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Apple_Robert

Contributor
Sep 21, 2012
35,645
52,430
In a van down by the river

Glorious Partridge

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 19, 2021
16
18
Is the Mac slowing down and struggling, or are you constantly looking at the memory pressure because you have been watching YouTube videos about the subject?
It's slowing down. Very noticeable in Intellij, and I was not doing any project work, just some random java files for learning arrays, lists, etc.
 

Apple_Robert

Contributor
Sep 21, 2012
35,645
52,430
In a van down by the river
It's slowing down. Very noticeable in Intellij, and I was not doing any project work, just some random java files for learning arrays, lists, etc.
Are you using the latest release of said app and has it been optimized for Sonoma and M series? What else was running in the background?

Edited to add: Doing a search it appears that the app you are using is the problem and not the Mac. People have been complaining about the app performance even with M1 series.
 

Glorious Partridge

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 19, 2021
16
18
Are you using the latest release of said app and has it been optimized for Sonoma and M series? What else was running in the background?
Yes it's the newest version. As of now, I have Intellij(empty project), Chrome with <20 tabs, terminal, obsidian, vscode, Apple Music, Excel. That's it.
Screenshot 2023-11-20 at 5.30.39 PM.png
 
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smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,941
4,008
Silicon Valley
It's slowing down. Very noticeable in Intellij, and I was not doing any project work, just some random java files for learning arrays, lists, etc.

So I'm an Intellij user myself. Did you just load a new project and have fresh settings on your new machine? If you have default settings and you're on a freshly minted installation, don't be surprised if it drags at first. I had a super slow project the other day for this exact reason, but because I normally have that project fully loaded and cached, I never realized just how deep the libraries went until I had to let the IDE start from scratch.

If you're on day one, come back on day 3 if you're still having issues with Intellij.

*Nevermind* you just mentioned you have an empty project. Regardless, I think you should just carry on and not come to any conclusions until you're at least a few days in.
 

n00byn4t3r

macrumors newbie
Aug 19, 2012
28
19
18GB of RAM is a decent amount, but it’s really not that much. Apple Silicon machines aren’t magical in their RAM requirements. If you feel like you’re hitting the limits already, you should return the machine and go for at least 32GB. Which, IMO, should be the minimum for a “pro” machine in <2023>.
 
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sw1tcher

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2004
6,015
21,757

smirking

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,941
4,008
Silicon Valley
I’m just seeing a lot of excuses in this thread, unfortunately. 18GB of RAM is a decent amount, but it’s really not that much. Apple Silicon machines aren’t magical in their RAM requirements. If you feel like you’re hitting the limits already, you should return the machine and go for at least 32GB. Which, IMO, should be the minimum for a “pro” machine in <2023>.
I'm compiling apps in Xcode while Windows 11 is running on Parallels and I have VM web servers loaded all at the same time on 16GB. I'm not making excuses.

When there are slowdowns, everyone thinks it's RAM. Sometimes it is, but oftentimes it's not. The OP should not be having this much trouble running that set of programs on 18GB of RAM. Something else is going on.

Not every problem leads to RAM. There are so many other ways you can have performance problems.
 

NeonNights

macrumors 6502a
Jul 22, 2022
671
871
Yes it's the newest version. As of now, I have Intellij(empty project), Chrome with <20 tabs, terminal, obsidian, vscode, Apple Music, Excel. That's it. View attachment 2315082
I ran IntelliJ, a bunch of Safari/Chrome tabs, a Win11 VM open, and Affinity Photo on a 16GB M1 Air without any issues. It's not enough just to look at your memory pressure. Look above the graph and inspect your running processes -- which one is taking up the bulk of your memory? It could be as simple as some bad Javascript or content in one of your Chrome tabs.

The M3 Pro with 18GB shouldn't have any problem running the mild load you're asking of it. Yellow memory pressure isn't necessarily bad and it happens sometimes, but if the MacBook actually feels sluggish then check out which process(es) are consuming the bulk of RAM.
 

Allen_Wentz

macrumors 68040
Dec 3, 2016
3,329
3,763
USA
My m3 pro with 18gb of ram has memory pressure constantly on yellow, never happened on my old m1 pro with 16gb, does anyone know what's happening?
Odds are that your OS version and/or apps have evolved to newer versions and are demanding more RAM. I recommended more than 16/18 to you in your earlier posts; if you chose 18, now live with it. Closing apps and tabs not in use will often help. And like NeonNights said, yellow pressure with 18 GB and your described load should not usually cause a slowdown; you may be able to find a specific cause.
 

Allen_Wentz

macrumors 68040
Dec 3, 2016
3,329
3,763
USA
I'm compiling apps in Xcode while Windows 11 is running on Parallels and I have VM web servers loaded all at the same time on 16GB. I'm not making excuses.

When there are slowdowns, everyone thinks it's RAM. Sometimes it is, but oftentimes it's not. The OP should not be having this much trouble running that set of programs on 18GB of RAM. Something else is going on.

Not every problem leads to RAM. There are so many other ways you can have performance problems.
Of course not every problem leads to RAM and there are "many other ways you can have performance problems." However having more RAM often means some potential performance problems simply never noticeably present. Though both run, a computer running w/o paging to SSD runs much more cleanly than one that is paging to SSD.

E. G. Imagine some lousy code that works but very poorly. So it slows down processing. If that slow down forces constant paging then the user will actually feel the lousy code as slow operation, but if the slow code never gets out of RAM then the user may never notice the lame code.
 
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JustAnExpat

macrumors 65816
Nov 27, 2019
1,009
1,012
Please ignore "Ram pressure", and only pay attention to it when you start having massive slowdowns. Look at the CPU % column. I bet there's something using a lot of CPU time.
 

benjo765

macrumors regular
Sep 17, 2008
136
67
Los Angeles
Yes it's the newest version. As of now, I have Intellij(empty project), Chrome with <20 tabs, terminal, obsidian, vscode, Apple Music, Excel. That's it. View attachment 2315082
Sounds like memory leaks specific to that chipset. Expect a fix in the OS in the next Sonoma version or so maybe. Long gone are the days where Apple would reliably release stable products at launch. Not when they’ve got next months quarterly numbers coming up.
 

Allen_Wentz

macrumors 68040
Dec 3, 2016
3,329
3,763
USA
My m3 pro with 18gb of ram has memory pressure constantly on yellow, never happened on my old m1 pro with 16gb, does anyone know what's happening?
Just for the hell of it, if you do not use Siri, turn it off. There was a documented issue that I found on another machine sucking up CPU. You would see it following the directions JustAnExpat gave above.
 

casperes1996

macrumors 604
Jan 26, 2014
7,597
5,769
Horsens, Denmark
My work laptop is a 16gb M1 Pro. I am constantly in yellow or red memory pressure. I run Xcode, Android Studio, iPhone and android simulators, safari with figma and jira and sometimes a thing or two more of lightweight apps like music, podcasts or even a YouTube video.

My personal computers have 32GB. While the work laptop is always under medium to high memory pressure it is rare it is that noticeable a slowdown not perceivable on the other machines. Xcode always freezes at launch both on my intel iMac, M1 Max and aforementioned work laptop. Sometimes the work laptop slows down a little in ways o attribute to ram but for the most part it handles the memory constraints admirably
 

bazldn

macrumors newbie
Nov 20, 2023
3
0
For what it’s worth, in the past few days my MacBook Pro M1 Max (64GB) has been struggling with memory for the first time since I got it. Same tasks as usual - I thought it was just Xcode but then it also ran out of memory when using safari with only “basic” apps such as Word open in the background. Could be a bug with the current version of macOS/software?
 

JustAnExpat

macrumors 65816
Nov 27, 2019
1,009
1,012
For what it’s worth, in the past few days my MacBook Pro M1 Max (64GB) has been struggling with memory for the first time since I got it. Same tasks as usual - I thought it was just Xcode but then it also ran out of memory when using safari with only “basic” apps such as Word open in the background. Could be a bug with the current version of macOS/software?
When you say you run out of memory, do you get an "out of memory, please close some applications" dialog box, with a listing of your applications?
 
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Analog Kid

macrumors G3
Mar 4, 2003
9,360
12,603
Yes it's the newest version. As of now, I have Intellij(empty project), Chrome with <20 tabs, terminal, obsidian, vscode, Apple Music, Excel. That's it. View attachment 2315082
That screenshot shows that you still have unused RAM. You're using less than 16GB on an 18GB machine. It looks like maybe a Chrome tab you haven't looked at for a while got pushed to swap, but that's about it.
 
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