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> The real issue is not shipping the M1 with LPDDR5 support. I brought this up before but it was pointed out to me that the only manufacturer of LPDDR5 last ye

by DCKing 5y ago

> The real issue is not shipping the M1 with LPDDR5 support. I brought this up before but it was pointed out to me that the only manufacturer of LPDDR5 last year was Samsung, which was producing not-completely-standardized LPDDR5 at the time and probably didn't have enough spare volume for Apple anyway. Having 12GB LPDDR4X modules from one vendor (24GB total) probably is not enough reason for Apple to switch up their supply chain either, not for the M1 at least. And, to be fair, I think Apple did get away with shipping low memory computers by targeting only their cheapest computers.

jolux 5y ago
16GB is not "low memory" for the vast majority of users.
- monocasa 5y ago
  You'd be surprised how quickly a regular user can eat that these days with electron apps and a browser. My MIL would pretty routinely get out of memory errors at 16GB and she's hardly a power user. Somehow her Facebook tab would clock in at over a GB alone.
  - jolux 5y ago
    I pretty regularly have Slack running while compiling Erlang in the background, running a Docker container, several dozen Firefox tabs, and a Microsoft Teams call going, and I do not have problems with 16GB on x86. Perhaps ARM Macs use more memory or something. My next MacBook will definitely have more than 16GB if it’s available, but that’s more for future need rather than present.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      She has problems with 16GB on x86. A single docker container and compiling erlang really don't use that much. It's many tabs of office 365, google docs, and social media, and how every app is an electron app now that eats memory. I think we as programmers have lost sight of how a single gif in memory is about the same size as a whole docker container.
      - jolux 5y ago
        I don’t think that’s accurate, because Docker on macOS involves virtualization. And Teams is the worst resource hog I’ve used. Though I don’t use Office or social media much (Twitter occasionally) so maybe that’s it.
        monocasa 5y ago
        > because Docker on macOS involves virtualization Go check out the resource usage. Yes, it involves virtualization, but the stripped down virtualized kernel uses very little resources. Getting that information is a bit complicated by the fact that it's difficult to see the difference between the virtualized kernel and it's applications in a way that's consistent with the host OS, but it's really in the dozens of megabytes range of overhead for something like docker on mac.
        jolux 5y ago
        I guess I should say I don't disbelieve that your mother in law was having problems with the memory in her computer, I just find it baffling because I use mine extremely heavily and my RAM usage rarely peaks like 12GB. Just to check, I opened simultaneous projects in Logic Pro and Ableton Live, I have a Rust project open in VSCode (Electron), compiling Erlang again, I have Slack, Discord, Signal, and Hey running (all Electron apps), and I have Firefox open with Twitter, Hacker News, Facebook (a dozen tabs, just for good measure), Instagram, FBM, Techmeme, NYTimes, CNN, and MSNBC. This is a 15" 2018 MBP with a 6-core i7 and 16GB of RAM, and the CPU is working pretty hard but RAM usage is currently at just over 12GB.
  - astrange 5y ago
    Unless you turned off swap, out of memory actually means out of swap, so probably the machine was out of disk space. Safari shows a memory warning when a tab uses ~2GB memory, and can be too aggressive about it.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      Activity monitor showed that RAM was full. She did not use Safari, but instead Firefox.
      - astrange 5y ago
        Well that’s fine, RAM is supposed to be full. You’re wasting it if it’s not full. If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps. (which tends to come up way too late, but whatever)
        monocasa 5y ago
        > If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps. Yes, she was getting both. To the point that I asked her to keep activity monitor running in the background so we could see who the problem applications were. I'm not sure why this is in question.
        astrange 5y ago
        Because "physical memory" being high in Activity Monitor doesn't actually tell you things that cause that dialog to appear. (Unfortunately.) That and a 1GB Firefox tab isn't quite enough to do it. If "compressed" or "swap space" approach 32GB+/64GB+ (depends on amount of physical memory installed) that can do it, but running out of disk space is a more common problem. Of course, quitting the top app in the memory list probably is going to fix the issue.
        monocasa 5y ago
- hajile 5y ago
  It’s a deal with the devil (especially on the pro machines) where you trade 50% faster CPU for 50% less RAM. Everyone raves about how 8GB machines feel, but the massive SSD usage and pitiful lifespan shows that there’s not a free lunch here. 16GB (or a 24GB option) goes a long way toward preventing early death. I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. I’d guess that’s solvable, but could contribute even more to the SSD problem. On the bright side, all this seems to indicate a great pre-fetch and caching algorithm.
  - foldr 5y ago
    > I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. Not even the most alarmist estimates suggest that the SSDs on the 8GB machines will start dying after two years! At the moment the SSD lifetime concerns are little more than FUD. Everything we know is perfectly consistent with these machines having SSD lifetimes of a decade, even with heavy usage.
    - 542458 5y ago
      I was going to say! People seem to get all paranoid whenever swap is brought up on SSD machines, but modern SSD lifespans are pretty awesome. https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/ https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi... 700TB was the minimum that any drive in the above link managed. If you used 100gigs of swap per day it would take you two decades to hit that level.
  - astrange 5y ago
    > I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. Partly because the GPU works differently, partly because some inaccurate methods of counting memory (Activity Monitor) have cosmetic issues displaying Rosetta processes.

by DCKing 5y ago

jolux 5y ago

16GB is not "low memory" for the vast majority of users.

monocasa 5y ago
You'd be surprised how quickly a regular user can eat that these days with electron apps and a browser. My MIL would pretty routinely get out of memory errors at 16GB and she's hardly a power user. Somehow her Facebook tab would clock in at over a GB alone.
- jolux 5y ago
  I pretty regularly have Slack running while compiling Erlang in the background, running a Docker container, several dozen Firefox tabs, and a Microsoft Teams call going, and I do not have problems with 16GB on x86. Perhaps ARM Macs use more memory or something. My next MacBook will definitely have more than 16GB if it’s available, but that’s more for future need rather than present.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    She has problems with 16GB on x86. A single docker container and compiling erlang really don't use that much. It's many tabs of office 365, google docs, and social media, and how every app is an electron app now that eats memory. I think we as programmers have lost sight of how a single gif in memory is about the same size as a whole docker container.
    - jolux 5y ago
      I don’t think that’s accurate, because Docker on macOS involves virtualization. And Teams is the worst resource hog I’ve used. Though I don’t use Office or social media much (Twitter occasionally) so maybe that’s it.
      - monocasa 5y ago
        > because Docker on macOS involves virtualization Go check out the resource usage. Yes, it involves virtualization, but the stripped down virtualized kernel uses very little resources. Getting that information is a bit complicated by the fact that it's difficult to see the difference between the virtualized kernel and it's applications in a way that's consistent with the host OS, but it's really in the dozens of megabytes range of overhead for something like docker on mac.
        jolux 5y ago
        I guess I should say I don't disbelieve that your mother in law was having problems with the memory in her computer, I just find it baffling because I use mine extremely heavily and my RAM usage rarely peaks like 12GB. Just to check, I opened simultaneous projects in Logic Pro and Ableton Live, I have a Rust project open in VSCode (Electron), compiling Erlang again, I have Slack, Discord, Signal, and Hey running (all Electron apps), and I have Firefox open with Twitter, Hacker News, Facebook (a dozen tabs, just for good measure), Instagram, FBM, Techmeme, NYTimes, CNN, and MSNBC. This is a 15" 2018 MBP with a 6-core i7 and 16GB of RAM, and the CPU is working pretty hard but RAM usage is currently at just over 12GB.
- astrange 5y ago
  Unless you turned off swap, out of memory actually means out of swap, so probably the machine was out of disk space. Safari shows a memory warning when a tab uses ~2GB memory, and can be too aggressive about it.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Activity monitor showed that RAM was full. She did not use Safari, but instead Firefox.
    - astrange 5y ago
      Well that’s fine, RAM is supposed to be full. You’re wasting it if it’s not full. If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps. (which tends to come up way too late, but whatever)
      - monocasa 5y ago
        > If you’re really using too much, the system will either get horribly slow or you’ll get a dialog asking you to force quit apps. Yes, she was getting both. To the point that I asked her to keep activity monitor running in the background so we could see who the problem applications were. I'm not sure why this is in question.
        astrange 5y ago
        Because "physical memory" being high in Activity Monitor doesn't actually tell you things that cause that dialog to appear. (Unfortunately.) That and a 1GB Firefox tab isn't quite enough to do it. If "compressed" or "swap space" approach 32GB+/64GB+ (depends on amount of physical memory installed) that can do it, but running out of disk space is a more common problem. Of course, quitting the top app in the memory list probably is going to fix the issue.
        monocasa 5y ago
hajile 5y ago
It’s a deal with the devil (especially on the pro machines) where you trade 50% faster CPU for 50% less RAM. Everyone raves about how 8GB machines feel, but the massive SSD usage and pitiful lifespan shows that there’s not a free lunch here. 16GB (or a 24GB option) goes a long way toward preventing early death. I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. I’d guess that’s solvable, but could contribute even more to the SSD problem. On the bright side, all this seems to indicate a great pre-fetch and caching algorithm.
- foldr 5y ago
  > I actually suspect they’ll be launching a free SSD replacement program in the next couple years. Not even the most alarmist estimates suggest that the SSDs on the 8GB machines will start dying after two years! At the moment the SSD lifetime concerns are little more than FUD. Everything we know is perfectly consistent with these machines having SSD lifetimes of a decade, even with heavy usage.
  - 542458 5y ago
    I was going to say! People seem to get all paranoid whenever swap is brought up on SSD machines, but modern SSD lifespans are pretty awesome. https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead/ https://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experi... 700TB was the minimum that any drive in the above link managed. If you used 100gigs of swap per day it would take you two decades to hit that level.
- astrange 5y ago
  > I’ve also heard claims from a couple devs that side-by-side comparisons with their x86 macs show a massive increase in RAM usage for the same app for whatever reason. Partly because the GPU works differently, partly because some inaccurate methods of counting memory (Activity Monitor) have cosmetic issues displaying Rosetta processes.