Waiting for and/or enjoying my M1 Pro/Max MBP thread…

TBL said:
16”

I used to run my 15” MBPs at 1440x900
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Ah, I see. You are sure you want to run at 2x on the new one? Why not just adjust until you get the same text size? There’s essentially no performance difference at non-integer multiples from what I can see.
 
Unfortunately I do see blurring of certain elements when I choose a scaled resolution and I just can’t do that. It’s why I’ve always done 2x Retina. It’s the only way to get the crispest image. So I’m just increasing text size where I can and it seems to be helping.
 
TBL said:
Unfortunately I do see blurring of certain elements when I choose a scaled resolution and I just can’t do that. It’s why I’ve always done 2x Retina. It’s the only way to get the crispest image. So I’m just increasing text size where I can and it seems to be helping.
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Got it. Eyes bad enough not to see small text but good enough to see aliasing. Terrible zone to find yourself.
 
TBL said:
So I wanted to share some thoughts on this computer, having used it now for over a week:

The positive:

1. It is extremely fast. It is as fast as a desktop. For my previous MBP, whenever I'd switch to using my PC, the PC would seem much faster. That is no longer the case. This computer is faster than the PC and some of it is due to those super fast SSDs.
2. It does not get hot. Every MBP I've had since 2012 has run the fans at full speed while updating macOS. That is not the case with this computer. It barely gets warm no matter what I am doing. Zoom, StreetView, and even browsing Apple Music all caused my 2019 MBP to overheat. Not an issue here.
3. The notch is literally a non-issue. I do not notice it at all. I do not notice or care about the thickness one bit.
4. Battery life is amazing.

The negative:

1. I have been running MBPs at 2x Retina since my first MBP back in 2012, which means I've running my MBPs at the same PPI for the past 9 years. This year, it changed. 2x Retina now means text on the screen is much smaller than I'm used to. And it has taken some getting used to. Certain things are just way too small still and I have been getting a bit of headache from trying to read them. For example, in Pages I usually kept the default zoom at 125% but that has proven to be too small for me now, so I set it to 150% and it's been much easier on my eyes. I am young, I have good eyesight, but the tiny text takes some getting used to if all you've known for the past 9 years is the same PPI.
2. I do not need all this power at all. I probably could've gotten a lower-specced device. I am not a professional, I do not edit video. Honestly, a 16" MBA would probably be my ideal device, but with no rumor of such a thing ever coming into existence, I can't bank on it. $3600 is a lot for a computer of which I'm only using a fraction of its capability.

Anyway, just wanted to share this. It is definitely by and far the most powerful MacBook I've ever used. But it is very expensive, so consider your needs and if you've only ever used 2x Retina on a MacBook, be prepared for an adjustment.
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$3600 - you really are living that bougie life lol
 
I have my MBP 14 with the non binned M1 Pro 16GB and a 1TB SSD. I gotta admit I am seriously liking this laptop!

The speed is impressive. I have even been running programs and games on Win 11 running on Parallels out of curiosity and it is a fast experience. So far not hearing fans. I also like the additional ports and the physical design is a bit of a throwback and reminds me of my first MBP which was the first generation of Intel Macs. The keyboard is also nicer, and despite what some reviews say it FEELS like there is a bit more travel so my typing is easier and more accurate.
 
Joelist said:
I have my MBP 14 with the non binned M1 Pro 16GB and a 1TB SSD. I gotta admit I am seriously liking this laptop!

The speed is impressive. I have even been running programs and games on Win 11 running on Parallels out of curiosity and it is a fast experience. So far not hearing fans. I also like the additional ports and the physical design is a bit of a throwback and reminds me of my first MBP which was the first generation of Intel Macs. The keyboard is also nicer, and despite what some reviews say it FEELS like there is a bit more travel so my typing is easier and more accurate.
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Definitely feels like more key travel, even compared to my old external Magic Keyboard, but perhaps it’s all in my head.
 
Well, it just finished its first Time Machine backup to the second NAS, so tomorrow night I will try and spend some time on the blender benchmark.
 
Renzatic said:
Take your time, I'm in no rush.

This will be a raw GPU test. At the moment, Blender isn't fully optimized for the M1 Macs, so don't expect the greatest performance out of it. Still, I want to see how it performs relative to my machine, the frames per second in the viewport when it rendered view, and the rendering times.

For reference, I get around 3.5 FPS in the viewport, and it takes 62 seconds to render the scene after hitting F12. You'll need the Blender 3.0 beta to run it.

RailShack.zip

drive.google.com drive.google.com
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Downloading blender 3 beta now ( very slow server). I'm not all that conversant in Blender, so let me know if there's anything I need to do to drive the test. (I see I have to hit f12 to render)
 
Cmaier said:
Downloading blender 3 beta now ( very slow server). I'm not all that conversant in Blender, so let me know if there's anything I need to do to drive the test. (I see I have to hit f12 to render)
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First off, see how long it takes for the textures to compile when you first enter into Rendered Mode (the 4 circles at the top right of the viewport window, it's the rightmost one.) Then, hit the play icon above the timeline at the bottom of the screen to get the FPS average in the viewport. Lastly, hit F12, and see how it long it takes it to generate the 2160p image.
 
Renzatic said:
First off, see how long it takes for the textures to compile when you first enter into Rendered Mode (the 4 circles at the top right of the viewport window, it's the rightmost one.) Then, hit the play icon above the timeline at the bottom of the screen to get the FPS average in the viewport. Lastly, hit F12, and see how it long it takes it to generate the 2160p image.
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When I hit that right-most circle, it did some flickering stuff and the image finally stopped changing after 26 seconds. (Not sure if that tells you how long it took the textures to compile.)

FPS is 1.03 seconds. (Note that I keep my screen set to the highest resolution).

Render time was 2 minutes 45 seconds (it was using 103% cpu and 98% gpu while doing that).
 
Cmaier said:
When I hit that right-most circle, it did some flickering stuff and the image finally stopped changing after 26 seconds. (Not sure if that tells you how long it took the textures to compile.)
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Yup, that's the texture compile, which is usually just a one time thing unless you make massive changes to the scene, or fire up a new version of Blender. That's considerably faster than my machine, which usually takes well over a minute to do a recompile.

Cmaier said:
FPS is 1.03 seconds. (Note that I keep my screen set to the highest resolution).
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That's a bit disappointing there, since I usually average about 3.5-4.5 FPS in the viewport. Then again, I'm also running the screen at 1440p, so some performance will be lost due to the MBP's higher res screen. We'll call that one a wash.

Render time was 2 minutes 45 seconds (it was using 103% cpu and 98% gpu while doing that).
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That's a bit slower as well. It usually takes me 90 seconds to render out that scene.

Though all this is basically just what I should expect if I get an MBP in the next couple of months. Blender isn't yet optimized for the M1, with Metal based GPU rendering in Cycles being a version away, and the entire Metal backend not expected until the 3rd quarter next year.

Thanks. :D
 
Renzatic said:
Yup, that's the texture compile, which is usually just a one time thing unless you make massive changes to the scene, or fire up a new version of Blender. That's considerably faster than my machine, which usually takes well over a minute to do a recompile.



That's a bit disappointing there, since I usually average about 3.5-4.5 FPS in the viewport. Then again, I'm also running the screen at 1440p, so some performance will be lost due to the MBP's higher res screen. We'll call that one a wash.



That's a bit slower as well. It usually takes me 90 seconds to render out that scene.

Though all this is basically just what I should expect if I get an MBP in the next couple of months. Blender isn't yet optimized for the M1, with Metal based GPU rendering in Cycles being a version away, and the entire Metal backend not expected until the 3rd quarter next year.

Thanks. :D
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When i set my screen to “looks like 1496 x 967” I get 4.7 fps.
 
Cmaier said:
When i set my screen to “looks like 1496 x 967” I get 4.7 fps.
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I also retried the render at full resolution (after quitting blender and restarting), just out of curiosity, and this time it was 2 minutes 35 seconds. So a little variability there.
 
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