6 ms·

MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. I feel like it's just a pure marketing play to only support mor

by nico_h 4y ago

MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. I feel like it's just a pure marketing play to only support more than one external screen on the 14" pro. They have Magsafe and two thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports, they could totally support 2 Apple studio displays, at least on the 24GB model.

louissm_it 4y ago
As someone who upgraded from an Intel Mac to an M1 mac, the memory is a non-issue. Three years ago I would have laughed if you said I would be happy with "only" 8GB, but now I am.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I thought I'd be happy with 8GB based on benchmarks and sensationalistic videos (thanks, Max Tech), but I absolutely wasn't. Apple silicon Macs or maybe Macs in general handle high memory pressure (graph in the red) terribly. The system will get extremely slow and laggy, develop audio issues and eventually lock up. I ran into that all the time on the 8GB model (admittedly with multiple RAM-intensive apps and lots of tabs open), while it now happens very rarely on my 16GB model.
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    Is that high memory pressure slowness issue the same when there is lots of HD space left? Apple devices have had issues with “low” amounts of HD space for a long time, and I’m curious if the M* continue the trend. Also: this makes a red flag of the recent shift to half-speed drive performance
evo_9 4y ago
I switched to a single ultra wide 38 from LG and it was a huge improvement over my dual monitor setup. I’m on M1 Air, and switched my work pc to the same.
- 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
  The other reason I enjoy my ultrawide is that there are fewer cables to deal with and less hardware needed to mount the monitors. I bought a 34" UW a couple of years back. But I reckon my next upgrade I'm going to the superwides.
- pc86 4y ago
  I've been really considering an ultra-wide and have heard extremely polarized opinions on it. Is there anything specific that you prefer over two widescreen monitors?
  - evo_9 4y ago
    The lack of a center bar was a bigger deal than I expected. Being able to extend my SQL window to the full screen seeing all columns for example, beyond 'just nice'. Same with code, not always but sometimes I need a wider view. There are a lot of subtle gains that I'm probably forgetting about and really only one negative that I've run into - games don't play super nice on the ultra-wide, but that's not really what I use this machine for. Oh another bonus I forgot - watching shows / movies on it is really nice. I have very rarely considered this but with an 18 month old, you find you have to squeeze in time here/there, we had to stop the new batman movie on HBO with 20 minutes left... I probably would not have ever watched the ending (it was pretty good!) if I didn't have that display, it was a nice way to spend 20 minutes during lunch and I've been watching movies/shows on it randomly during lunch since. It's pretty great for this use too.
    - joshspankit 4y ago
      If you had 3 wide monitors instead, would that make the ultrawide less appealing? It would solve the “center bar” issue, for example
      - evo_9 4y ago
        For me that's just too much screen, but I have guys (DevOps in particular) that do exactly that.
dijit 4y ago
> They could totally support 2 Apple studio displays, at least on the 24GB model. What are you basing this assumption on?
- ST2084 4y ago
  Complete hot air. It’s about PCIE lanes
  - mciancia 4y ago
    How so?
    - dijit 4y ago
      There's a lot that goes into this and it's not Apples (heh) to Oranges. a normal Intel machine has some kind of southbridge, this means a traditional CPU that has 16 PCIe lanes total (this is actually the standard for intel) can have more than just 16x lanes, usually a PCH can add another 20 with an internal PCI switch. Great in theory, but it does mean you can be constrained in bandwidth since that switch is limited to 16x on the upstream, in fact usually there's only 4! upstream PCIe connections to the CPU and there's some natively attached items (like the USB controller and some lanes of a GPU). Apple's M-series CPUs do not have any southbridge or PCI switch, you get the full bandwidth of the lanes; this is why Apple M1 can run all of its ports at native speed at the same time, (where most laptops can't). It also means that when you dedicate PCIe lanes for graphics, they can't just take away bandwidth from inactive ports. It's only when they increase the die area and add more lanes that they dedicate more lanes to attachable graphics. It's not a soft limitation, it's a trade-off. They're banking on the fact that casual consumers won't use more than 2 displays (1 internal, 1 external); and that casual consumers would prefer more ports.
      - wtallis 4y ago
        Displays do not connect over PCIe; GPUs do.
CharlesW 4y ago
> MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. Officially Apple specs out a single external screen, but using DisplayPort you can do more. The video below shows how to connect an unreasonable number of external monitors to an Apple Silicon laptop, but a two-external-monitor configuration doesn't seem too crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLAwSvs7vE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLAwSvs7vE
- ksala_ 4y ago
  DisplayLink* I don't have any personal preference (I'm fine with a big single monitor/ultrawide) but from reading around and listening to other experience you're likely to hit performance/compatibility issues with that since it's a software solution.
- staticfloat 4y ago
  Small correction; it’s DisplayLink, not DisplayPort. You have to use DisplayLink because they do some part in software as a part of their driver (which you must download and install) whereas the native Apple stuff has some internal hardware limitation. I run three 1080p monitors off of my M1Pro, and I don’t notice any heavy CPU load from whatever software load the driver may be adding.
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    > Small correction; it’s DisplayLink, not DisplayPort. Thanks, staticfloat and ksala_!
  - ghostly_s 4y ago
    Displaylink is lossy software compression of your video stream, and when I last explored using it with Macs in a professional setting ~3 years ago the software was borderline unsupported by the vendor on the Mac platform and absolutely unreliable.
- mciancia 4y ago
  Displaylink doesn't support hidpi monitors on macOS with fractional scaling (unless they fixed it in last month or so). For me this is a deal breaker since I have 27" 4k monitors which IMO work best at 125%-150% scaling
bogomipz 4y ago
Might you or someone else be able to say why the state of the art Macbook is not capable of driving two monitors? Does this apply to all model or is this only an issue on the 14" MBPs and Airs?
- wmf 4y ago
  The M1 and M2 have the hardware to drive two displays (the internal counts as one). The M1 Pro and M1 Max support four displays and the M1 Ultra probably supports eight.
eins1234 4y ago
> I feel like it's just a pure marketing play to only support more than one external screen on the 14" pro. I'm convinced it's exactly this. I gave them the benefit of the doubt with the M1 that it's just a first-gen quirk, something that they managed to address with the Pro and Max and would become a non-issue going forward. But now that M2 has been introduced with the same limitation, it's become crystal clear that this is yet another classic Apple anti-consumer profit-seeking tactic. Hoping the rest of the industry can eventually catch up to and hopefully overtake Apple silicon in performance/watt and discourage this kind of behavior, but given the sheer amount of resources they have available compared to every other player, I'm not holding my breath.
Casteil 4y ago
> MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. Definitely the most valid complaint about it. Apple always seems to heavily encourage customers to spend "just a little" more. It's really hard to justify the M2 Air if you want more than 8/256GB; by the time you upgrade to 16/512GB, you're approaching 14" M1 pro price territory which has a better screen (with MiniLED backlighting & local dimming) and better sound too. I'm very happy with mine and have zero regrets.

by nico_h 4y ago

louissm_it 4y ago

As someone who upgraded from an Intel Mac to an M1 mac, the memory is a non-issue. Three years ago I would have laughed if you said I would be happy with "only" 8GB, but now I am.

solarkraft 4y ago
I thought I'd be happy with 8GB based on benchmarks and sensationalistic videos (thanks, Max Tech), but I absolutely wasn't. Apple silicon Macs or maybe Macs in general handle high memory pressure (graph in the red) terribly. The system will get extremely slow and laggy, develop audio issues and eventually lock up. I ran into that all the time on the 8GB model (admittedly with multiple RAM-intensive apps and lots of tabs open), while it now happens very rarely on my 16GB model.
- joshspankit 4y ago
  Is that high memory pressure slowness issue the same when there is lots of HD space left? Apple devices have had issues with “low” amounts of HD space for a long time, and I’m curious if the M* continue the trend. Also: this makes a red flag of the recent shift to half-speed drive performance

evo_9 4y ago

I switched to a single ultra wide 38 from LG and it was a huge improvement over my dual monitor setup. I’m on M1 Air, and switched my work pc to the same.

2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
The other reason I enjoy my ultrawide is that there are fewer cables to deal with and less hardware needed to mount the monitors. I bought a 34" UW a couple of years back. But I reckon my next upgrade I'm going to the superwides.
pc86 4y ago
I've been really considering an ultra-wide and have heard extremely polarized opinions on it. Is there anything specific that you prefer over two widescreen monitors?
- evo_9 4y ago
  The lack of a center bar was a bigger deal than I expected. Being able to extend my SQL window to the full screen seeing all columns for example, beyond 'just nice'. Same with code, not always but sometimes I need a wider view. There are a lot of subtle gains that I'm probably forgetting about and really only one negative that I've run into - games don't play super nice on the ultra-wide, but that's not really what I use this machine for. Oh another bonus I forgot - watching shows / movies on it is really nice. I have very rarely considered this but with an 18 month old, you find you have to squeeze in time here/there, we had to stop the new batman movie on HBO with 20 minutes left... I probably would not have ever watched the ending (it was pretty good!) if I didn't have that display, it was a nice way to spend 20 minutes during lunch and I've been watching movies/shows on it randomly during lunch since. It's pretty great for this use too.
  - joshspankit 4y ago
    If you had 3 wide monitors instead, would that make the ultrawide less appealing? It would solve the “center bar” issue, for example
    - evo_9 4y ago
      For me that's just too much screen, but I have guys (DevOps in particular) that do exactly that.

dijit 4y ago

> They could totally support 2 Apple studio displays, at least on the 24GB model. What are you basing this assumption on?

ST2084 4y ago
Complete hot air. It’s about PCIE lanes
- mciancia 4y ago
  How so?
  - dijit 4y ago
    There's a lot that goes into this and it's not Apples (heh) to Oranges. a normal Intel machine has some kind of southbridge, this means a traditional CPU that has 16 PCIe lanes total (this is actually the standard for intel) can have more than just 16x lanes, usually a PCH can add another 20 with an internal PCI switch. Great in theory, but it does mean you can be constrained in bandwidth since that switch is limited to 16x on the upstream, in fact usually there's only 4! upstream PCIe connections to the CPU and there's some natively attached items (like the USB controller and some lanes of a GPU). Apple's M-series CPUs do not have any southbridge or PCI switch, you get the full bandwidth of the lanes; this is why Apple M1 can run all of its ports at native speed at the same time, (where most laptops can't). It also means that when you dedicate PCIe lanes for graphics, they can't just take away bandwidth from inactive ports. It's only when they increase the die area and add more lanes that they dedicate more lanes to attachable graphics. It's not a soft limitation, it's a trade-off. They're banking on the fact that casual consumers won't use more than 2 displays (1 internal, 1 external); and that casual consumers would prefer more ports.
    - wtallis 4y ago
      Displays do not connect over PCIe; GPUs do.

CharlesW 4y ago

> MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. Officially Apple specs out a single external screen, but using DisplayPort you can do more. The video below shows how to connect an unreasonable number of external monitors to an Apple Silicon laptop, but a two-external-monitor configuration doesn't seem too crazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLAwSvs7vE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jLAwSvs7vE

ksala_ 4y ago
DisplayLink* I don't have any personal preference (I'm fine with a big single monitor/ultrawide) but from reading around and listening to other experience you're likely to hit performance/compatibility issues with that since it's a software solution.
staticfloat 4y ago
Small correction; it’s DisplayLink, not DisplayPort. You have to use DisplayLink because they do some part in software as a part of their driver (which you must download and install) whereas the native Apple stuff has some internal hardware limitation. I run three 1080p monitors off of my M1Pro, and I don’t notice any heavy CPU load from whatever software load the driver may be adding.
- CharlesW 4y ago
  > Small correction; it’s DisplayLink, not DisplayPort. Thanks, staticfloat and ksala_!
- ghostly_s 4y ago
  Displaylink is lossy software compression of your video stream, and when I last explored using it with Macs in a professional setting ~3 years ago the software was borderline unsupported by the vendor on the Mac platform and absolutely unreliable.
mciancia 4y ago
Displaylink doesn't support hidpi monitors on macOS with fractional scaling (unless they fixed it in last month or so). For me this is a deal breaker since I have 27" 4k monitors which IMO work best at 125%-150% scaling

bogomipz 4y ago

Might you or someone else be able to say why the state of the art Macbook is not capable of driving two monitors? Does this apply to all model or is this only an issue on the 14" MBPs and Airs?

wmf 4y ago
The M1 and M2 have the hardware to drive two displays (the internal counts as one). The M1 Pro and M1 Max support four displays and the M1 Ultra probably supports eight.

eins1234 4y ago

> I feel like it's just a pure marketing play to only support more than one external screen on the 14" pro. I'm convinced it's exactly this. I gave them the benefit of the doubt with the M1 that it's just a first-gen quirk, something that they managed to address with the Pro and Max and would become a non-issue going forward. But now that M2 has been introduced with the same limitation, it's become crystal clear that this is yet another classic Apple anti-consumer profit-seeking tactic. Hoping the rest of the industry can eventually catch up to and hopefully overtake Apple silicon in performance/watt and discourage this kind of behavior, but given the sheer amount of resources they have available compared to every other player, I'm not holding my breath.

Casteil 4y ago

> MY only gripe with the M1 and M2 Air the lack of support for more than a single external screen. Definitely the most valid complaint about it. Apple always seems to heavily encourage customers to spend "just a little" more. It's really hard to justify the M2 Air if you want more than 8/256GB; by the time you upgrade to 16/512GB, you're approaching 14" M1 pro price territory which has a better screen (with MiniLED backlighting & local dimming) and better sound too. I'm very happy with mine and have zero regrets.