Flip Flopping between macOS and Windows

[Snow4maen]

I am in the same boat. I went and tried the new MacBook Pro at the store here since I was in the City. I love the feel etc of it. I am willing to drop some money on a refurb unit, but I am ever wondering if I will gel with MacOS or not. I love the performance and build quality though. It's one of those things where you don't know until it's too late or just right.

I think I am kinda flexible with the OS as I have used both Mac OS and Windows a fair bit over the years. Advantages and disadvantages (possibly) to both. I do like Windows, but the Mac has a few neat tricks that can come in handy. I'm not of strong opinion. If it will do the tasks I would like to use it for well, then I'll get on with it. These days who knows about built quality. Longevity. Things now can, but also sometimes don't last as long as we think they should. Budget and bang for buck are pretty important to me really. At the price for the 512gb Mac Mini, or same storage MacBook Neo. I can do a lot more than a £700 PC laptop. At least I think so.

I am leaning towards a laptop as with it's own screen, keyboard, and webcam. It will turn out in total to be better value than having to buy individual components. But you could say then there is more to go wrong with a laptop. Also, IF the keyboard or webcam has issues, the whole thing needs to be sent in.

If you don't have experience of Mac OS? Hard to say, I can live with both/either. I just would like to get things done. But on the PC I have had zero problems with Word, when I had my Mac, Word often gave me trouble. At one point it would only type very very slowly, too slowly. There was a work around, but I don't want to keep deleting preference files, it should work.

Mac OS is certainly quite different to Windows just in case you are not used to it. Some people don't like it. If it's new to you, see if you can try it first and see how you get on. Maybe someone you know has a Mac?

 

[Steve Adams]

Agreed. There are good and bad points to everything. I was on the mac kick after having issues with making my MS365 payment where they had location issues. I am calmed down a bit now ha ha. I have a beast of a desktop which is still perfectly fine. I am shopping for a replacement laptop because mine is slowly dying.

One word of advice is do not goto youtubers for purchasing advice. I was looking at the A14 zenbook and all of the major youtube players claim it can't edit video. I started diving deeper and sure it can, very quickly. Faster than an m3 macbook air. What it can't do is 12k multi stream with major color grading and effects added. (only studios would toss that at a computer anyways). for what we want to do, 3 streams of 4k, with minimal grading and effects added it will do just fine.

Same goes for podcast audio production. It will do that no problem too. Sometimes further research is needed to cut through the noise of clickbait videos. The only thing missing in the A is touchscreen and an SD card reader. The insane battery life makes up for it.

As for windows, It's a pain lately, but still bendable to how I want it. I am familiar with it and know how to use it efficiently. I would have to mold MacOS to do my bidding like windows does to feel comfortable I think. Who knows.

I slept on this for 3 nights in a row and tested the macbooks. Now, I am going to staples today and see what the zenbook and surface laptop (64gb is a nice added feature) feels using them.

It would be in LOTS of money going that route as I would keep my desktop etc.

I know one thing, I won't be like our good buddy @LiE_ and go back and forth every week or so with mac/win systems. Ha ha ha. I will choose and be done. I love that for him though. I open this thread every day and go, what did Lie buy today!

 

[Steve Adams]

13 inch Macbook Pro 2015? As in Intel? Interesting...yeah that thing was loud. As were windows laptops at the time. That was a decade ago.

My 2010 acer timeline 4810T was nice and quiet no matter how hard I pushed it. I was the first laptop I owned that could go a full day of work on a charge. Gamechanger. 8-10 real world hours of work on it once I swapped in the intel SSD instead of the spinny drive.

Spent 3 months in the field doing damage reports and repair estimates for a major hurricane that blew through the province. I used to charge in while on the road, come back to the apartment I had rented and would sit at the coffee table watching tv and pounding through reports for 5 - 6 hrs in the evening. That laptop never missed a beat.

Made a ton of money at that time doing that. I want to get back to doing it again so I am opening a new business soon. I have to stay put right now until we get our new house bought. But as soon as that is all finalized, I am out of where I am and doing my own businesses again! This is another reason why I am somewhat reluctant to goto mac. One program the entire insurance industry here uses only runs on Windows. So I would need it to do my work.

 

[pshufd]

I'm currently on a basic but well built PC. NOT a gaming PC, as I have no dedicated graphics. It's doing me great service and by and large I am happy. I think it cost £600 built. For that I have a 1TB SSD, and 16gigs Ram. And I probably don't even use all that RAM. I AM using around 500gb on the SSD. All I use my computer for is basic computing like browsing, word processing, email. Listening to MP3's, and some basic photo editing, and it's fine for my level of music making. All my creative stuff. All is well for now.

However. I just checked on prices for a 'next' computer, what to get after this one. And of course a Mac is ALWAYS a consideration. If I look on my preferred vendors website, the 'pre built' systems that are seemingly a good price, all cheap out on the PSU and Cooling. I'm not comfortable with that.

If I spec to build even a basic PC, I'm looking at over £1k. If I then want to spec that machine so it can actually manage with some ease 4k video editing, the CPU, and GPU need to be much better and it's going to cost closer to 2k.

Budget is super important to me, I am on very little funds. I CAN save, but it will take some time.

Any M series chip will comfortably edit 4k, for much more advanced edits you may need more RAM, perhaps a Pro chip?

Even a MacBook Neo can edit basic 4k.

I never thought I would be in a situation where an Apple computer is the best budget computer on the market? Mac's were always premium, yes arguably better built certainly back in the day, but you had to PAY. Now, a Mac mini, or MacBook Neo can be had for what? £700? And look at what you can do with them.

I'm kinda pleasantly surprised to seem to be coming to the conclusion that my next computer, which needs to be a budget computer, will most likely be a Mac!

These days I am NOT a gamer, I just got kinda fed up with them. So I don't need a gaming PC, I just need a computer, and the most budget friendly one right now is a Mac.

I like using Windows. I like the install wizard that also doubles as an uninstaller so you can get rid of all the files. I have no issue with Windows Explorer. And I do LOVE the way Word works so nicely on a PC.

I'm always willing to change my mind, I am flexible. But if I want to do the tasks I want to do, a Mac is great value now.

The amount of power you need depends on your tools. I can do 4k iMovie editing on a base M1 Mac or even a 2017 iMac Pro. If you use heavier tools, then you need more horsepower.

You might consider something like an M1 Max Studio used for about $750 if you want a lot of power and memory for a low price.

 

[pshufd]

Thunderbird is messing up my email this morning. I think that the email database is corrupted and will need to reload everything. I think that it's due to Yahoo mail needing to reauthenticate. It's a bit of a headache to deal with.

One area where Apple Mail is far more reliable.

I may just set up Thunderbird with Gmail and iCloud and leave the other accounts running on macOS.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Thunderbird is messing up my email this morning. I think that the email database is corrupted and will need to reload everything. I think that it's due to Yahoo mail needing to reauthenticate. It's a bit of a headache to deal with.

One area where Apple Mail is far more reliable.

I may just set up Thunderbird with Gmail and iCloud and leave the other accounts running on macOS.

Man I have had a Thunderbird install for like 2 years with 4 email accounts, 2 of my own domain, 1 icloud, 1 gmail. Maybe it really is Yahoo? That is weird, mine has been perfect.

 

[pshufd]

Man I have had a Thunderbird install for like 2 years with 4 email accounts, 2 of my own domain, 1 icloud, 1 gmail. Maybe it really is Yahoo? That is weird, mine has been perfect.

I used Thunderbird since about 2004 and then switched to Apple Mail around 2012.

I actually built the first Thunderbird x64 Windows kit in the world. I think that it took Mozilla another eight years to go x64.

 

[Steve Adams]

I have T-Bird on my Linux install. No issues what so ever. I used to use it on my windows systems as well but gave up and just used IE/Chrome and outlook. Never saw a need to change.

 

[LiE_]

Asus 5k 160hz monitor arrived today, it's really nice. The Dell 7450 as expected, can only run 5k at 60hz. Just need my M5 MBA now.

Edit:
Correction I can run the monitor at 5k 120hz on the Window machine if I change the USB-C bandwidth from 3.2 to 2.0. Presumably this downgrade gives more bandwidth for the display. Nice little option. 2.0 is enough for the USB hub devices plugged into the monitor.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Asus 5k 160hz monitor arrived today, it's really nice. The Dell 7450 as expected, can only run 5k at 60hz. Just need my M5 MBA now.

Edit:
Correction I can run the monitor at 5k 120hz on the Window machine if I change the USB-C bandwidth from 3.2 to 2.0. Presumably this downgrade gives more bandwidth for the display. Nice little option. 2.0 is enough for the USB hub devices plugged into the monitor.

I was going to say... my crappy Dell work laptop can run my monitor at 4k 120 easy.

 

[LiE_]

I was going to say... my crappy Dell work laptop can run my monitor at 4k 120 easy.

4k high hz is easy these days. 5k high hz isn’t so much.

 

[diamond.g]

4k high hz is easy these days. 5k high hz isn’t so much.

Weird, I'd think the DP would handle it just fine, with DSC.

 

[Steve Adams]

I was going to say... my crappy Dell work laptop can run my monitor at 4k 120 easy.

My crappy dell can too, if it would turn on. ha ha!

 

[pshufd]

I got my email accounts restored in Thunderbird on the Lenovo Yoga and it's nice to use again. It's still downloading emails from one account but should be done within an hour. Next I need to restore the password for Yahoo mail on my Macs. I'm not sure what caused it to flush the automatic logins on all of my systems.

 

[pshufd]

Intel aims to transform gaming with its IBOT optimisation tool​

Alongside its new Core Ultra 200S PLUS CPUs, Intel is launching their “Intel Binary Optimisation Tool” (IBOT), which aims to boost CPU performance and push gaming forward.

Intel’s IBOT tool is part of Intel’s one-two punch strategy for enthusiast gaming performance. On the one hand, Intel aims to boost its gaming performance through hardware advancements. On the other hand, Intel has IBOT, which aims to transform gaming by optimising titles for Intel’s newest microarchitectures.

Optimising games for Intel x86​

When explaining IBOT, Intel’s Robert Hallock says that PC games can be optimised for one CPU architecture or another. Games can be optimised for Intel x86, “competitor x86” (AMD x86), or console x86. With IBOT, Intel can restructure and streamline games designed for non-Intel x86 to optimise them for Intel x86. This results in improved performance without changing game functionality or skipping work.

Through IBAT, supported games can better utilise Intel’s caches, prefetchers, and CPU pipelines. This increases IPC (Instructions Per Cycle), boosting performance and efficiency. In the YouTube short below, Hallock says that Intel can extract 10-40% more performance on Intel Micro Architecture using this tool.

Intel promises HUGE gaming gains with IBOT - OC3D

Intel aims to transform gaming with its IBOT optimisation tool, promising 10-40% more performance in supported games.

overclock3d.net

Compilers have had options where you can compile and link for specific processors to take the best advantage of hardware architectures but this appears to be something that works automatically. I used to do a lot of performance optimization work on Firefox using tools like profile-guided-optimization and processor-specific code generation and these were a coding-free way to get another 10-15 percent performance out of a build.

I'll have to keep an eye out for this tool coming out. Ideally it would be something that ships with Windows but I'd try a standalone tool too.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Intel aims to transform gaming with its IBOT optimisation tool​

Alongside its new Core Ultra 200S PLUS CPUs, Intel is launching their “Intel Binary Optimisation Tool” (IBOT), which aims to boost CPU performance and push gaming forward.

Intel’s IBOT tool is part of Intel’s one-two punch strategy for enthusiast gaming performance. On the one hand, Intel aims to boost its gaming performance through hardware advancements. On the other hand, Intel has IBOT, which aims to transform gaming by optimising titles for Intel’s newest microarchitectures.

Optimising games for Intel x86​

When explaining IBOT, Intel’s Robert Hallock says that PC games can be optimised for one CPU architecture or another. Games can be optimised for Intel x86, “competitor x86” (AMD x86), or console x86. With IBOT, Intel can restructure and streamline games designed for non-Intel x86 to optimise them for Intel x86. This results in improved performance without changing game functionality or skipping work.

Through IBAT, supported games can better utilise Intel’s caches, prefetchers, and CPU pipelines. This increases IPC (Instructions Per Cycle), boosting performance and efficiency. In the YouTube short below, Hallock says that Intel can extract 10-40% more performance on Intel Micro Architecture using this tool.

Intel promises HUGE gaming gains with IBOT - OC3D

Intel aims to transform gaming with its IBOT optimisation tool, promising 10-40% more performance in supported games.

overclock3d.net

Compilers have had options where you can compile and link for specific processors to take the best advantage of hardware architectures but this appears to be something that works automatically. I used to do a lot of performance optimization work on Firefox using tools like profile-guided-optimization and processor-specific code generation and these were a coding-free way to get another 10-15 percent performance out of a build.

I'll have to keep an eye out for this tool coming out. Ideally it would be something that ships with Windows but I'd try a standalone tool too.

Interesting....

 

[diamond.g]

I hope we are not sliding back toward Intel compiler optimization shenanigans.

 

[pshufd]

I hope we are not sliding back toward Intel compiler optimization shenanigans.

Back in my optimization days, Intel made great compilers, better than Microsoft. And you paid through the nose for them. Even AMD used Intel's compilers for better performance, even on AMD CPUs, until they came up with their own compiler. I'm all for squeezing out more performance or efficiency using compilers.

 

[maflynn]

until they came up with their own compiler. I'm all for squeezing out more performance or efficiency using compilers.

If I had a choice, would I choose Microsoft or the company that designed the chip and knows every nook and cranny of that CPU? I'd pick intel every time. I'm largely not doing any development work, and when I do, its not something that requires such attention that I need to choose between MS and intel

 

[pshufd]

If I had a choice, would I choose Microsoft or the company that designed the chip and knows every nook and cranny of that CPU? I'd pick intel every time. I'm largely not doing any development work, and when I do, its not something that requires such attention that I need to choose between MS and intel

We had a group license at Oracle for Intel's compilers. You can imagine the cost spread out over tens of thousands of engineers. Our main development platform was Linux though so Microsoft wasn't an option. I think that most companies use GCC on Linux as it's free and performance is quite good, but, if you want really good optimization on a particular platform, you might have to implement it yourself.

Intel publishes their architectural information in their hardware architectural books (three manual set the last time I checked). They publish latencies and clocks on instructions for each generation of processors; so all of that information is public. AMD did the same thing last I checked 15 years ago. So all of the information is public. But taking that information to get the best performance from your compiler is a huge amount of work and companies that make their compilers available for free aren't going to put in that effort because they make a costs-benefits analysis.

Organizations that make software mainly for their own use wouldn't benefit that much from better compilers. Companies that make software that sell a lot of copies or where performance is a very important factor because the effort you put in once can benefit literally hundreds of millions of users. Labor is the highest cost for software engineering and putting in the compiler is just a tools group putting in a command with switches in build scripts so there is no additional cost for each engineer to use the other compiler.

 

[leemkule]

Agreed. There are good and bad points to everything. I was on the mac kick after having issues with making my MS365 payment where they had location issues. I am calmed down a bit now ha ha. I have a beast of a desktop which is still perfectly fine. I am shopping for a replacement laptop because mine is slowly dying.

One word of advice is do not goto youtubers for purchasing advice. I was looking at the A14 zenbook and all of the major youtube players claim it can't edit video. I started diving deeper and sure it can, very quickly. Faster than an m3 macbook air. What it can't do is 12k multi stream with major color grading and effects added. (only studios would toss that at a computer anyways). for what we want to do, 3 streams of 4k, with minimal grading and effects added it will do just fine.

Same goes for podcast audio production. It will do that no problem too. Sometimes further research is needed to cut through the noise of clickbait videos. The only thing missing in the A is touchscreen and an SD card reader. The insane battery life makes up for it.

As for windows, It's a pain lately, but still bendable to how I want it. I am familiar with it and know how to use it efficiently. I would have to mold MacOS to do my bidding like windows does to feel comfortable I think. Who knows.

I slept on this for 3 nights in a row and tested the macbooks. Now, I am going to staples today and see what the zenbook and surface laptop (64gb is a nice added feature) feels using them.

It would be in LOTS of money going that route as I would keep my desktop etc.

I know one thing, I won't be like our good buddy @LiE_ and go back and forth every week or so with mac/win systems. Ha ha ha. I will choose and be done. I love that for him though. I open this thread every day and go, what did Lie buy today!

I agree with this.

I'm quite convinced that most youtubers don't have a clue how to edit properly with a professional workflow. Most serious editors use proxies and aren't stacking like 10 streams of 4k h265 on top of each other so their tests are almost always irrelevant.

That's partly why the Macbook Pros get hailed as some sort of magic because they can handle that sort of thing, but these days many CPU/GPUs on the windows side also have hardware encoding/decoding, so it's less special.

Having said that, I am someone who has used Mac OS for the past 20 years even though I grew up building PCs and running windows. I recently built a Windows PC again and whilst I can to some extent understand why people find it a bit annoying, I personally find it a breath of fresh air and am really enjoying it way more than OSX.

I much prefer the file manager on windows and text/ui scaling works properly, mouse and keyboard support is so much better (I don't care what anyone says, I've never tried a mouse on Mac that doesn't feel slow and floaty, no matter what settings to change), it's so nice to just control my internal storage and have 8tb of internal storage without paying Apples Ridiculous pricing.

But when it comes to laptops, I'm struggling to find anything that competes with the Macbook Pro, I considered a macbook air for light use but the keyboard to me is rubbish. I really want to find a good windows laptop but when you get into the realms of windows laptops that have a haptic trackpad, a nice 120hz oled, a good keyboard, you start getting into Macbook Pro prices really quickly and they seemingly don't perform as well.

I have had horrible luck with Macbook pro reliability over the years so none of the options seem particularly good.

 

[pshufd]

I much prefer the file manager on windows and text/ui scaling works properly, mouse and keyboard support is so much better (I don't care what anyone says, I've never tried a mouse on Mac that doesn't feel slow and floaty, no matter what settings to change), it's so nice to just control my internal storage and have 8tb of internal storage without paying Apples Ridiculous pricing.

I've found the Logitech Bolt receiver performs really well on Macs and Windows for Logitech mice.

 

[Steve Adams]

I agree with this.

I'm quite convinced that most youtubers don't have a clue how to edit properly with a professional workflow. Most serious editors use proxies and aren't stacking like 10 streams of 4k h265 on top of each other so their tests are almost always irrelevant.

That's partly why the Macbook Pros get hailed as some sort of magic because they can handle that sort of thing, but these days many CPU/GPUs on the windows side also have hardware encoding/decoding, so it's less special.

Having said that, I am someone who has used Mac OS for the past 20 years even though I grew up building PCs and running windows. I recently built a Windows PC again and whilst I can to some extent understand why people find it a bit annoying, I personally find it a breath of fresh air and am really enjoying it way more than OSX.

I much prefer the file manager on windows and text/ui scaling works properly, mouse and keyboard support is so much better (I don't care what anyone says, I've never tried a mouse on Mac that doesn't feel slow and floaty, no matter what settings to change), it's so nice to just control my internal storage and have 8tb of internal storage without paying Apples Ridiculous pricing.

But when it comes to laptops, I'm struggling to find anything that competes with the Macbook Pro, I considered a macbook air for light use but the keyboard to me is rubbish. I really want to find a good windows laptop but when you get into the realms of windows laptops that have a haptic trackpad, a nice 120hz oled, a good keyboard, you start getting into Macbook Pro prices really quickly and they seemingly don't perform as well.

I have had horrible luck with Macbook pro reliability over the years so none of the options seem particularly good.

Ahhhh. Honesty and logic. wonderful. My video editing requirements would be three camera setup for our vlogcast/podcast we are starting and our travel vlog once we get life straightened away. So, it may even be three 1080 streams. No need for 4k for our requirements to be honest.

I won't be buying a macbook. I am starting to think that the current laptop I have will do what I need if it stays reliable. it's a 1165g7, 64gb of ram, all the ports I need and touchscreen and acutally has great battery life with it's new battery.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I've found the Logitech Bolt receiver performs really well on Macs and Windows for Logitech mice.

I found that I needed to add Steermouse and exhaustively tune that Logitech mouse for Mac. Now that I no longer use Macs it’s one of the best things about it. Not having to make a mouse feel right.

 

[Steve Adams]

I've found the Logitech Bolt receiver performs really well on Macs and Windows for Logitech mice.

Agreed. I have tried all sorts of keybord, mice and input devices and Logitech is the best hands down.