KVR Audio

HREQ · Post by **HREQ** » Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:04 pm

I have been using a Macbook Air M1 for a while, and I have noticed a few things that I don't see people talking about. I have always been a Windows user, but I really admire Mac OS for a lot of things. I especially love the hardware, and the Air is an amazing machine, for battery life, and general day to day use. Not to mention they have a ton of great Native apps that are simply superior to anything Windows offers, for my particular workflow.

But no matter what I do, Mac OS always seems like a slug compared to my high-end PC, even when using the latest M1 chip, which sped things up considerably. I am not talking about render times, or build times, but just day to day performance. Opening/closing apps, navigating through the UI, using Finder.
Right click menu, right click > add new tab to right in chrome, even scrolling up and down pages, the bottom bar feels really sluggin to open once u hide it... And generally just moving around the OS, folders, files, and everything feels sluggish....

I look online and I see people talking about how the M1 Macbooks are some of the fastest PC's around, so surely simply navigating through the UI shouldn't be this sluggish, right?

I got it mainly for music production, and even in the daw it feels slower for right clicking and opening menus

Is this something everyone just got used to, or do they have less experience with Windows? I feel like I am living in the twilight zone, and I don't know if it's just me.

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Thu Mar 02, 2023 9:26 pm

Close all your apps (command+Q) and Restart...

elxsound · Post by **elxsound** » Thu Mar 02, 2023 9:33 pm

It’s likely just you… I still use both systems and never had the issue you describe on a Mac.

My Intel is still snappy for day-to-day stuff, but is slowing down with the creative stuff as most of it transitions to M1/M2. The missus’ M1 iMac and M2 MacBook Air are incredibly fast.

Are you using Spotlight “Command+Space” to get around? They took this from beloved Alfred, but it’s where everything should start and it makes getting around a breeze.

i need Help · Post by **i need Help** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 2:56 am

I agree that it’s just you. You probably subconsciously bought the Mac just to have something to go online and post about.

I mean you asked for help before, got over 800 great replies, then left everyone high and dry.

dayjob · Post by **dayjob** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:02 am

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:09 am

You bought a computer with macPOS, what did you expect? You didn't really think any of the hype was actually justified, did you? I think your issues might be down to graphics performance. What sort of graphics does your Windows workstation have? You might try disabling animations in macPOS, too, that should speed some things up, at least.

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:46 am

M1s have 8 graphics cores. That's the no the problem.

kanoharuayu · Post by **kanoharuayu** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:47 am

I dunno guys alot of ppl say mac is slower

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ma ... y.2179606/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/wi ... r.2290995/

cryophonik · Post by **cryophonik** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:54 am

Oh cool, a Mac vs PC thread. Because computers define us, right?

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:10 am

jamcat wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:46 amM1s have 8 graphics cores. That's the no the problem.

You don't even understand what that means, do you? The nVidia MX450 in my laptop has 896 CUDA cores but that doesn't make it 112 times more powerful than your Mac's graphics.

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 8:11 am

I understand that the MacOS GUI isn’t going to overwhelm the M1’s graphics processors.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 12:13 pm

And yet, something is making it slow. Graphics would be my no. 1 suspect. Maybe the drivers aren't up to scratch or there is some incompatibility, as unlikely as that seems?

legendCNCD · Post by **legendCNCD** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 12:18 pm

OSX feels a bit sluggish yeah, especially after 10.10 I think, where 4GB memory wasnt enough to run the OS itself anymore. I havent used the newer ones or ARM CPU machines though. Some of the disk functions seem to be faster sometimes than on Windows but thats mostly it. Its a difference, but is it enough not to use such? I dont think so.
When we have Ableton running, it doesnt matter whats under there running it. It runs the same (ok not the same as I have slower CPU than my partners hackintosh has) - good.

Ah yes, the menus, they do open and react slower, but I do not know if this is intentional or not. Sometimes frustrating. Thankfully Finder now has cut too

revvy · Post by **revvy** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 12:45 pm

KVR is f**king weird at times. We have folk here who can make Finder crash (WTF?) and now we’re discussing ‘what makes Macs so sluggish?’

OP , sorry, got no idea why your particular Mac is sluggish. My reply isn't a dig at you.

my Finder doesn’t crash, my M1 is neither sluggish with general usage nor with apps.

Ofc, YMMV. *shrug*

(macOS 13.2.1, Logic, Adobe, loads of other stuff, no slugs, no crashes, no penis envy for Windows machine as I use one 8 hours per day at work. That said, my Windows machine works fine too, pretty similar to my Mac TBH).

jamcat · Post by **jamcat** » Fri Mar 03, 2023 6:53 pm

jamcat wrote: Thu Mar 02, 2023 9:26 pm Close all your apps (command+Q) and Restart...

So seriously, did you try this, HREQ?

It's pretty common for new users coming from Windows to think they have quit an app when they close the application window with this →

But actually, just like apps on the iPhone, it is still running in the background and using up memory until you actually quit it.

If there is a little dot underneath the app icon in the Dock, it is running. To actually exit an application and free up its allocated memory, you must Quit the application from its eponymous drop-down menu in the app menu bar, or pressing [ ⌘ ] [ Q ] (command+Q) with the app in focus.

The standard configuration of the MacBook Air has only 8GB total of *unified* RAM shared by the CPU and graphics. So if you've been stacking up applications in the background and never actually quit any of them, you could have easily eaten up all of your available RAM, which means MacOS will be constantly swapping virtual RAM page files between RAM and the SSD. And that will result in the kind of behaviours the OP is describing.

Why does Mac OS feel so slow compared to Windows?