3 ms·

I don’t assume that macOS virtualization is advanced enough to support memory ballooning, or is that not what you’re referring to? Edit: I stand corrected!

nottorp 6mo ago
What will that help with if the host and guest combined need > physical ram?
- jdub 6mo ago
  If guest memory can be reclaimed, it doesn't need to be paged to disk once you hit RAM contention. It's mostly saving accounting overhead, but it'll have some effect on latency, which you're more likely to perceive under contention.
  - nottorp 6mo ago
    But if it can be reclaimed it's not actually needed. So i'd find the minimum amount of configured ram a mac os VM can boot with more significant than the actual usage while booted but doing nothing.
pyth0 6mo ago
I don't assume anything either, but a single Google search is enough to dispel that [1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/vzvirtiotraditionalmemoryballoondevice https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/vzv...
- saagarjha 6mo ago
  Not supported on macOS
sgt 6mo ago
macOS is generally pretty amazing at efficient memory usage and VM (virtual memory subsystem) handling. So even a 8GB machine can run pretty impressive workloads without having the user think the machine is underpowered.
- p_ing 6mo ago
  Not really. Larger page sizes mean more potential for wasted memory and it has had a long standing memory leak in some core component to where even Calculator can cause an OOM event.
  - jdiff 6mo ago
    GP is pretty accurate in my experience. Up until last year I was still running an Intel MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and successfully multitasked with Blender, Illustrator, Unity, VS Code, and Firefox quite often. The math doesn't make sense, but all stayed responsive even with frequent hops between them. The only OOM events I ran into were memory leaks from Firefox, I believe from an extension.
    - p_ing 6mo ago
      There's nothing particularly interesting about that. Linux distro-of-your-choice can run the equivalents fine, as can Windows. Browse /r/macos if you dare to wade into the uninformed cesspool; it's full of OOTB apps causing OOMs (among 3rd party apps) with the past at least two major versions of macOS.
      - jdiff 6mo ago
        I think there is something interesting there. I was running lighter workloads on similar RAM when I daily drove Debian and was frequently brought to my knees by swapping to death. I had to make conscious choices and manage my RAM usage to avoid it, and still occasionally got T-boned by something I overlooked. I have never had to worry about that with macOS. I admit I don't have much experience with how Windows handles constrained memory since XP, and XP was abysmal at it just by virtue of being far more bloated than an equivalent Linux distro. It's certainly far more bloated nowadays, but maybe it handles memory pressure better. None of this should be construed to say that macOS doesn't have serious issues or that it's not in dire need of a Snow Leopard-esque "0 new features" release. That's tangential to its memory handling, where I haven't seen the issues you describe.

nottorp 6mo ago

What will that help with if the host and guest combined need > physical ram?

jdub 6mo ago
If guest memory can be reclaimed, it doesn't need to be paged to disk once you hit RAM contention. It's mostly saving accounting overhead, but it'll have some effect on latency, which you're more likely to perceive under contention.
- nottorp 6mo ago
  But if it can be reclaimed it's not actually needed. So i'd find the minimum amount of configured ram a mac os VM can boot with more significant than the actual usage while booted but doing nothing.

pyth0 6mo ago

I don't assume anything either, but a single Google search is enough to dispel that [1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/vzvirtiotraditionalmemoryballoondevice https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/vzv...

saagarjha 6mo ago
Not supported on macOS

sgt 6mo ago

macOS is generally pretty amazing at efficient memory usage and VM (virtual memory subsystem) handling. So even a 8GB machine can run pretty impressive workloads without having the user think the machine is underpowered.

p_ing 6mo ago
Not really. Larger page sizes mean more potential for wasted memory and it has had a long standing memory leak in some core component to where even Calculator can cause an OOM event.
- jdiff 6mo ago
  GP is pretty accurate in my experience. Up until last year I was still running an Intel MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and successfully multitasked with Blender, Illustrator, Unity, VS Code, and Firefox quite often. The math doesn't make sense, but all stayed responsive even with frequent hops between them. The only OOM events I ran into were memory leaks from Firefox, I believe from an extension.
  - p_ing 6mo ago
    There's nothing particularly interesting about that. Linux distro-of-your-choice can run the equivalents fine, as can Windows. Browse /r/macos if you dare to wade into the uninformed cesspool; it's full of OOTB apps causing OOMs (among 3rd party apps) with the past at least two major versions of macOS.
    - jdiff 6mo ago
      I think there is something interesting there. I was running lighter workloads on similar RAM when I daily drove Debian and was frequently brought to my knees by swapping to death. I had to make conscious choices and manage my RAM usage to avoid it, and still occasionally got T-boned by something I overlooked. I have never had to worry about that with macOS. I admit I don't have much experience with how Windows handles constrained memory since XP, and XP was abysmal at it just by virtue of being far more bloated than an equivalent Linux distro. It's certainly far more bloated nowadays, but maybe it handles memory pressure better. None of this should be construed to say that macOS doesn't have serious issues or that it's not in dire need of a Snow Leopard-esque "0 new features" release. That's tangential to its memory handling, where I haven't seen the issues you describe.