Disappointing performance and memory issues M1 Macbook Air

[PLH]

Getting back to the OP's original comment >what happened to virtual memory? Can't I use more than 8GB and have some of it paged??

I agree with the concern. I am migrating for a certain subset of my work from an i9 macbook pro 16 GB to a mac mini M1 16 GB. For a particularly memory intensive software that I use, the i9 macbook pro would indicate 80 GB of VM in use. On the other hand, the MacMini M1 would display the out of memory dialog asking me to close apps (with a relatively empty SSD) with much less VM in use. The good news is that if I saw that out of memory dialog asking me to close apps on the i9 macbook pro, I was in danger of having apps crash. On the M1, if that out of memory dialog shows up, things continue to run. So, there is some potential that this is a reporting issue moreso that an actual VM issue. Not sure where the problem is. Overall, I am happy with the mac mini M1 performance. The app I use is largely running on a single core whether i9 or M1, which I expect has something to do with the performance I see.

 

[GoetzPhil]

I now have a 16GB iMac 24". I do callcenter work and that needs a chromium browser with 6-8 tabs opened.
With Chrome its doable but its better to use Edge as this uses about 1GB less memory.

But even with Edge the 16GB I have are always at 70% memory used. Opening 1-2 tabs more or staring another application gets the 16GB iMac M1 to its limits.
Response time from Mouseclicks or opening apps is worse, especially the mouse starts lagging awfully.

And when the backup starts running it gets worser.

Maybe these M1 machines are good for people that only browse 1 Safari Tab - but from my 3 day experience now I cannot say that the M1 machines are for productive or professional work!

 

[tpfang56]

I now have a 16GB iMac 24". I do callcenter work and that needs a chromium browser with 6-8 tabs opened.
With Chrome its doable but its better to use Edge as this uses about 1GB less memory.

But even with Edge the 16GB I have are always at 70% memory used. Opening 1-2 tabs more or staring another application gets the 16GB iMac M1 to its limits.
Response time from Mouseclicks or opening apps is worse, especially the mouse starts lagging awfully.

And when the backup starts running it gets worser.

Maybe these M1 machines are good for people that only browse 1 Safari Tab - but from my 3 day experience now I cannot say that the M1 machines are for productive or professional work!

Uhh, the mouse lagging has literally nothing to do with the M1’s performance.

I have an M1 MBA 8/7c with 16gb RAM, and I can have 6-8 or more chrome tabs open + vscode + discord + music, etc and it won’t slow down at all. The only time my MBA has lagged is trying to play iphone games.

3rd party mice have some bad bluetooth issues on M1 machines, for reasons I don’t know for sure. I have to connect my mouse via a USB-A reciever using a dongle and then it works without lag.

 

[pshufd]

I use a Logitech M510 with unified dongle and it works fine on my mini. I can put up a dozen YouTube videos in Firefox and still have about 3 GB of RAM free but I'm running a lot of other stuff too. If I had memory pressure on my 16 GB mini and it was a productivity problem, I'd just buy a second Mini and split the work between them.

 

[darngooddesign]

I now have a 16GB iMac 24". I do callcenter work and that needs a chromium browser with 6-8 tabs opened.
With Chrome its doable but its better to use Edge as this uses about 1GB less memory.

But even with Edge the 16GB I have are always at 70% memory used. Opening 1-2 tabs more or staring another application gets the 16GB iMac M1 to its limits.
Response time from Mouseclicks or opening apps is worse, especially the mouse starts lagging awfully.

And when the backup starts running it gets worser.

Maybe these M1 machines are good for people that only browse 1 Safari Tab - but from my 3 day experience now I cannot say that the M1 machines are for productive or professional work!

You misspelled "for my professional work".

The M1s run Adobe CC like a champ, simply chewing through my Animate, XD, PS, LR, etc. tasks without breaking a sweat. But sure, that's not productive or professional work.

 

[Ethosik]

You misspelled "for my professional work".

The M1s run Adobe CC like a champ, simply chewing through my Animate, XD, PS, LR, etc. tasks without breaking a sweat. But sure, that's not productive or professional work.

Ah the good ol "Pro/productivity" argument that has plagued this site since I joined when the 2010 Mac Pro was released. I remember NO NVIDIA back then too. I guess productivity and professional work only means dealing with 100s of terabytes of statistical analysis which needs 900 cores and 4 TB of RAM. NO OTHER professional or productivity work can EVER be done WITHOUT THAT system!!!!

Also, people need to stop using browsers are the benchmark of RAM utilization. This isn't 1995 anymore. Websites have A LOT of Javascript. I can create a website that uses 2+ GB of RAM on ANY browser within 30 minutes if that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/7m39fo

 

[pshufd]

Ah the good ol "Pro/productivity" argument that has plagued this site since I joined when the 2010 Mac Pro was released. I remember NO NVIDIA back then too. I guess productivity and professional work only means dealing with 100s of terabytes of statistical analysis which needs 900 cores and 4 TB of RAM. NO OTHER professional or productivity work can EVER be done WITHOUT THAT system!!!!

Finding bug bounties. There's a crew of people that I associate with that do this including finding bugs in iOS and macOS. They virtualize macOS and iOS to do testing. You need somewhat of a substantial machine to do this.

 

[Ethosik]

Finding bug bounties. There's a crew of people that I associate with that do this including finding bugs in iOS and macOS. They virtualize macOS and iOS to do testing. You need somewhat of a substantial machine to do this.

And that is the only productivity/professional work in the entire world?

 

[pshufd]

And that is the only productivity/professional work in the entire world?

No. That's a rather ridiculous statement.

Is an example of one.

I have plenty more.

 

[Ethosik]

No. That's a rather ridiculous statement.

Is an example of one.

I have plenty more.

And I have one that requires 4 TB of RAM and a 200 core CPU. I won't go and complain that the Microsoft Surface Pro or Macbook Pro won't accomplish this. You buy what you need.

 

[pshufd]

And I have one that requires 4 TB of RAM and a 200 core CPU. I won't go and complain that the Microsoft Surface Pro or Macbook Pro won't accomplish this. You buy what you need.

Oh. A small system.

I used to use Exadata systems.

 

[darngooddesign]

Finding bug bounties. There's a crew of people that I associate with that do this including finding bugs in iOS and macOS. They virtualize macOS and iOS to do testing. You need somewhat of a substantial machine to do this.

Yeah. Some work simply requires lots of RAM. No one who regularly deals with terabyte PS documents, for example, bought a current M1 Mac just so they could complain about how it doesn't have enough RAM and cant drive three displays.

 

[GoetzPhil]

Yesterday I was doing a lot of HD work on my NAS, its connected via 1GbE Ethernet and also ver a T3-10GbE Adapter.
My external Monitor is also connected vis Thunderbolt to Displayport.

External T3 SSD is in Port 1, the OWC T4 Dock in Port 2 going to 10GbE and ext. monitor.
And I guess that is the bottleneck of the M1's.