Late 2018 Air. Buffering and Lagging with OS Big Sur on Twitch.

[SpunZ]

Hello!

As of 2 months ago I would get a special message on my 2018 Air ( 8gb ram 256 HD) saying that safari was using too much memory and that I should close the page to stop experiencing slow down. Banner on top of page that messes with webpage resolution. Close it out and a immediate message pops back up, really annoying, no fix, at least with my google kung fu. Decided to update to latest mac OS "Big Sur" and it has gotten rid of the message. However, now everything is running slow on twitch.tv (what I mainly use this pc for while working). I'm talking straight buffering and lagging on streams, borderline unwatchable.

My question is as follows: Is that all she wrote? we got two and a half years out of this machine and its time to load up linux on it?

I just want to watch twitch in full resolution without a loading or buffering screen.... It was possible a year ago.... ????

☹️

 

[ChrisChaval]

cannot help you with twitch, sorry

this machine was embarrassingly slow from the beginning

traded it in for a M1 MBA

when I first got the MBA 2018 it felt way slower than my MBA 2017 (which I still have)

 

[SpunZ]

cannot help you with twitch, sorry

this machine was embarrassingly slow from the beginning

traded it in for a M1 MBA

when I first got the MBA 2018 it felt way slower than my MBA 2017 (which I still have)

At this point if im gonna purchase a new computer id bite the bullet and go with a M1 MBP. Feel like a 14” is supposed to be coming out soon?

Has anyone had success with a system restore to give some life to a machine. Again, just wanna watch twitch.tv on any browser with no buffering or lag.

This was over a $1000 notbook less then 3 years ago, not some cheap netbook from walmart. I understand things degrade but jeez!

I haven’t given up on it yet. Gonna hit the lab this weekend and exhaust all options. Any and all tips would be appreciated.

 

[ChrisChaval]

I do not want you to spend money unnecessarily and I do not have experience with twitch

You could try a fresh install of macOS (backing up your data first) and see if that helps, resetting PRAM and SMC, too

Nonetheless, Apple put an underpowered intel Y series CPU in the MBA 2018 (along with the flawed butterfly keyboard) and I am sorry to say, this device never was worth the money and I regret I bought it

the M1 really makes a difference

 

[adamlbiscuit]

I have a 2020 intel MacBook Air and whilst I haven't noticed any lagging / buffering per se, the fans spin up full-pelt whenever I'm watching Twitch Must be something quite processor-intensive going on behind the scenes.

 

[SpunZ]

A little update, was able to fix this issue by simply swapping web browsers. I have always used chrome and safari however I guess these have just become to resource heavy. I downloaded Microsoft Edge.

I am actually very impressed with it, very snappy and chrome looking. I had to do a few tweaks such as changing default search engine and other things that come with changing web browsers, but appears we are good to go.

I'd like to use this machine for as long as I can. Microsoft Edge appears to have given it new life! As its main use cases are for youtube and streaming video. With some light web browsing as well.

 

[ChrisChaval]

I am happy you found a solution!

Kind of strange that a third party browser performs better on macOS than the built in safari ...

 

[tps3443]

Well, I would also 2nd that the M1 air is the way to go. Even a base.

You can take an 8GB ram Macbook M1 Air, and go push 20GB or higher of ram usage on it. And the whole system just kinda laughs at you as it says 50%-60% memory pressure..

If you’ve got your system working, that’s excellent. But there is a reason why Apple built their own MacBook architecture and moved away from intel..