Question is mostly for traders/investors on the ThinkorSwim platform that has picked up the new MacBook Pro. How heavy is your workflow and how is the performance? I had a M1 Mac mini for a few days but felt the performance was subpar to my 3 year old Windows machine. I'm curious if the M1 Pro/Max would be able to tackle it with pure brut force of power.
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ThinkorSwim on M1 Pro/Max
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I use thinkorswim, primarily as an investor -- reviewing a lot of charts to determine if a longer term trade is warranted, and checking up on existing investments as well ... I do also do some options trading, but even those are more like ... a few hours of research, a position is opened, and it remains open for something between 2 days and 2 months.
With that said, I run two copies of thinkorswim on my m1 max. One copy is a "native" version which was made by using a azul openjdk 15 and the "all other users" version of thinkorswim (search reddit r/thinkorswim to find instructions on this), and that works way smoother than my 2013 intel mac pro with 12 core xeon (which is also very reasonably smooth).
I have a second copy that I use for bookmap, which does not work on the "native" [unsupported] version of thinkorswim ... using the officially supported "mac" copy which uses rosetta emulation. that copy is very slow if i have a bunch of windows open, but is very reasoanble to use for bookmap only, with the other copy doing everything else.
hope this helps.
the machine draws barely any power, and fans aren't spinning running things this way.
the performance is WAY better than it was on my 2019 i9 16" macbook pro.
With that said, I run two copies of thinkorswim on my m1 max. One copy is a "native" version which was made by using a azul openjdk 15 and the "all other users" version of thinkorswim (search reddit r/thinkorswim to find instructions on this), and that works way smoother than my 2013 intel mac pro with 12 core xeon (which is also very reasonably smooth).
I have a second copy that I use for bookmap, which does not work on the "native" [unsupported] version of thinkorswim ... using the officially supported "mac" copy which uses rosetta emulation. that copy is very slow if i have a bunch of windows open, but is very reasoanble to use for bookmap only, with the other copy doing everything else.
hope this helps.
the machine draws barely any power, and fans aren't spinning running things this way.
the performance is WAY better than it was on my 2019 i9 16" macbook pro.
I use TOS and Bookmap, I don't have any issues with TOS, but I don't use it for charting anymore. I use TV for charts, have TOS open, and about 20-30 charts on TV, without any issues. On my previous Mac this would work fine except when I used TOS charts, TOS would lag. So I don't really know how it works with TOS charts, but just the app open works great with the other stuff.
There is already a thread about this:
forums.macrumors.com
ThinkorSwim on M1 Mac Mini?
TOS usually lags a little for me after the bell rings. Think those problems are just the platform itself
forums.macrumors.com
anyone have any experience with the m1 pro or max with 32 or 64 gb of ram? (this configuration isn't available for the mini)
im coming from a 2020 i7 iMac w/ 128gb of ram and considering a 16 mbp m1 24 core max with 32gb of ram.
I also have a MacBook Air m1 with 8gb of ram, and I personally feel like its on the brink with native thinkorswim and a browser open.
128gb -> 32gb seems like a big step backwards for the thinkorswim use case at least with my experience with the 8gb m1 air
im coming from a 2020 i7 iMac w/ 128gb of ram and considering a 16 mbp m1 24 core max with 32gb of ram.
I also have a MacBook Air m1 with 8gb of ram, and I personally feel like its on the brink with native thinkorswim and a browser open.
128gb -> 32gb seems like a big step backwards for the thinkorswim use case at least with my experience with the 8gb m1 air
Its not a mini its the m1 8c 8gb air.
but back to the point, it feels slower when I have mail, my browser, and thinkorswim running 4 graphs with different scripts/study running in the background. this is with the 8c m1 plugged into an external monitor. When I look at the activity monitor my memory pressure is in the yellow and im swapping and maxing out my 8gb of ram.
when I close thinkorswim my memory pressure is back to green and things feel snappy again.
im thinking thinkorswim native or whatever isn't exactly optimized to use the m1's ram and will eat up the m1 pro/max 32/64gb of ram
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TOS is not optimized for M1 Pro/Max, but can be modded to run natively on M1 if you look around, you might want to try that first. I have no issues running it, but am not hooking it up to external monitor.
I have 14" macbook pro m1 MAX fully loaded 64gb of ram etc. TOS is just terrible on it... total junk app with medium workload (bunch of charts and a few indicators loaded). Spoke to senior support multiple times they simply dont care to make it right and optmize it.
Click on the video in the post above yours. If you need help, ping my via direct email or in this thread or on the YouTube thread.
This is the latest version of my video and it no longer requires typing using the terminal window - just downloading a DMG and copying an icon to the desktop.
