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Yellow memory pressure in Xcode - do I need 32GB?

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chrismu

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 5, 2021
78
84
Hey guys,

I have recently started learning SwiftUI on my 14 inch MBP base model. I have noticed though, that whenever I am coding in Xcode, my memory pressure is constantly yellow and I have swap usage of roughly 2-7GB.

Since I am still in the return period with the MacBook, I was wondering if that meant I should go for 32GB of Unified Memory. I was initially hesitant to make that upgrade, since that would mean I would also want 1TB to really be able to keep the machine for a while, and also add the 10-Core M1Pro instead of the base 8-Core. I usually like to buy base models, just so I can upgrade a bit more often, and also because in my mind, they tend to have better value. I could afford the higher specced model, but I would prefer to save the money, since it would be almost 1.5x the price of the base model.

Anyway, since I am not experienced and just getting into software development, I would be very grateful if some of you with more experience in the field could give me a recommendation. It will be not be my main priority for a while, but I really want to learn how to build an app to build one myself one day, so the machine I have should be able to do that.

Thanks in advance!
 
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if anything, I think 32GB might improve compile times on big projects, but not enough to really matter. Do you feel any lag happening?

One of my favorite audio plugin developers happily uses an 8GB M1 Air.
 
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Yeah, that's what I found out through research before I bought the 16GB.

No, nothing is happening, I was just worried about the yellow memory pressure for such a long time and the constant swap usage. I know both of those are fine in bursts, but wasn't sure about the effects if it is happening over an extended period of time.
 
chrismu said:
Hey guys,

I have recently started learning SwiftUI on my 14 inch MBP base model. I have noticed though, that whenever I am coding in Xcode, my memory pressure is constantly yellow and I have swap usage of roughly 2-7GB.

Since I am still in the return period with the MacBook, I was wondering if that meant I should go for 32GB of Unified Memory. I was initially hesitant to make that upgrade, since that would mean I would also want 1TB to really be able to keep the machine for a while, and also add the 10-Core M1Pro instead of the base 8-Core. I usually like to buy base models, just so I can upgrade a bit more often, and also because in my mind, they tend to have better value. I could afford the higher specced model, but I would prefer to save the money, since it would be almost 1.5x the price of the base model.

Anyway, since I am not experienced and just getting into software development, I would be very grateful if some of you with more experience in the field could give me a recommendation. It will be not be my main priority for a while, but I really want to learn how to build an app to build one myself one day, so the machine I have should be able to do that.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
I have a 13" M1 MBP with 16GB. I've found it's not quite enough memory for me. I tend to keep XCode, Simulator, a Browser, and a few other small apps open. I opened my 13" M1 yesterday and it had the dreaded "you are out of memory for your applications" dialog showing. That's happened a few times in the past year. The Simulators are a memory hog and I've heard the Swift UI renderers are even worse (I've stuck with storyboards and have only played with SwiftUI so far). Hopefully apple will get all their memory leaks under control - but it probably won't be an immediate thing.

Based on that experience I'm going with 32GB in my new M1 Pro/Max laptop. 16GB on the 13" it was doable, but I had to be very conscious to shut down applications frequently and really manage what was running. To me the extra money for the memory was very much worth it for peace of mind.
 
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It has been proven time and time again that the junk ram configurations are not optimized to run on Apple Silicon. I would not be surprised if it is some kind of ram binning and they all start out at max ram. I say once again 10/16/32 pro or 10/32/64 max (1tb min both) or you DO NOT have the real computer and because of that do not expect it to work as advertised.
 
Thanks for the answers! Seems like it could make sense to go with 32, but at the same time, 16 is also very good. Basically, I know just as much as before, but have gained conformation on my indecisiveness ?
 
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I'm on the 16" with 16gb of ram and 1tb of storage. Was thinking of 32gb but idk 16gigs seems good . But yeah i guess if I'm gonna use an emulator/simulator then IDE and then browser with tabs. I might monitor the ram usage.

Although. From the tests I've seen on the internet. Swap usage isn't that bad in these new machines. Like they are so fast swapping in and out that it's not that noticable. So I think it'll be alright. Just make sure to quit not used apps etc when you're pushing your ram
 
That’s like buying a hard drive too small and acting like it’s good because it makes you delete stuff. If you can’t just let the computer run unchecked and not cleaned up and still work great, it’s not powerful enough. Why should I keep on top of processes? Just fork out for the ram so it works as advertised…
 
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Ballgag said:
That’s like buying a hard drive too small and acting like it’s good because it makes you delete stuff. If you can’t just let the computer run unchecked and not cleaned up and still work great, it’s not powerful enough. Why should I keep on top of processes? Just fork out for the ram so it works as advertised…
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Because not everyone can spend much money and be fine with it. Some prefer to save the extra money for other things. That's why people try to make compromises if it's gonna run fine anyways
 
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white7561 said:
Because not everyone can spend much money and be fine with it. Some prefer to save the extra money for other things. That's why people try to make compromises if it's gonna run fine anyways
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Exactly. If you have to balance where to spend your money - it's good to know what the trade offs will be. I've found I definitely have to stay on top of what applications are running (and squash the damn memory leak problems immediately) with only 16GB. I can afford to upgrade to 32GB so that's what I'm doing.

I think if you're limited on funds, I suggest upgrading RAM before SSD. You can always work off an external drive, but you can't add external memory.
 
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I get yellow memory pressure and a swap file on a 32Gb Max running Lightroom Classic. (I had a 16Gb Pro and it swapped more, which is why I returned it.)

It seems like the MacOS memory management strategy has changed for Apple Silicon. I never got this on the intel MacBooks. I’m not sure they are going to fix it, as they would have done so by now if they were going to. Similarly Adobe would have fixed Lightroom by now if the issue was application specific.
 
white7561 said:
Because not everyone can spend much money and be fine with it. Some prefer to save the extra money for other things. That's why people try to make compromises if it's gonna run fine anyways
Click to expand...
I agree, the whole point of these types of threads discussing the relative benefits vs costs of various upgrades is to exchange information so that people can better decide if and how to spend extra money on upgrades. Advice that simply says to spend the maximum, without any supporting basis, is useless and misleading.
I can easily afford to spend the maximum, but I didn't get in this position by wasting money. I support Apple by buying their stock, not by giving them extra donations by buying unnecessary upgrades.

I have the base 14" MBP with 16GB RAM, and often have yellow memory pressure when running Adobe apps like Lightroom and Photoshop on large or multiple files. This appears to hardly affect performance, but if I was to do it again I would opt for 32GB RAM. Because Adobe.
 
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sionell said:
To clarify - But you don't feel any lag? Everything feels responsive?
Click to expand...

yeah, it feels identical. Capture One currently likes to use 5-6GB ram just browsing through photos lol. Maybe they've got some optimizing to do.
 
Goodrich said:
I get yellow memory pressure and a swap file on a 32Gb Max running Lightroom Classic. (I had a 16Gb Pro and it swapped more, which is why I returned it.)

It seems like the MacOS memory management strategy has changed for Apple Silicon. I never got this on the intel MacBooks. I’m not sure they are going to fix it, as they would have done so by now if they were going to. Similarly Adobe would have fixed Lightroom by now if the issue was application specific.
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Yes but that would not have happened on the 32gb pro or 64gb max. It has something to do with not being maxxed out on ram for either chip.
 
wilberforce said:
I agree, the whole point of these types of threads discussing the relative benefits vs costs of various upgrades is to exchange information so that people can better decide if and how to spend extra money on upgrades. Advice that simply says to spend the maximum, without any supporting basis, is useless and misleading.
I can easily afford to spend the maximum, but I didn't get in this position by wasting money. I support Apple by buying their stock, not by giving them extra donations by buying unnecessary upgrades.

I have the base 14" MBP with 16GB RAM, and often have yellow memory pressure when running Adobe apps like Lightroom and Photoshop on large or multiple files. This appears to hardly affect performance, but if I was to do it again I would opt for 32GB RAM. Because Adobe.
Click to expand...
And I agree with wilberforce, only purchase what you require. And realize that the SSD on the M1 Max is roughly twice as fast as the SSDs on most any other fast machine (7500MB/s versus <5000MB/s), thus swapping to SSD may perhaps be less noticeable to the user, although I suspect that any SSD makes swapping less noticeable to the user for most tasks. Also realize that the RAM on Apple Silicon is unified, the UMA is for the CPUs, GPUs, and NEs -- thus minimizing the need for transferring/copying data among these engines. But at the same time, the same UMA RAM is employed for the CPUs, GPUs, and NEs, so if your application requires a huge amount of array space, then you have to take that into consideration as your UMA RAM is used for all three types of processors in addition to your array requirements. The nice thing is that the UMA RAM is quite fast, although in my hands it is not as fast as Apple claims, but that's probably just my bad coding skills at work and not Apple's UMA.

Solouki
 
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