Will the New Version of Affinity Photo run smoothly on the New M2 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM ?

[loukash]

6 minutes ago, Chills said:

I think I qualifyas a nerd.  I could bore you to death on how 4 way set associative caches in the CPU works or how you build micro code to decode assmbely instructions.

 

I don't think this is what @augustya was interested in when they started this thread.
So let's focus on that again.

[augustya]

9 minutes ago, loukash said:

 

I don't think this is what @augustya was interested in when they started this thread.
So let's focus on that again.

 Absolutely not ! This is not what I was looking forward to read from you guys here...

[Chills]

26 minutes ago, loukash said:

 

I don't think this is what @augustya was interested in when they started this thread.
So let's focus on that again.

Agreed. My point was I do understand the underlying hardware and electronics.  I use both (older) Macs and PC's   and when it comes to the new M1/2 macs If you are on limited funds a PC is a far more cost effective solution.  Also if you get pi***ed of with the Great Satan (Microsoft)  you can always drop a Linux on to the PC hardware. (either exclusivly or dual boot)
 

The answer to the OP is max out the Ram on the M1/2 macs if you can't afford to then go for a windows PC system.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

I don't think this is what @augustya was interested in when they started this thread.
So let's focus on that again.

I think we already gave her the best advice for buying a Mac Mini M2, as far as we could here, namely in terms of limited budget then. So trying to take at least one with 16 GB RAM & a 512 GB SSD then. - I've also shown via the above SSD performance throughput diagram, in order to emphasize it, why buying a bigger internal SSD for a M2 Mac Mini will effectly influence SSD I/O transfer speeds here.

 

Independently of augustya's needs here, let's add what I personally probably would have to take here for my common daily workings. A Mac Mini M2 Pro with 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, 10 GBit Ethernet. Which of course due to Apple's outrageously high upgrade prices would catapult the whole price wise into other dimensions then. Add to that a 34" - 49" wide curved monitor and ... well, you can see where you end up here in terms of price then.

[Chills]

2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

I think we already gave her the best advice for buying a Mac Mini M2, as far as we could here, namely in terms of limited budget then. So trying to take at least one with 16 GB RAM & a 512 GB SSD then. - I've also shown via the above SSD performance throughput diagram, in order to emphasize it, why buying a bigger internal SSD for a M2 Mac Mini will effectly influence SSD I/O transfer speeds here.

IF not more RAM then a larger SSD would help. The wear leveling on a larger SSD will mean a lower average write/rewrite count across the sectors. Therefore it will last longer.  The problem with the M1/2 Macs is you have to decide spec for the system before you buy and it is fixed for life.

[NotMyFault]

Coming back to the original question of this thread:

Will the New Version of Affinity Photo run smoothly on the New M2 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM ?

Yes, any new Mac Mini will allow to use Photo an run smooth for "normal" Photo editing. 

Apple devices cannot be extended internally, It is advisable to configure at least 16 GB RAM and 1 TB storage to maximise the fun factor performance and extend usable life span. If you budget its tight, go with the minimum.

Don't forget to have regular backups to external disks, as all PCs including Apple devices can fail any time, and the lifespan of Apple devices is limited and SSD wear may lead to getting to the end earlier as you like or expect, without any option to repair them by changing only defect parts.

So plan to renew Apple devices after 2-3 years and buying new ones, selling the old ones before they become unusable for you. Others with less demanding work loads may be continue to use them for years.

[Chills]

34 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

Coming back to the original question of this thread:

Will the New Version of Affinity Photo run smoothly on the New M2 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM ?

So plan to renew Apple devices after 2-3 years and buying new ones, selling the old ones before they become unusable for you. Others with less demanding work loads may be continue to use them for years.

The OP has a limited budget.  Telling the OP they will beed to buy a new Mac every three years when a PC that wil do what they need will be half the cost (if that) and last many years longer is not going to help. 

What does a Mac have for some one like the OP that makes it worth several times the cost of a Windows PC?

[user_0815]

16GB is fine. That’s what I’ve been using for the past 6 years on my 15“ Intel MBP. In my personal Tests I came to the conclusion that swaps began when the file size approached 1GB. But the limiting factor for speed was cpu (on live filters) but not RAM.
V2 seems to be a bit more smooth and M1/2 even more so.

IMHO 16GB on a M2 will be no issue. 

[NotMyFault]

2 minutes ago, Chills said:

The OP has a limited budget.  Telling the OP they will beed to buy a new Mac every three years when a PC that wil do what they need will be half the cost (if that) and last many years longer is not going to help. 

What does a Mac have for some one like the OP that makes it worth several times the cost of a Windows PC?

A base spec Mac Mini is about 700 $ which is a good offer even compared to Windows PCs. Only cost for upgrading is excessive.

[Chills]

59 minutes ago, NotMyFault said:

A base spec Mac Mini is about 700 $ which is a good offer even compared to Windows PCs. Only cost for upgrading is excessive.

The point is you can't upgrage these new macs. 
A base spec Mac is more expensive than a PC and can't be upgraded ot repaired.
Also you have to replace a mac more often.

[v_kyr]

4 hours ago, Chills said:

The point is you can't upgrage these new macs. 
A base spec Mac is more expensive than a PC and can't be upgraded ot repaired.
Also you have to replace a mac more often.

Well basically nowadays you can't afterwards upgrade any Mac device by yourself (...maybe except the Mx Mac Pro, it will show when that appears sometime on the scene). - But honestly I see the same for more compact Windows platform devices here too, like for certain notebooks. As an example, taking a Microsoft Surface notebook or a LG Gram etc. makes not much difference here to Apple MBA or MBP notebooks, they all use nowadays glued in batteries, SSDs, RAM ... etc. - Just certain Windows Intel/AMD business notebooks from Lenovo, Dell, HP etc. still offer to replace some few parts here (like the RAM & partly SSDs and batteries).

For compact desktop based devices like the Mac Mini, the Windows plaform/hardware world offers NUC barebones etc. where you can replace some parts, but those compact Windows desktop devices mostly don't offer the overall performance of a Mac Mini here and they do get in contrast very loud and quickly overheated when performance stressed. And the pricings of certain higher end Windows notebook & desktop computers also tend to go the same route as Apple price wise goes (better configs in the Win world got also bloody expensive).

So here again it all always depends!

[augustya]

18 hours ago, user_0815 said:

16GB is fine. That’s what I’ve been using for the past 6 years on my 15“ Intel MBP. In my personal Tests I came to the conclusion that swaps began when the file size approached 1GB. But the limiting factor for speed was cpu (on live filters) but not RAM.
V2 seems to be a bit more smooth and M1/2 even more so.

IMHO 16GB on a M2 will be no issue. 

I think it is a great comment, anecdote and observation and would be certainly of great help. So let me ask you this If I have lets say 6 Safari Tabs Open, Affinity Photo running (Working on a RAW File which is like 200-300MB), Spotify APP playing music, Youtube Video playing, Some Reddit APP open, in a scenario like this you are saying that the MAC will not even trigger Swap Memory because 16GB RAM itself will keep fueling and pumping it forever as it does not need more fuel to keep itself going ?

[Chills]

27 minutes ago, augustya said:

I think it is a great comment, anecdote and observation and would be certainly of great help. So let me ask you this If I have lets say 6 Safari Tabs Open, Affinity Photo running (Working on a RAW File which is like 200-300MB), Spotify APP playing music, Youtube Video playing, Some Reddit APP open, in a scenario like this you are saying that the MAC will not even trigger Swap Memory because 16GB RAM itself will keep fueling and pumping it forever as it does not need more fuel to keep itself going ?

Now you are starting to see the problem.

Back up a bit wny do you NEED a Mac rather than a PC?     
What are the killer features that mean you must have a Mac?

BTW the same problem with swap pages and virtual memory will occure with any Windows PC. The difference is it is possible,  and cheap, to increase RAM yourself,  it is possible and cheap to replace (and for a larger size) any hard drive. Indeed you can have multiple internal hard drives.   (my Windows Laptop has THREE internal M.2 drives and more RAM all added after I bought it)  

Ignore the marketing and hype. Ignore "cool" and style.  You don't have the cash for that luxuary.
What do you actually need to do?  What do you actually need in terms of hardware? Why does it need a mac?

I have gone through this process several times and have 3 Macbok Pros (that are still working one PPC and 2 intel ) and I am on my 2rd Mac Pro (the first one was a PPC Mac not an Intel)   BTW I have been defeloping on ARM cores and MCUs for over 20 years so I am familiar with them.    The last time we looked at the question we went to PCs over Macs.   This is for Video editing. photography and  designing/editing a magazine.

Went from RCPX to Resolve
Adobe CS6 to Affinity1
Lightroom works on both.  NOTE  Adobe Lightroom V6.14, the last stand alone version runs on Win 10 (and Win 11 I am told) but not the latest Macs.
MS Office works on both.

So analise your real need carefully without the marketing and hype.

 

[augustya]

14 minutes ago, Chills said:

Now you are starting to see the problem.

Back up a bit wny do you NEED a Mac rather than a PC?     
What are the killer features that mean you must have a Mac?

BTW the same problem with swap pages and virtual memory will occure with any Windows PC. The difference is it is possible,  and cheap, to increase RAM yourself,  it is possible and cheap to replace (and for a larger size) any hard drive. Indeed you can have multiple internal hard drives.   (my Windows Laptop has THREE internal M.2 drives and more RAM all added after I bought it)  

Ignore the marketing and hype. Ignore "cool" and style.  You don't have the cash for that luxuary.
What do you actually need to do?  What do you actually need in terms of hardware? Why does it need a mac?

I have gone through this process several times and have 3 Macbok Pros (that are still working one PPC and 2 intel ) and I am on my 2rd Mac Pro (the first one was a PPC Mac not an Intel)   BTW I have been defeloping on ARM cores and MCUs for over 20 years so I am familiar with them.    The last time we looked at the question we went to PCs over Macs.   This is for Video editing. photography and  designing/editing a magazine.

Went from RCPX to Resolve
Adobe CS6 to Affinity1
Lightroom works on both.  NOTE  Adobe Lightroom V6.14, the last stand alone version runs on Win 10 (and Win 11 I am told) but not the latest Macs.
MS Office works on both.

So analise your real need carefully without the marketing and hype.

 

Please do not deviate this thread to your personal firm opinion or affiliation or penchant for Windows Computer.

I know as a customer what I want. Which in this case is a MAC now dont altogether divert this topic, Oh You know what ? You dont need a MAC in the first place Please get a PC.

That was not my question.

And nobody other than you have told me you need a lot of cash to buy and you have to buy only High End Mac otherwise it wont work for you.

Please stop it !!

 

 

[Chills]

3 minutes ago, augustya said:

Please do not deviate this thread to your personal firm opinion or affiliation or penchant for Windows Computer.

I know as a customer what I want. Which in this case is a MAC now dont altogether divert this topic, Oh You know what ? You dont need a MAC in the first place Please get a PC.

That was not my question.

And nobody other than you have told me you need a lot of cash to buy and you have to buy only High End Mac otherwise it wont work for you.

Please stop it !!

 

Read the thread again . I am an embedded systems Engineer. That is deep computer hardware and software design. I understand at a very deep level how the hardware and software works on both platforms.   I own multiple Macs and PCs. (and a couple of Linux boxes) plus a hell of a lot of other stuff that is neither.  I am not a fan-boy for any platform.

What I said to you was analyse what you actually need and stop reacting emotivly.

With what you have said you will be running*  you wil lprobalby want more than 16GB RAM if you want to keep the computer for a long time.  Otherise expect to replace it every 4 or so years.  It is your money

Just don't shoot the messenger when you don't like the real world engineering advice.
I wil be getting an M1 mac as a travel laptop where I wil only be using it for light use. Emails, sirfing and ligh tphoto/video work. But it wil have 32Gb RAM.

*NOTE the way paging works with these computers is the both the OS and the apps have some controll.  Paging may occur long before the RAM is full. On Windows you can sett the Caches  and virtual memory to any of the [internal] drives. So people used to set it to scratchpad disk. Thus the reads and writes didn't get inthe way of the C  Drive [OS]or the  D drive [apps] The machine was faster. though that did depend on the technology used for the hard drive interfaces.

[augustya]

3 minutes ago, Chills said:

Read the thread again . I am an embedded systems Engineer. That is deep computer hardware and software design. I understand at a very deep level how the hardware and software works on both platforms.   I own multiple Macs and PCs. (and a couple of Linux boxes) plus a hell of a lot of other stuff that is neither.  I am not a fan-boy for any platform.

What I said to you was analyse what you actually need and stop reacting emotivly.

With what you have said you will be running*  you wil lprobalby want more than 16GB RAM if you want to keep the computer for a long time.  Otherise expect to replace it every 4 or so years.  It is your money

 

 

Just don't shoot the messenger when you don't like the real world engineering advice.
I wil be getting an M1 mac as a travel laptop where I wil only be using it for light use. Emails, sirfing and ligh tphoto/video work. But it wil have 32Gb RAM.

 

*NOTE the way paging works with these computers is the both the OS and the apps have some controll.  Paging may occur long before the RAM is full. On Windows you can sett the Caches  and virtual memory to any of the [internal] drives. So people used to set it to scratchpad disk. Thus the reads and writes didn't get inthe way of the C  Drive [OS]or the  D drive [apps] The machine was faster. though that did depend on the technology used for the hard drive interfaces.

Man ! what you are describing here is all going above my head  is extremely geeky and difficult to understand.  I am going Bonkers reading all your excess information !! 

[NotMyFault]

To add one more argument why Mac might be better than PC: it uses memory compression, thus reducing need for swapping dramatically.

I opened Photo and about 10 RAW files (6000x4000), developed some to RGB/32, made some edits / adjustments, duplicated layers and modified them destructively.

RAM usage goes up from 1.6 GB (no file open) to about 3.5 GB (one file open). When opening more files, most was "compressed RAM" which is the key function of MacOS to avoid or reduce swapping.

Of course, I copied bitmap layers dozen times, made (destructive) edits in layers to irritate compression etc. The "memory pressure" indicator in info panel increased, but the system kept totally stable, usable, and no "heavy swapping" occurred.

Don't know how Windows would handle this (with equal 16 GB RAM).

 

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/activity-monitor/actmntr1004/mac

 

• Memory Used: The amount of RAM being used. To the right, you can see where the memory is allocated.

  • App Memory: The amount of memory being used by apps.

  • Wired Memory: Memory required by the system to operate. This memory can’t be cached and must stay in RAM, so it’s not available to other apps.

  • Compressed: The amount of memory that has been compressed to make more RAM available.

    When your computer approaches its maximum memory capacity, inactive apps in memory are compressed, making more memory available to active apps. Select the Compressed Memory column, then look in the VM Compressed column for each app to see the amount of memory being compressed for that app.

 

[loukash]

@augustya, is your purchase a "pressing affair"?
If not, it might be a good idea just to let it sit for at least a few weeks until more real life experience from Mini M2 "early adopters" begins to pour in on the usual online sources.

[Chills]

47 minutes ago, augustya said:

Man ! what you are describing here is all going above my head  is extremely geeky and difficult to understand.  I am going Bonkers reading all your excess information !! 

It is very basic infoirmation at a very high level. Simple stuff.

The post above re the RAM compression suggests that for affinity use with 16GB will be fine if you are not runing all the other video/musig and lots of other apps and streams at the same time.

Windows is far worse than Macs at memory usage but then most people can throw in a lot more inexpensive RAM and easily change it if it gets faulty. Ditto the hard drives.  I have swaped out hir drives on PC's  and Macs many times. the problem with the new M1/2 Macs is you can't do that.

 

[augustya]

4 minutes ago, loukash said:

@augustya, is your purchase a "pressing affair"?
If not, it might be a good idea just to let it sit for at least a few weeks until more real life experience from Mini M2 "early adopters" begins to pour in on the usual online sources.

Absolutely not ! There is no such urgency, or Life Threatening Emergencies. Yes I can wait. But if someone says 3 Months that would be too far away. 1 Month Yes that is not too far.

[v_kyr]

On 1/19/2023 at 7:55 AM, augustya said:

I am a follower of the Maxtech YouTube channel and those Brother Duo tested ...

Those guys do also a bunch of tests about the M2 Mac Mini and they do also give advices for Mac Mini buyers (... aka like: M2 Mac Mini Buyers Guide - Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes). - So if you are a follower of their Youtube channel there, then you should already know most of what has been already said in this thread!

Performance wise those people do throw other more exhausting things on 8/16 GB M2 based Mac Minis and using APh in contrast here instead is usually peanuts to that (as far as you don't overdue it).

[augustya]

9 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Those guys do also a bunch of tests about the M2 Mac Mini and they do also give advices for Mac Mini buyers (... aka like: M2 Mac Mini Buyers Guide - Don’t Make These 9 Mistakes). - So if you are a follower of their Youtube channel there, then you should already know most of what has been already said in this thread!

Their Video did not answer my one question. And which is

Even if I upgrade to 16GB RAM does it it also have to be complimented with the 512 GB SSD because of the 2 Nand Chip versus only 1 in 256GB SSD will Affinity Photo only then work on it smoothly ?

And if you read my question completely. I had asked that 16GB RAM along with 256 GB will that make Affinity Photo run smoothly or do I really need to also upgrade to 512GB SSD which I cannot afford.

So that question was not answered there on Maxtech Youtube Channel.

[Chills]

1 hour ago, augustya said:

 I had asked that 16GB RAM along with 256 GB will that make Affinity Photo run smoothly or do I really need to also upgrade to 512GB SSD which I cannot afford.

The macs are very nice and well designed but you do need to run a larger SSD than 256GB.

Just spoken to a Friend who has been all Mac since the Quadra in the 1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_Quadra He primarrily does digitial immaging.     He is in a meeting with Apple later today (Monday) . He says 512SSD *minimum*  with 16GB RAM  You also need the 3 year Apple Care. If you can't afford the Apple Care you are stuffed. If you are that tight on cash I would recommend a PC.

Unless you can wait until the M2 comes out and the M1 will be discounted down so you might be able to afford the 512SSD. Look on the Apple web site for  "re-ferbished" stock when the M2 comes out.   You should be able to get a deal.   These "referbished" ones will have at least a completly new motherboard, if inot a compleltey new machine. This is how Apple get rid of execss stock.

EDIT Apparently you can boot off an external HDD on an M1/2 Mac There is a patch to do this. (not an Apple patch I believe)  However you won't be able to access the internal  hard drive if you  boot of the external one.

[v_kyr]

37 minutes ago, augustya said:

Their Video did not answer my one question. And which is

Even if I upgrade to 16GB RAM it has to be complimented with the 512 GB SSD because of the 2 Nand Chip versus only 1 in 256GB SSD will Affinity Photo only then work on it smoothly ?

And if you read my question completely. I had asked that 16GB RAM along with 256 GB will that make Affinity Photo run smoothly or do I really need to also upgrade to 512GB SSD which I cannot afford.

So that question was not answered there on Maxtech Youtube Channel.

But people here have already answered that additional Q.  And I already adviced you to better overall go and save some money for a 512 GB SSD here, due to the better I/O transfer.

Independently of the 512 GB SSD here, APh should also work smoothly with a 16 GB Mac Mini and a slower throughput 256 GB SSD. - But since 256 GB of SSD space isn't that much nowaday you better opt at least for a 512 GB SSD, which beside having more disk space will also operate faster here.

I've added above a M2 Mac Mini SSDs throughput diagramm where you can see what impact the different sized SSDs offer. - So I still repeat here again, even if you are on lower budget you better go with a 16 GB RAM & 512 GB SSD M2 Mac Mini.

I mean we are talking here just about a $200 price difference and that on the longer time usage view ...

• M2 Mac Mini 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD = $799.-
• M2 Mac Mini 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD = $999.-

... further if you can still wait a little bit and buy then from other Apple resellers and not from Apple directly, then you might get a Mac Mini slightly cheaper.

And if all that until now said doesn't convince you, the go to the next Apple Store near your location and tell them to fire up APh for you, so you can yourself perform some own test runs on/with a M2 based entry model Mac Mini!

[augustya]

7 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

But people here have already answered that additional Q.  And I already adviced you to better overall go and save some money for a 512 GB SSD here, due to the better I/O transfer.

Independently of the 512 GB SSD here, APh should also work smoothly with a 16 GB Mac Mini and a slower throughput 256 GB SSD. - But since 256 GB of SSD space isn't that much nowaday you better opt at least for a 512 GB SSD, which beside having more disk space will also operate faster here.

I've added above a M2 Mac Mini SSDs throughput diagramm where you can see what impact the different sized SSDs offer. - So I still repeat here again, even if you are on lower budget you better go with a 16 GB RAM & 512 GB SSD M2 Mac Mini.

I mean we are takling here just about a $200 price difference and that on the longer time usage view ...

• M2 Mac Mini 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD = $799.-
• M2 Mac Mini 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD = $999.-

... further if you can still wait a little bit and buy then from other Apple resellers and not from Apple directly, then you might get a Mac Mini slightly cheaper.

And if all that until now said doesn't convince you, the go to the next Apple Store near your location and tell them to fire up APh for you, so you can yourself perform some own test runs on/with a M2 based Mac Mini!

So when did I say that question here was not answered ? You at the end of all again made that comment in your last to last post that you should be now aware on your buying decision on what is right for you ? Yes so I am reading it and making up my mind accordingly. Why did you have to leave that comment again ? I didn't quite get it ?