When we first read reviews of the M1, most of the applications tested were in Rosetta2 mode. Now that a significant number of applications have converted over, I'm interested in seeing a "re-review" of the M1. Any of these out in the wild?
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Any new reviews of the M1 now that many apps support Apple Silicon natively?
- Thread starter senttoschool
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New to Macs, only using M1 compatible apps as of now & this little baby runs super fast without getting hot even at 100% GPU/CPU usage. Avoiding non M1 apps as of now knowing that they cause some or the other problems, another 6 months most of the apps will be Universal.
Nothing in particular.
But I've found drastic increases in performance for Node.js, which I use every day. Native Node.js performs 2x-20x faster depending on what I do.
I haven't run across any notable issues with non-native apps on my M1, and I've had it since December. What "other problems" are you referring to?
I’ll second that. Rosetta 2 works by translating an app from x86-64 to Arm64. Once that is done, most apps never need Rosetta’s translation again. It just runs the saved Arm64 version. A few apps that need to translate x86 at runtime are different but those are pretty rare.
There is a pinned thread on the programs that are native and universal. I wish that there was a section for programs that haven't been ported yet as well. The Monterey forum has a list of programs that work and programs that don't work in one thread which I found useful.
Java programs that use Intel Java don't run that well. I suspect that Java uses a JIT and that that code has to get translated every time as it's not fixed.
I've found that large WINE/CROSSOVER programs don't run well through Rosetta 2.
Unfortunately these are two important program area in my workflow so I run them on Windows.
Just install one of the native JDKs and run the jar file directly
Yeah, that's going to be a special can of worms
Not that easy. I spoke to a developer and he said that it probably wouldn't work but that he'd be interested in what I found. They apparently do their own private installation of the Intel OpenJDK and we couldn't find it on my Mac. I also think that they have their own API layer that links directly into the Intel OpenJDK. What bothered me more is that they have nothing planned for M1. This is why Apple needs to get rid of Rosetta 2. If you leave it around forever, developers, being naturally lazy (my son says efficient), won't bother to port. In this case, it's literally just using a different OpenJDK.
Java under Rosetta 2 is exactly what I was referring to. Luckily most users can just download a M1 version and be on their way. Unfortunately, your situation sounds different. Gotta love enterprise software.
Ugh, so they are distributing their own custom version of the JDK? Why? That's why we can't have nice things...
I mean, I totally understand that upgrading can be a huge effort. But that's why one designs things in a way that allow easier maintenance...
They include a particular version of OpenJDK. The company that makes that OpenJDK also has a native M1 version. I installed it on my system but it did nothing. They have an API layer directly into it in the form of an executable. I was hoping to find the Intel version of OpenJDK to see if I could swap it out but I couldn't find it. I worked with a developer and he couldn't find it either. It's possible that it's hidden or just buried somewhere.
I do have a contact that's hooked into senior management for the division and I think that I'll reach out to him to see if he can ping someone at a higher management level.
I looked around again and do have the native M1 OpenJDK installed but the application is actually an Intel image which can do callouts to Chromium, VLC and apparently some Intel OpenJDK which I couldn't find. I could find the native OpenJDK though and it runs just fine off the command line. I also did timings on my i7-10700 vs M1 and startup took 20 seconds on the i7-10700 and 51 seconds on the M1. The M1 clobbers the i7-10700 in single-core performance but the 10700 has 8 performance cores so it should be slightly faster in multicore performance. The M1 runs at about 300% CPU in startup (I'm assuming that's fully 3 of the 4 performance cores) while the i7-10700 runs around 40% of total system CPU.
I'd guess that the other program does Crossover/Rosetta 2 is worse. I should do some timing runs to see what the difference is between Windows and M1.
My Windows system is pretty close to the 27 inch iMac with i7-10700K (the iMac is faster as it is a K CPU) and the i9-10900 would easily beat mine as it has 10 cores instead of 8. This is one place of those places where Intel beats M1, mainly because of translation and emulation issues. On native Apple Silicon, I would expect that the 10700 systems would have a slight edge because of better multicore performance.
I'd expect a significant advantage with Zen 3 systems like the 5900X and 5950X and 11th generation Intel 10700 or 10900.
I'd guess that the other program does Crossover/Rosetta 2 is worse. I should do some timing runs to see what the difference is between Windows and M1.
My Windows system is pretty close to the 27 inch iMac with i7-10700K (the iMac is faster as it is a K CPU) and the i9-10900 would easily beat mine as it has 10 cores instead of 8. This is one place of those places where Intel beats M1, mainly because of translation and emulation issues. On native Apple Silicon, I would expect that the 10700 systems would have a slight edge because of better multicore performance.
I'd expect a significant advantage with Zen 3 systems like the 5900X and 5950X and 11th generation Intel 10700 or 10900.
The vast number of applications will just use whichever Java you have installed. I think that most applications won't install it for you - you have to install it yourself. This is just one of those applications that built it in such a way as to be unfriendly to Apple Silicon.
ARM 64-bit macOS Azul OpenJDK kits are at https://www.azul.com/downloads/?os=macos&architecture=arm-64-bit&package=jdk
They have kits for x86 and Linux and Windows as well. It looks like azul has replaced Oracle for multiplatform OpenJDK.
Are we talking about ThinkorSwim here? Because I went down that same rabbit hole to figure out if I could swap the default install of x86 Azul OpenJDK with the Azul OpenJDK that is available. I'd love to get the performance back... because as of right now I'm looking at grabbing a Intel Mac for running it (or a windows box)
Yeah it runs like a dog on the m1. I picked up an 8gb m1 mbp and it continued to toss memory errors... went to a 16gb m1 Mac mini and it runs better but gets really sluggish at times now.
I've heard the m1 optimized one should be available after the merger is completed, but until they integrate there is nothing on the roadmap.
That's the nature of mergers. They have to decide on whether to chop one platform and force customers to the other or maintain both. Companies usually hate to have to maintain two separate systems that do the same thing. The merger is expected to close October 6, 2021. I don't expect that it will be much work to do the port - they just need to get started. I'd guess that it's something that an engineer could do in their spare time.
Found a link with some info on running it natively. Seems like a pain but could be worth it