First part, strictly factual...! No, you do NOT NEED 64GB or more RAM for stitching! You may want to have it, but again... you do NOT NEED it!
If you do not want to believe that, have a look into this video:
At minute 13:38 Art starts talking about the Lightroom Panorama function and the results different SoC and amounts of RAM provide in such a test (which seems to reflect your stated use case). Some preliminary, very obvious conclusions:
a) You would NEED(!!!) 64GB of RAM if lower amounts of RAM could NOT handle the task!
b) As well 16GB as 32GB of RAM can handle the task, no indication that they struggle in any way!
c) Yes, different amounts of RAM result in different times to finalize such tasks!
As of this test, the difference in time to handle the task between the 16" M1 Max with 64GB of RAM and the 16" M2 Max with 32GB of RAM is 20 sec! The difference between the 16" M2 Max with 32GB of RAM and the 16" M2 Pro with 16GB of RAM is 41 sec!
Now lets put all this in perspective, just reflecting to 32GB vs 64GB:
Let´s say, you do 100 (!) of such panoramas a week. That means you will gain 33.3 min per week, means (rounded) 29 hours per year, considering you do your 100 (!) panoramas 52 (!) weeks a year!
Now, let´s even say the time difference would be a little bigger comparing a M2 Max w/ 64GB to M2 Mac w/32GB. So let´s use 20% of performance benefit in the calculation, what results then in a total gain of approx. 35 hours per year!
Let´s even go a step further and say you may gain more as you are working with larger and more files, not just the tested 14 x 36MP files. Let´s be really (!) generous and let´s say you gain another 200%. So this results in a final gain of approx. 105 hours per year, means (again very generous) approx. 5 days.
Hope you don´t mind if I spare us the same exercise with the comparison of a machine with 16GB vs 32Gb or even 64GB, I am sure we all can do that easily on our own.
The conclusion, at least from my point of view, out of this exercise: Yes, more RAM helps creating panoramas faster, means you gain time. But how much time you gain depends totally on the parameters of such a calculation. Yes, 5 days may be a lot, but what about if you only do 10 panoramas a week for 52 weeks a year, means 520 per year? How realistic is such a number? And what is then the gain?
Your statement about time, in the beginning of your last post...! Yes, time is important, no doubt about that, but the interpretation of time is also relative and may be seen by different people in a different context.
-----------------------------------------
Second part, now a little more direct and clear... and not just about computers!
You think this thread is "unfortunately probably turning in to a ..."? So, "he" is getting personal on this now...!
Hope you don´t mind when I dare to ask... what about your part in here, your responsibility considering the direction this thread finally took step by step? You did not get personal, it has not been you getting personal against "him" at first?
What about now finally taking really a step back, acknowledging... that you opened this thread, asked questions... that you are, at least in a certain way, completely lost... that you are, sorry to state it so hard, quite clueless regarding all these topics, something you not only proof more than once in your postings, you even admit(ted) it yourself... and then potentially come to the conclusion that your behavior in some situations, some of your statements, simply do not fit these facts.
Finally, personally I would not use such a phrase as you now used to describe this thread... maybe I am little more old school. I like much better descriptions like... Kindergarten, Kasperletheater! And everybody can think about his own role in there...!
Herbert
), but sometimes things can get "interesting" as you said...and i support and understand your view on different opinions, its all fine! My bad.