to contribute and participate only with an online persona that can be divorced from your physical characteristics.

I hope it's clear that I am not trying to speak authoritatively and that this is more or less a total guess on my part based on some pretty superficial analysis.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#214

Post by BuildTheRobots »

kevincox wrote: post #210
stouset wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am nowhere near an expert or even a particularly well-informed person here, but my idle speculation is that online technical spaces are a place where you can have much more freedom in comfortably choosing the outward persona you wish to present. In meatspace, if your physical appearances and your chosen persona don't match up in ways that some people find disagreeable, many people will go out of their way to let yo…

But by this logic roughly half of the population is trans, but the vast majority are afraid to present as such. The actual number of trans people is surely impossible to know due to these societal pressures but I find it hard to believe that almost half of the population is trans. I suspect there are other factors.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. I think your logic is backwards. Parent isn't saying the freedom of online technical spaces turns people trans, but that trans people in those spaces are more likely to make themselves obvious because of the freedoms.

There's also high overlaps between trans and non-neurotypical types. I'd suggest there's the same crossover between non-neurotypical and tech circles so makes sense there's a higher instance of trans in tech.

I'd also suggest that on some level coming out as trans is basically hacker mentality. "This hardware/wetware doesn't look/perform correctly. Let me get a soldering iron/rewrite some code/clothing/hormones/surgery and change that."

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#215

Post by BuildTheRobots »

nemomarx wrote: post #191
xyzsparetimexyz wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What's the negative stereotype we're worried about here? "trans women are hackers" or something? Linux secretly makes you trans? The banker thing would be bad optics because of conspiracies about it, but I'm not aware of an equivalent.

"It would have been the year of the Linux desktop too, if it wasn't for those pesky trans hackers!"

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#216

Post by ActorNightly »

beagle3 wrote: post #82
ActorNightly wrote: post #10

Im glad she stepped away from Asahi linux. Its absolutely great from a techincal perspective and the progress that team has made, but talented people like her shouldn't be trying to reverse engineer software/hardware from shitty anti-consumer company that can make the entire project work in a heartbeat by publishing documentation, in lieu of building better stuff from the ground up.

Reverse engineering requires a different mindset and somewhat different skill set than “forward” engineering. I’ve met people who were happy to only do reverse engineering (to figure out what make things “tick”) without building anything new. If it was up to me, 2 years of successful reverse engineering (of a variety of projects/products) would be a requirement to be called an engineer. You learn a lot from working t…

I mean, she wasn't just reverse engineering, she was doing it to make graphics work on Asahi Linux.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#217

Post by manav »

Very cool and what an amazing way to learn so much beyond what you do in those years at university (at least in the engineering sense). I wish we had software and hardware open to be able to run custom setups whether its NVIDIA on x64 or Ampere/arm64 with MacOS.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#218

Post by adastra22 »

adrian_b wrote: post #132
judge123 wrote: post #28

The author basically speedran modern graphics APIs on 'impossible' hardware and then just... walks away. Total mic drop.

Switching to work on Intel GPUs is not walking away. It is accepting a new challenge.

It is walking away from her user base. (I’m not complaining — I’m an open source dev too and recognize I have no right to put demands on her time. But what is the future for Asahi Linux after this? I don’t see one.)

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#219

Post by MangoToupe »

tlamponi wrote: post #147
MangoToupe wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a future for intel, frankly, but I'm very happy she found a good paying job.

There was a time when people said that about AMD. Don't get me wrong, Intel's outlook is IMO currently indeed rather bleak, but I would not completely write it off just yet.

AMD is equally fucked. Building off of IP-locked architectures is just a graveyard. Even apple will hit a wall one day.

Re: Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

#220

Post by MangoToupe »

kccqzy wrote: post #156
koakuma-chan wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Apple makes good products. It seems, unlike Intel.

Apple doesn't have any contributions to the Linux kernel or other parts of the Linux graphics stack. They are unlikely to hire someone who wants to work on open source.

Sure but linux isn't necessary. Legacy software can be virtualized
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