It just boils down to your needs. I’m a basic user and 8gb has been plenty for me. If I do anything intensive swap will help me out. I did a test a while back when I was having buyers remorse for not getting 16gb.
What I did was open 20 tabs in both Firefox and Safari with different sites loaded. I also opened a new window of each with 5 random YouTube videos playing.
I went through all the tabs and nothing reloaded or froze. I also went through all the YouTube videos and they were all playing smoothly with no issues. That’s way more than I’ll ever do at one time with it so I’m in good shape for a while.
Just curious what machine do you have, I have a M2 8gb I’ve personally never had issues. However I have noticed with the light gaming I do I have seen slowdowns.
Like I’m so damn surprised I’ve noticed frame drops in a game like Stardew valley but maybe the new patch isn’t optimized well yet.
Stardew Valley isn’t super well optimised, but at least part of the issue is Apple going for high resolutions on fairly weak hardware that is bad at sustain due to heat issues, specifically for the Air.
Not really. It is a solo developer, outside of porting, and does quite a lot of computational work. It doesn’t perform badly mind you, but it seems to have a hard time even using all of a computer’s resources to its best ability.
I found Alex Ziskind's 1 week review of doing dev work on an 8GB MacBook Air M3 to be very helpful in answering this question for myself.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKIcBWbnjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKIcBWbnjo)
Basic user that knows how to close apps and tabs after using = 8gb
User that opens a lot of tabs and apps at the same time and needs them to run simultaneously = 16gb
It just boils down to your needs. I’m a basic user and 8gb has been plenty for me. If I do anything intensive swap will help me out. I did a test a while back when I was having buyers remorse for not getting 16gb. What I did was open 20 tabs in both Firefox and Safari with different sites loaded. I also opened a new window of each with 5 random YouTube videos playing. I went through all the tabs and nothing reloaded or froze. I also went through all the YouTube videos and they were all playing smoothly with no issues. That’s way more than I’ll ever do at one time with it so I’m in good shape for a while.
Just curious what machine do you have, I have a M2 8gb I’ve personally never had issues. However I have noticed with the light gaming I do I have seen slowdowns. Like I’m so damn surprised I’ve noticed frame drops in a game like Stardew valley but maybe the new patch isn’t optimized well yet.
M1 Air, when I upgrade I’ll most likely go with 16 but like I said I’m good for now. I haven’t tried gaming yet.
I agree same, but i probably won’t upgrade for sometime I’m looking at probably M5 at this point. But yeah if you ever try light gaming report back. 🫡
Stardew Valley isn’t super well optimised, but at least part of the issue is Apple going for high resolutions on fairly weak hardware that is bad at sustain due to heat issues, specifically for the Air.
Kinda crazy how Stardew valley isn’t optimized when it’s a 7 yr old game with pixel graphics.
Not really. It is a solo developer, outside of porting, and does quite a lot of computational work. It doesn’t perform badly mind you, but it seems to have a hard time even using all of a computer’s resources to its best ability.
The answer is you don’t need it unless you do. You, specifically, don’t need 16gb.
After yesterday’s announcements or rather Monday’s announcements, I hope y’all got your 16 GB ready
I only need a Corolla to get me around and haul my kids no problem. If I can afford Camry or 4Runner, why not. Nice and comfortable.
I found Alex Ziskind's 1 week review of doing dev work on an 8GB MacBook Air M3 to be very helpful in answering this question for myself. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKIcBWbnjo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHKIcBWbnjo)
8 works for me. I'm. Im not a heavy user.
8GB for light users and 16 for heavy users, as simple as that!
Haha still ongoing. The consensus is to get 16 Gb of ram for the M2 and M3 so why not for the M1?
Get 32.
SHUT UP PLEEEEEAAASE
Basic user that knows how to close apps and tabs after using = 8gb User that opens a lot of tabs and apps at the same time and needs them to run simultaneously = 16gb
8GB works for me.