@armando said:
I don't want to take a lot of time from you but did you see some performance boosts as everyone says ?
I just got Isadora to work on the M1 two days ago, so I cannot say yet. I'm still dealing with stuff like getting all the plugins to compile.
That said, we're a quick and dirty comparison: playing 4 x Apple Pro Res 422 1920x1080. Here are the results from activity monitor. (Remember, you can have CPU usage higher than 100% for the individual component measurements below because of multiple cores.)
Mac Book Pro i7:
- Isadora CPU Usage: 42%
- Background Movie Player CPU Usage: 20%
- Apple Pro Res Decode Service CPU Usage: 300%
- Overall System CPU Usage: 32% (User CPU Usage from Activity Monitor)
- Isadora LOAD indicator: About 2.1%
Apple miniMac M1:
- Isadora CPU Usage: 13%
- Background Movie Player CPU Usage: approx 30%
- Apple Pro Res Decode Service CPU Usage: approx 200%
- Overall System CPU Usage: 33% (User CPU Usage from Activity Monitor)
- Isadora LOAD indicator: About 1.9%
So while the Intel numbers are a bit higher for the individual components, the overall system usage is about the same. In the end, I don't really know how to evaluate this simple test. Of course, the minMac is 1/4 the price of my Mac Book Pro, so one could argue you're getting equivalent performance for a much lower price.
For the moment I think it's critical to keep this one limitation in mind: the current M1 devices only support one display output in addition to their main display. I suppose this limitation could be overcome with a Quad Head 2 Go, DataPath FX 4, etc. But in terms of hooking things up directly, that would make it a no go for my own use in performances.
Finally, I will mention that someone I am acquainted with did a DaVinci Resolve file using 8K raw files and several layers. Then he rendered this out both on an Intel based MacBook Pro and an Apple Silicon M1 based miniMac to compare the results. (DaVinci was running native M1 version on Apple Silicon.)
Here's what he said: "Finally did a [DaVinci] Resolve speed test. 3840x3840px (ie ~5k) with 20 secondaries. M1 mini = 9:21. 16” MBP intel = 4:33. Over 2x slower! Big disappointment."
This conflicts with other DaVinci Resolve tests I've seen posted on the web, but this guy is a video editor and I am giving this test some credence.
I think there is a lot of hype around this chip. Once we can get M1 machines for the team, we can start evaluating performance. But right now I am cautious about the many claims made on the internet about how amazing these chips are.
Best Wishes,
Mark