My conclusion from that is that streaming aTV in Safari sucks, not that the Mac is underpowered. Might be worth reporting the bug to Apple.
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Disappointing performance and memory issues M1 Macbook Air
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The upcoming higher end 13" (or 14") as well as the 16" will certainly have 16GB of RAM as base.
All MBPs in the future will likely go higher than 16GB, but I think the Air will still max at 16GB.
Out of interest do you get the same problem when the monitor is directly connected to your M1 Mac ? I saw another thread with the same problem and it turned out the Hub was the issue.
M1 is very efficient with juggling memory but if your workload requires a lot of working memory at once, you simply need more RAM. Basically, the faster swapping on M1 helps if you are using multiple "big" applications at it can swap between them almost seamlessly. But if you use one very memory hungry app or multiple memory hungry apps simultaneously (e.g. rendering a video in he background while editing a large photoshop file), fast swapping won't help you.
I am curious to see what is happening with your memory pressure when you perform these tasks. If you care to try again, could you look at the Activity Monitor, especially the memory tab?
These things you describe don't sound normal to me. As to performance, there is little doubt that M1 is blazing fast. It is better at compiling code and down number-crunching than my Intel i9 machine. Maybe there is a problem with your configuration or the hardware itself?
I'm pretty sure "Instant Wake" wasn't referring to 3rd party hubs. Do these issues exist when not connected to both a hub and an external monitor, what about connected to just the hub or just the monitor?
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Well, the architecture is pretty new and all the software has to be adapted correctly. We use a mac mini 8/256 and macbook air 8/256 and they perform perfectly. We knew 8gb is not much so we checked each software we used on memory leaks and odd behaviours and acted accordingly. Adobes software still uses rosetta translation and is not optimzed for m1 yet. We had runaway memory leaks with adobe lightroom and photoshop regarding gpu acceleration with m1 macs.
Disable gpu acceleration completely in each adobe app you use under /preferences/performance. You should see much better memory behaviour and performance, in general. This specifically is an adobe software issue hopefully fixed in future updates.
That said utilizing 8gb m1 mac we recommend: Don´t keep any app open when you don´t need it and memory pressure won´t harm you at all.
Disable gpu acceleration completely in each adobe app you use under /preferences/performance. You should see much better memory behaviour and performance, in general. This specifically is an adobe software issue hopefully fixed in future updates.
That said utilizing 8gb m1 mac we recommend: Don´t keep any app open when you don´t need it and memory pressure won´t harm you at all.
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Apple Silicon has no problems in dealing with a large amount of open apps. If an app is open but not actively use, basically treat it like it’s not consuming any RAM at all. You only RAM in memory pressure issues if the work you are doing needs a lot of active RAM at one.
Basically: hundreds of open browser tabs? Not a problem. Huge photoshop file with many layers? Could be an issue.
Something is broken for you. Malware mining Bitcoin or something.
I run emulators and multiple apps on a base Air. Normal Memory pressure is 2gb and I’ve never invoked the swap yet. Zoom, VM Ware Horizon, Safari, and a handful of the productivity apps.
I got the 16GB M1 MacBook Air and 16 GB M1 Mini. Compared to the i7 Mini they calculate faster. Once in a while Safari gives the same alert that a webpage is using a lot of memory.
Only had 2 problems with the M1s. Both initially had trouble connecting to my wireless or wired network showing a self-assigned IP. I went in Network Preferences, created a new profile to set up in automatic mode and they connected.
Only other problem was with the M1 MacBook Air having a problem with Tech Tool Pro where the battery alert continually triggered. I had to go in Safe mode and remove Tech Tool Pro. Even after TTP updated it still doesn't work with the M1 Macs.
Only had 2 problems with the M1s. Both initially had trouble connecting to my wireless or wired network showing a self-assigned IP. I went in Network Preferences, created a new profile to set up in automatic mode and they connected.
Only other problem was with the M1 MacBook Air having a problem with Tech Tool Pro where the battery alert continually triggered. I had to go in Safe mode and remove Tech Tool Pro. Even after TTP updated it still doesn't work with the M1 Macs.
Make sure you try and run M1 Optimized version of Adobe or switch to the Affinity suite. Chrome is the biggest battery hog ever. Switch to Safari or Firefox and you should see the difference. But yes at the end of the day 8GB is 8GB of RAM. Now yes the OS is optimized to work with less Ram, so compared to Windows, 8GB RAM on a Mac may feel like 16GB on Windows.
I'm happy with my 2020 i5 Mac mini with 32GB RAM. I don't have plans to switch to the ARM until support is stopped for Intel which just looking at history would be 2025 at the earliest or 2030 at the latest for the 2020 models.
I'm happy with my 2020 i5 Mac mini with 32GB RAM. I don't have plans to switch to the ARM until support is stopped for Intel which just looking at history would be 2025 at the earliest or 2030 at the latest for the 2020 models.
Outside Davinci Resolve witch benefits from eGPU and 64gb of RAM, my 8gb M1 Mac Book Air and 8 gb Mac mini (with the only performance boost being 10gbe networking) is faster in every way and WAY more responsive then my 64gb i7 Mac mini with eGPU and a fresh install of Big Sur with some exception - USB 3 drives transfer slower in a way well documented here.
Are you running the release versions of the Adobe apps, or have you installed any of the betas that are built for the M1 Macs? If you're still running Intel-based versions via Rosetta 2, that could account for some of the issues you're experiencing.
It depends both on use case and desired service life of the machine. I certainly wouldn't say that everyone needs 16 gigs.
you seriously think its about the measly 200? like I mentioned earlier 200 in my pocket and not Apples.
It's about not buying something I don't currently have need of. Its about being an informed user and buyer, and not following the MR beehive where many believe 16GB should be the minimum for some mysterious reason in the future.
The better practice is buying what you have need for today. And if that need should drastically change, then buy a product that meets the new current need.
This. I'm currently considering the 16/256 or 16/512 Air, for long term use. Proven peripherals, replaceable battery, fn keys.
They better be. In my country, the distributors are only selling the default base config (no BTO), thus so far one can only get an M1 Mac with 8GB of RAM.
True.
However, nowadays there are basic tasks that are actually more RAM intensive than what people usually think (eg. tabbed browsing). A person might think his/her usage is light, but in reality he/she has dozens of tabs open, background streaming music, along with dozens of excel sheets open, clients for cloud syncing, messaging apps, zoom, all at the same time. That's actually a typical office use nowadays.
So it's no longer about "you only need 16GB if you do Photoshop or Premiere" anymore.
People also need to remember to monitor the memory pressure. Often times, people look at the amount of the memory being used, and think they are running out of memory when they aren't.
I think that people like John Gruber who perpetuate myths that 8 GBs on an M1 is all you'll ever need should be roundly ridiculed over their idiotic conclusions.
Ok so it's a different chip and macOS does great memory management, but if a program needs a certain amount of RAM then that's what it needs.. no chip has been made that shrinks the amount of RAM you need, but they are getting so efficient/fast it just LOOKS like there isn't mad page swapping; with hard drives, that's chiefly what made them wear out faster on 4/8 GB machines, constantly paging VM off to the disk.
Ok so it's a different chip and macOS does great memory management, but if a program needs a certain amount of RAM then that's what it needs.. no chip has been made that shrinks the amount of RAM you need, but they are getting so efficient/fast it just LOOKS like there isn't mad page swapping; with hard drives, that's chiefly what made them wear out faster on 4/8 GB machines, constantly paging VM off to the disk.
Last time I checked, most software requires more horsepower over time, not less.
Don't be fooled by the throughput of the M1 Macs... any computer designed as a SoC will perform better than a similar machine that isn't an SoC. It uses less RAM to do some tasks because it's not having to run a Marathon to get to the RAM or instruction set and back again.
But when all new Macs are SoCs... then you will all be back to the same starting line... in which case, the machine with more horsepower is going to outperform the one with less horsepower. So all this talk about "only needing the minimum RAM" is hogwash over time.
Stop comparing M1 Macs to anything that isn't based on an SoC... because it literally is a comparison of Apples and Oranges. You are only proving that an SoC performs better than a non-SoC. Until the market is made up of entirely SoCs, you really have zero base point to judge the performance of the SoCs over time. It could be there is a literal ceiling to what benefits an SoC can provide... in which case you are back to the usual suspects for performance boosts.
Don't be fooled by the throughput of the M1 Macs... any computer designed as a SoC will perform better than a similar machine that isn't an SoC. It uses less RAM to do some tasks because it's not having to run a Marathon to get to the RAM or instruction set and back again.
But when all new Macs are SoCs... then you will all be back to the same starting line... in which case, the machine with more horsepower is going to outperform the one with less horsepower. So all this talk about "only needing the minimum RAM" is hogwash over time.
Stop comparing M1 Macs to anything that isn't based on an SoC... because it literally is a comparison of Apples and Oranges. You are only proving that an SoC performs better than a non-SoC. Until the market is made up of entirely SoCs, you really have zero base point to judge the performance of the SoCs over time. It could be there is a literal ceiling to what benefits an SoC can provide... in which case you are back to the usual suspects for performance boosts.