4 months later: Intel V M1 Max memory

[jgbr]

I've generally been thrilled with my new 14MBP. (Mont 12.2.)

However, this week I noticed my memory pressure was in the 'yellow', and straightforward applications such as Discord and What's app was consuming large amounts of memory.

I tried the same apps in an identical setup on an 2017 15inch. The memory usage was about 19% versus the 14MBP at 60% for the same apps and a reasonable swap file.

Some of these apps, such as Discord or WhatsApp, consumed anything between 600MB and 1.5GB ram on the M1 Max.

I tried the same on a 14inch M1 Pro 16GB to see the same thing.

Using a lot of memory seems a common trait of these new chips?....

Is this a change in technology, a software issue with the transition, a dud move or something else? What are other peoples experiences?

I am concerned that running barely any taxing apps, such as mail, outlook, iTunes, safari, word, whatsapp, discord etc that I can nearly consume all my memory particularly on the 16GB?

 

[internetrando]

That is not expected behavior. There is something else going on here.

You have to really put these machines (M1 Max in particular with 32+ GB of RAM) to serious work to put pressure on the memory like that. Swap is also hard to get into unless you’re doing intensive tasks.

This video demonstrates as much:

 

[jgbr]

I can replicate this behaviour on an M1 pro 14 16Gb too..... intel beats it hands down for memory usage... is this big memory bug leak problem I get reading about??

 

[synicalx1]

I've just asked one of the guys at work who was lucky enough to get an M1 Pro - no memory pressure issues there with Discord (doesn't have WhatsApp to test) after running it for a little while. My intel one is always running out of memory but that's because I just don't have enough memory in it...

 

[jgbr]

I watched Discord creep up to have 700 mb (1.4gb) assigned to the Discord Helper (GPU) and the same again on Discord Helper (Renderer) on top of the Discord app consuming 300mb more...(nearly 2gb on discord alone). At the same time discord.com in safari is consuming 300mb alone for one webpage.

With nothing open bar 2 web pages and discord activity monitor reporting 12GB or 16GB used on the M1 Pro...

Something's not right here or am I over thinking considering unix memory management?

Checked 10 minutes later and Discord Helper (GPU) is using 1.52GB by itself... just tested whatsapp and its using 1GB alone too...

OS memory leak?

 

[synicalx1]

Yeah that definitely doesn't sound right, I think you're on the money about something OS-level being wrong. I think both of those apps are built in Electron - I'd be inclined to try some other Electron apps and see if they have the same issues. Visual Studio Code, and Slack are both Electron and free so could be worth trying.

Having said that, I can't replicate the same issues with my personal M1 - so I suspect the issue may be something unique to the device you're using.

 

[internetrando]

I would focus less on the amount of RAM being used. Mac OS manages memory really well, and you have to remember that the memory is now being shared between the processor and GPU. I would expect to see higher numbers of total RAM usage reflected if those apps are utilizing the GPU in conjunction with the processor.

Memory pressure and swap are what really need to be watched to determine if there is an issue. You indicated it was yellow and swap was being used. That tells me that there’s something else going on. As I mentioned in my first post, it takes some work to get these things to sweat.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I watched Discord creep up to have 700 mb (1.4gb) assigned to the Discord Helper (GPU) and the same again on Discord Helper (Renderer) on top of the Discord app consuming 300mb more...(nearly 2gb on discord alone). At the same time discord.com in safari is consuming 300mb alone for one webpage.

With nothing open bar 2 web pages and discord activity monitor reporting 12GB or 16GB used on the M1 Pro...

Something's not right here or am I over thinking considering unix memory management?

Checked 10 minutes later and Discord Helper (GPU) is using 1.52GB by itself... just tested whatsapp and its using 1GB alone too...

OS memory leak?

It's probably nothing to worry about. I use WhatsApp and would think that it could easily use 1GB if left open for days. I've just opened it, and here is the memory usage (showing both "real men" and "men" in Activity Monitor). You can see that WhatsApp has a helper (renderer) and the app itself.

I'm generally operating with 1-5GB of swap used, and it occasionally goes into the yellow pressure with 32GB. On my 16GB M1 Mini (and identical usage) I would spend most of the time in the yellow, and it still works fine. Memory mostly seems to be taken by web pages - MacRumors.com is often >1GB!

 

[jgbr]

That maybe the case but to seriously have the machine fresh boot with one web page or one app open and see it start to consume say 12 of 16gb or an App within an 30 mins of running get up to 3-4 gb for something very light weight….?

 

[magikow]

which Discord version are you using? "standard one" sucked for me, it was slow and painful to use. Discord Canary works like a charm. It's native arm version, it's kinda beta but for me works as expected

 

[jgbr]

That certainly bought Discord under control but still vast memory consumption else where.

I am leaning towards this maybe a question of app optimisation and intel virtualisation. In which case we'd see an improvement in M1 Pro and M1 Max performance and OS system memory management in future as more apps are native and made properly for these systems...

Failing that, I still think Monterey memory management is questionable...

 

[jgbr]

That certainly bought Discord under control but still vast memory consumption else where.

I am leaning towards this maybe a question of app optimisation and intel virtualisation. In which case we'd see an improvement in M1 Pro and M1 Max performance and OS system memory management in future as more apps are native and made properly for these systems...

Failing that, I still think Monterey memory management is questionable... websites consuming 700mb per page...hmmm