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8GB RAM is a disappointment?

Frixos said:
That's good insight.

I'm gonna pull out my 2012 MBP with 8GB and see what the pressure is like there with similar tasks.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how good of a comparison that will be as well, given the memory speeds on the M1 vs an 8 year old machine and the many other factors at play. You can artificially bloat your memory with a few terminal commands.

Here's a good thread talking about Apple's memory compression and pressure system: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/378981/high-memory-usage-on-macos-catalina
 
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More RAM allows more caching, which can speed things up. This is Activity Monitor on my new M1 MBA with 3 apps running - Mail, Safari and Activity Monitor. Safari has 3 tabs open - YouTube, Facebook and this one.

Screenshot 2020-11-17 at 21.06.11.png
 
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wyrdness said:
More RAM allows more caching, which can speed things up. This is Activity Monitor on my new M1 MBA with 3 apps running - Mail, Safari and Activity Monitor. Safari has 3 tabs open - YouTube, Facebook and this one.

View attachment 1671199
Click to expand...

Run "sudo memory_pressure -l critical" in terminal
Curious what it gets up to and what it performs like when it's absolutely loaded.
 
Chompineer said:
Run "sudo memory_pressure -l critical" in terminal
Curious what it gets up to and what it performs like when it's absolutely loaded.
Click to expand...
Here you go. It's not absolutely loaded though. As I said, only Mail and 3 Safari tabs, plus Activity Monitor

Code: 
The system has 17179869184 (1048576 pages with a page size of 16384).
Stats:
Pages free: 10235
Pages purgeable: 55105
Pages purged: 253195

Swap I/O:
Swapins: 0
Swapouts: 0

Page Q counts:
Pages active: 408258
Pages inactive: 397209
Pages speculative: 14028
Pages throttled: 0
Pages wired down: 124284

Compressor Stats:
Pages used by compressor: 40234
Pages decompressed: 36425
Pages compressed: 199036

File I/O:
Pageins: 1090952
Pageouts: 41095

System-wide memory free percentage: 83%

CMD: Allocating pages to go from level: 1 to level: 4
Run out of allocable memory
 
wyrdness said:
Here you go.

The system has 17179869184 (1048576 pages with a page size of 16384). Stats: Pages free: 10235 Pages purgeable: 55105 Pages purged: 253195 Swap I/O: Swapins: 0 Swapouts: 0 Page Q counts: Pages active: 408258 Pages inactive: 397209 Pages speculative: 14028 Pages throttled: 0 Pages wired down: 124284 Compressor Stats: Pages used by compressor: 40234 Pages decompressed: 36425 Pages compressed: 199036 File I/O: Pageins: 1090952 Pageouts: 41095 System-wide memory free percentage: 83% CMD: Allocating pages to go from level: 1 to level: 4 Run out of allocable memory
Click to expand...

Ahaha, I was moreso meaning what was going on in activity monitor, you should see a task called "Memory_Pressure" ballooning in size and pressure rising. Running that command generates artificial load up to a critical level.
 
Chompineer said:
Ahaha, I was moreso meaning what was going on in activity monitor, you should see a task called "Memory_Pressure" ballooning in size and pressure rising. Running that command generates artificial load up to a critical level.
Click to expand...
Ah, OK. It seems to make no difference.
 
wyrdness said:
More RAM allows more caching, which can speed things up. This is Activity Monitor on my new M1 MBA with 3 apps running - Mail, Safari and Activity Monitor. Safari has 3 tabs open - YouTube, Facebook and this one.

View attachment 1671199
Click to expand...
True, albeit effect of caching is likely imperceptible for most people / most workflows considering we're talking about storage with ~2-3GB/second read rates... Used to make a much bigger difference with slow HDDs.
 
Chompineer said:
Ahaha, I was moreso meaning what was going on in activity monitor, you should see a task called "Memory_Pressure" ballooning in size and pressure rising. Running that command generates artificial load up to a critical level.
Click to expand...
This is what mine looks like. Not sure what to make of it.
 

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This is the memory use on my 13" 2012 MBP, using everything I would need for my uses. I guess using my 2013 MBP with 16GB I was overestimating how much RAM I actually used/needed.
 

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Frixos said:
This is the memory use on my 13" 2012 MBP, using everything I would need for my uses. I guess using my 2013 MBP with 16GB I was overestimating how much RAM I actually used/needed.
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Easy to make that overestimate since macOS does its very best not to let any available RAM go unused. It will cache files, leave stuff in RAM that hasn't been touched in a long time, etc. - all giving an impression of more RAM being used than is strictly necessary.
 
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I seriously wonder if the new chips are going to redefine what RAM does. You don't worry about RAM on iPhone typically. I wonder if the unified architecture is going to make a difference
 
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I've been listening to uninformed people looking at their supposed RAM consumption on *nix operating systems for 25 years at this point and freaking out without any understanding of buffering and caching etc. This doesn't even consider the current impact of having an architecture with the system memory on the package.

I used to actually make an effort to try to explain what was going on but after literally a quarter of a century I don't even get frustrated anymore.

I suppose I haven't completely given up since I'm posting this. 🥱
 
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Exactly... I sometimes run python scripts using pandas where the CSV being analyzed is a few GB and I'm excited to figure out how the M1 with unified memory will deal with these edge cases. Super exciting.
 
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Frixos said:
I currently have 4 tabs open in Firefox, a couple of word docs open, Mail, Outlook, calendar, Messages, and a pdf document.
I also have Dropbox, Avast, a couple of text formatting apps, and Google Drive open. And I use 10.26 GB.

This is fairly minimal for me as far as when I work. My "typical" usage as I open a couple of more work apps, I use around 12.50 GB.

I've tried to get below 8GB, but I've found it hampers my ability to be productive as my work requires me to move between various apps (none of which are demanding apps in and of themselves). (I'm on an Early 2013 15" MBP).

Sure, everyone doesn't need 16GB. But it's easy to imagine a world where 8GB is not enough.
Click to expand...

RAM does not work like storage. If it fills it does not mean its insufficient. If you have 8GB RAM taken out of 8GB it doesn't mean it insufficient. If you start noticing your machine start to move in slow motion and suffocating to work, thats when you know RAM is not enough.

Look where it says "Memory Pressure"...see how green and low it is. That means your RAM is relaxed. IF its high and red thats when RAM is insufficient. Now you have 16GB Memory, why don't you try and make an experiment and try to stress it out and see how far it will get you and see just how much 16GB is.

Now if you load 4k RAW video files in FCP expect for it to disappear quickly, hence you are a PRO and need PRO spec 64 or 128GB whatever it maybe. But average joe...see how far 16GB will take him. Come back to me with results.
 
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MacBH928 said:
RAM does not work like storage. If it fills it does not mean its insufficient. If you have 8GB RAM taken out of 8GB it doesn't mean it insufficient. If you start noticing your machine start to move in slow motion and suffocating to work, thats when you know RAM is not enough.

Look where it says "Memory Pressure"...see how green and low it is. That means your RAM is relaxed. IF its high and red thats when RAM is insufficient. Now you have 16GB Memory, why don't you try and make an experiment and try to stress it out and see how far it will get you and see just how much 16GB is.

Now if you load 4k RAW video files in FCP expect for it to disappear quickly, hence you are a PRO and need PRO spec 64 or 128GB whatever it maybe. But average joe...see how far 16GB will take him. Come back to me with results.
Click to expand...
Look a few posts up as I realized my mistake. I pulled out my 2012 MBP that only has 8GB, and that clearly shown exactly what you said. I've lived a lie for so long, thinking there's no way 8GB would be enough.

Has anyone seen if the RAM usage is different on M1 versus Intel Macs? With it being Unified Memory now. But maybe that makes no actual difference in usage.
 
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MacBH928 said:
RAM does not work like storage. If it fills it does not mean its insufficient. If you have 8GB RAM taken out of 8GB it doesn't mean it insufficient. If you start noticing your machine start to move in slow motion and suffocating to work, thats when you know RAM is not enough.

Look where it says "Memory Pressure"...see how green and low it is. That means your RAM is relaxed. IF its high and red thats when RAM is insufficient. Now you have 16GB Memory, why don't you try and make an experiment and try to stress it out and see how far it will get you and see just how much 16GB is.

Now if you load 4k RAW video files in FCP expect for it to disappear quickly, hence you are a PRO and need PRO spec 64 or 128GB whatever it maybe. But average joe...see how far 16GB will take him. Come back to me with results.
Click to expand...
No matter how many times you explain this to some people they will never understand it.

I see people say things like this all the time. “8GB is not enough for a computer because I have 16GB and even with a couple tabs open I’m already at 10GBs usage”.

Very frustrating.
 
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thingstoponder said:
No matter how many times you explain this to people they will never understand it.

I see people say things like this all the time. “8GB is not enough for a computer because I have 16GB and even with a couple tabs open I’m already at 10GBs usage”.

Very frustrating.
Click to expand...
To be fair, this is the very first time this has been explained to me, and I did understand it.

Chompineer did a good job explaining it. The last time I purchased a computer was 2012, and the time before that 2006 (which was a PC), so I haven't considered my RAM usage in a long time.
 
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Frixos said:
To be fair, this is the very first time this has been explained to me, and I did understand it.

Chompineer did a good job explaining it. The last time I purchased a computer was 2012, and the time before that 2006 (which was a PC), so I haven't considered my RAM usage in a long time.
Click to expand...
Oh sorry, I wasn’t talking about you. It’s just stuff I see from around the internet.
 
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