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macOS has been doing memory compression for years. Basically, apps and background processes that are idle have their memory compressed, and then upon exiting id
by cjk 3y ago
macOS has been doing memory compression for years. Basically, apps and background processes that are idle have their memory compressed, and then upon exiting idle (due to user interaction, a timer firing, etc.), the memory is decompressed. The compressed memory doesn’t touch swap.
It’s possible that Apple Silicon has some hardware acceleration for doing this in-place memory compression, but otherwise it’s pretty old news, which makes this marketing shtick even more frustrating. 8GB was borderline not enough even back when memory compression was added to macOS (maybe ~10 years ago?).
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago> macOS has been doing memory compression for years So has Windows. With multi-core CPUs, it’s easy to do so without impacting performance in most cases.
- spacechild1 3y agoAnd Linux (although not enabled by default on some distros).
- RetroTechie 3y agoSo any working set that fits into 16 GB but exceeds 8 GB, eats into cpu performance and/or SSD longevity. That's fine for a low-end laptop in 2023, and if you're upfront about that tradeoff. For a ~$1500 laptop, that's just marketing bs.
- PhilipRoman 3y agoSounds like zswap for Linux. The "swap" part of it is poorly named as it also doesn't involve a physical disk, at least not directly.
- 7e 3y agozswap was implemented after Apple showcased their own memory compression. It's a copy of what macOS did first.
- angoragoats 3y agoDoes that make it "not count" or somehow less effective?
- cwillu 3y agoOSX Mavericks was released in 2013, while Compcache was initially developed in 2008.