Anyone figured out how to use up the memory on a M1 mac?

[DeanL]

Unified RAM can speed things up or optimize RAM performance in some aspect but is no miracle, I testted only my friend’s Air M1 8GB which I recommended him buying the 16GB but did t listen me and it was quite easy use all ram with simple task, so 8GB in my test resulted, as expected, in very low RAM not future proof even for simple task, I mean, it was easy to use all ram now, just wait 2 or 3 OSX updates and lets see...

after all, apple ALWAYS has made much more money from base systems than high system because of this.

My old rmbp15” 2012 with 16gb ram is the new mac of my girlfriend who is amazed by the speed, hers previous machine was a 8gb 13” base macbook pro from 2014 ? obviously the 4 cores vs 2 has a lot of advantage, but chrome/safari this days are very very very ram hungry (thanks to many code inprovents which also makes them much more reliable and crash proof...)

He used up all of the RAM but the question is did he experience slowdowns? I don't care if my RAM is full as long as the computer doesn't become slow.
macOS has ways of coping with full RAM so having full RAM literally doesn't mean a lot.

 

[cocoua]

Give it time... Apple while find a way to slow the machine down to encourage you to buy a newer one... it's they cycle of life.

well, this is not just apple but the logical evolution of OS, see Android which uses more resources than apple (because apple can and want to save money)

everytime technology improves, more code lines, means more resources. So with time, woy will need more resources no matter which company is making it.

I'm a game developer and now this very well, always wishing to have this hardware improvement to make this new thing.

But what is obvious is that if an smartphone is selling with 8GB RAM (any top Android, or 6GB for iPhone 12 Pro) a computer will need more. Just basic logic. If your basic operations needs 6GB, your little more complex system would need even more.

The trick is always having at least one component barely at the limit, Apple uses GPU, SSD space limit and RAM for doing this.

So base devices always lack one of another, so eventually, you would need more of any of those (though eventually all we would need an upgrade….)

At the end prices are well balanced, as for a basic use, is more or less the same buying a 15" 2012 rMBP full loaded to work 10 years than buying 2 or 3 basic rMBP 13" in 10 years, cost and performance will be the same for basic usage, but you have different advantages for pro or basic use.

 

[durstlaw]

I have a macbook pro with 16 gb ram. Using Final Cut, I load ProRes files. I can load 2 or 3 before getting a message saying I am out of memory. It says Im using 64 gb. Each file I import increases memory use by 15-30 gbs (observing Activity Monitor.) I get a message requiring me to Force Quit Final Cut. Then the Act.Mon shows 2 to 4 gbs memory being used. My storage is to a 14 TB raid that is mostly empty. Any ideas what's happening? I'm importing 2 files, then having to Force Quit.

 

[xraydoc]

How big are these two ProRes files? I'm not a Final Cut user, but sounds like you're attempting an edit job too big for a mere 16GB of RAM. There's a reason the desktops support 128+GB of RAM...

 

[dmccloud]

The only time I ever got my M1 Pro (8GB RAM) to start spinning beachballs was just after I brought the machine home. I wanted to see just how far I could push the machine in Safari. The answer was 180 open tabs, with 20 of those being YouTube videos. Given that I rarely have 15 tabs open at once (let alone 180), I'm not terribly concerned about running up against the RAM limit any time in the near future.