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It's true that Linux may be a bit better in some cases, if you have a system that has good Linux support, but I think in most cases it should never make a very

by jchw 2y ago

It's true that Linux may be a bit better in some cases, if you have a system that has good Linux support, but I think in most cases it should never make a very substantial difference. On some of the newer Intel laptops, there are still missing power management features anyways, so it's hard to compare. That said, Intel still has yet to catch up to AMD on efficiency unfortunately, they've improved generationally but if you look at power efficiency benchmarks of Intel CPUs vs AMD you can see AMD comfortably owns the entire top of the chart. Also, as a many-time Microsoft Surface owner, I can also confirm that these devices are rarely good showcases for the chipsets inside of them: they tend to be constrained by both power and thermal limits. There are a lot of good laptops on the market, I wouldn't compare a MacBook, even a MacBook Air, a laptop, with a Surface Pro, a 2-in-1 device. Heck, even my Intel Surface Laptop 4, a device I kinda like, isn't the ideal showcase for its already mediocre 11th gen Intel processor... The Mac laptop market is pretty easy: you buy the laptops they make, and you get what you get. On one hand, that means no need to worry about looking at reviews or comparisons, except to pick a model. They all perform reasonably well, the touchpad will always be good, the keyboard is alright. On the other hand, you really do get what you get: no touchscreens, no repairability, no booting directly into Windows, etc.

thrw42A8N 2y ago
I boot Windows on my Mac M1 just fine. Just yesterday I played Age of Empires 3.
- jchw 2y ago
  I changed the wording to be "booting directly" to clarify that I'm not including VMs. If I have to explain why that matters I guess I can, but I am pretty sure you know.
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    I am genuinely interested, why does it matter? The performance is more than good enough even to run a Visual Studio (not Code).
    - jchw 2y ago
      If the roles were reversed would you still need an explanation? e.g. If I could run macOS inside of a VM on Windows and run things like Final Cut and XCode with sufficient performance, would you think there's no benefit to being able to boot macOS natively?
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        Booting natively means you need real drivers, which don't exist for Windows on Mac as well as for macOS on PC. It'd be useless. Just use the VM, it's good. And it's not the same - running Windows natively on Mac would seriously degrade the Mac, while running macOS on a PC has no reason to make it worse than with Windows. Why not buy a PC laptop at that point? The close hardware/OS integration is the whole point of the product. Putting Windows into a VM lets you use best of both.
        jchw 2y ago
        The question was a hypothetical. What if the macOS VM was perfect? If it was perfect, would it then not matter if you couldn't just boot into macOS? I'm pretty sure you would never use a Windows PC just to boot into a macOS VM, even if it was flawless. And there are people who would never boot a Mac, just to boot into a Windows VM, even if it was flawless. And no, it's not flawless. Being able to run a relatively old strategy game is not a great demonstration of the ability generally play any random Windows game. I have a Parallels and VMWware Fusion license (well... Had, anyway), and I'm a long time (20 years) Linux user, I promise that I am not talking out my ass when it comes to knowing all about the compromises of interoperability software. To be clear, I am not trying to tell you that the interoperability software is useless, or that it doesn't work just fine for you. I'm trying to say that in a world where the marketshare of Windows is around 70%, a lot of people depend on software and workflows that only work on Windows. A lot of people buy PCs specifically to play video games, possibly even as a job (creating videos/streaming/competing in esports teams/developing video games and related software) and they don't want additional input latency, lower performance, and worse compatibility. Even the imperfections of virtual machines aside, some people just don't like macOS. I don't like macOS or Windows at all. I think they are both irritating to use in a way that I find hard to stomach. That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the existence of many people who very much rely on their macOS and Windows systems, the software ecosystems of their respective systems, and the workflows that they execute on those systems. So basically, aside from the imperfections of a virtual machine, the ability to choose to run Windows as your native operating system is really important for the obvious case where it's the operating system you would prefer to run.

by jchw 2y ago

thrw42A8N 2y ago

I boot Windows on my Mac M1 just fine. Just yesterday I played Age of Empires 3.

jchw 2y ago
I changed the wording to be "booting directly" to clarify that I'm not including VMs. If I have to explain why that matters I guess I can, but I am pretty sure you know.
- thrw42A8N 2y ago
  I am genuinely interested, why does it matter? The performance is more than good enough even to run a Visual Studio (not Code).
  - jchw 2y ago
    If the roles were reversed would you still need an explanation? e.g. If I could run macOS inside of a VM on Windows and run things like Final Cut and XCode with sufficient performance, would you think there's no benefit to being able to boot macOS natively?
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      Booting natively means you need real drivers, which don't exist for Windows on Mac as well as for macOS on PC. It'd be useless. Just use the VM, it's good. And it's not the same - running Windows natively on Mac would seriously degrade the Mac, while running macOS on a PC has no reason to make it worse than with Windows. Why not buy a PC laptop at that point? The close hardware/OS integration is the whole point of the product. Putting Windows into a VM lets you use best of both.
      - jchw 2y ago
        The question was a hypothetical. What if the macOS VM was perfect? If it was perfect, would it then not matter if you couldn't just boot into macOS? I'm pretty sure you would never use a Windows PC just to boot into a macOS VM, even if it was flawless. And there are people who would never boot a Mac, just to boot into a Windows VM, even if it was flawless. And no, it's not flawless. Being able to run a relatively old strategy game is not a great demonstration of the ability generally play any random Windows game. I have a Parallels and VMWware Fusion license (well... Had, anyway), and I'm a long time (20 years) Linux user, I promise that I am not talking out my ass when it comes to knowing all about the compromises of interoperability software. To be clear, I am not trying to tell you that the interoperability software is useless, or that it doesn't work just fine for you. I'm trying to say that in a world where the marketshare of Windows is around 70%, a lot of people depend on software and workflows that only work on Windows. A lot of people buy PCs specifically to play video games, possibly even as a job (creating videos/streaming/competing in esports teams/developing video games and related software) and they don't want additional input latency, lower performance, and worse compatibility. Even the imperfections of virtual machines aside, some people just don't like macOS. I don't like macOS or Windows at all. I think they are both irritating to use in a way that I find hard to stomach. That doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge the existence of many people who very much rely on their macOS and Windows systems, the software ecosystems of their respective systems, and the workflows that they execute on those systems. So basically, aside from the imperfections of a virtual machine, the ability to choose to run Windows as your native operating system is really important for the obvious case where it's the operating system you would prefer to run.