Mac Studio (M1) with 32 GB constantly running out of application memory

[Eric]

Granted I do a lot of video editing, this thing has become underpowered and forces me to close apps on a regular basis. Last night I freed up more HD space in hopes that it will help because I've been running short on that with all the cached files, etc.

Anything else I can do? At this point I can only have one Adobe app open at a time, the rest of the apps aren't taking up enough memory to worry about.

 

[dada_dave]

Have you checked activity monitor and your memory usage appears consistent with what you’re actually doing? (As in Adobe isn’t leaking memory) Alternatively if you are concerned about a potential RAM hardware problem, then you can run Apple diagnostics:

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac - Apple Support

Apple Diagnostics, formerly known as Apple Hardware Test, can check your Mac for hardware issues.

support.apple.com

 

[Citysnaps]

Granted I do a lot of video editing, this thing has become underpowered and forces me to close apps on a regular basis. Last night I freed up more HD space in hopes that it will help because I've been running short on that with all the cached files, etc.

Anything else I can do? At this point I can only have one Adobe app open at a time, the rest of the apps aren't taking up enough memory to worry about.

Sorry to hear that.

Just thinking out loud... Would adding a fast external SSD (a Samsung T7/T9) help on the caching (assuming you could set it up that way), and/or by putting just your editor there?

Also, and this would probably be a PITA (and might not help), but would you consider a different video editor, say DaVinci Resolve? Would also let you use one of their slick video editing keyboards (which also comes with the professional version of Resolve for free).

 

[Herdfan]

Anything else I can do? At this point I can only have one Adobe app open at a time, the rest of the apps aren't taking up enough memory to worry about.

Just ask the offspring as she is in the Adobe studio for most of her workday.

She has an M1 iMac with 16 GB Ram and she says is starts bogging down with 3 running or 2 if one is video processing. But she hasn't run into the Application Memory issue, it just bogs down.

 

[Eric]

Have you checked activity monitor and your memory usage appears consistent with what you’re actually doing? (As in Adobe isn’t leaking memory) Alternatively if you are concerned about a potential RAM hardware problem, then you can run Apple diagnostics:

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac - Apple Support

Apple Diagnostics, formerly known as Apple Hardware Test, can check your Mac for hardware issues.

support.apple.com

Thanks, will check it out.

 

[Eric]

Sorry to hear that.

Just thinking out loud... Would adding a fast external SSD (a Samsung T7/T9) help on the caching (assuming you could set it up that way), and/or by putting just your editor there?

Yeah, I'll probably need to add another external drive. I already have everything saving there but could probably tweak the caching as well, I think I also need to manually do some cleanup from time to time.

Also, and this would probably be a PITA (and might not help), but would you consider a different video editor, say DaVinci Resolve? Would also let you use one of their slick video editing keyboards (which also comes with the professional version of Resolve for free).

That's a hard no on DaVinci Resolve, I do own the license and while it's powerful, it's also really complex and hard to learn. I found I spent more time looking up videos for the most basic of tasks than I did actually filming or posts processing.

Adobe Premier Pro is a much better fit as I understand how their software/ecosystem works and it's much more user friendly. I think in the end either application has it's advantages and pitfalls when it comes to caching, it's mostly my workflow that creates so much of it.

 

[Citysnaps]

Yeah, I'll probably need to add another external drive. I already have everything saving there but could probably tweak the caching as well, I think I also need to manually do some cleanup from time to time.

The reason I mentioned that is because the software I use to manage my eight security video cams often causes slow downs on some users' Macs being on the same drive the computer boots from. Putting that software on a fast external SSD by itself solves the problem (according to user posts on the forum that supports the software).

Of course what you're doing and the above are apples and oranges. But if you have a spare SSD laying around it might be worth a try. You might get lucky.