Nollaig wrote: *> I don’t need, and probably wouldn’t understand, a lot of information. “Don’t worry” or “Forget * *a new mini” would be ideal. :-)*
"Do worry." "Consider a new mini" :-\ If that's enough information, don't bother to read on......... I bought the new M1 mini as a Christmas prez to myself, because Xcode was getting desperately slow with each new release. It meets my expectations in every respect, and exceeds them in some of them. It certainly peps-up Xcode! J perhaps less so. (But see my conjectures at the end.) First, the facts: I've just done some timings with the latest J903 beta-o, trying hard to control all the variables so's I'm not comparing apples with lemons. *MINI* macOS Big Sur, Version 11.5.2 Mac mini (M1, 2020) Chip Apple M1 /Applications/j903/bin/jconsole 10 timespacex '%. 1000 1000 ?@$0' *0.263425* 4.40428e7 10 timespacex '%. 20 20 ?@$1000x' *0.663616* 730720 JVERSION Engine: j903/j64/darwin Beta-o: commercial/2021-08-24T18:59:19 Library: 9.03.06 Qt IDE: 1.9.2/5.15.2(5.15.2) Platform: Darwin 64 Installer: J903 install InstallPath: /applications/j903 Contact: www.jsoftware.com *MBA* macOS Big Sur, Version 11.5.2 MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2014) Processor 1.4 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5 /Applications/j903/bin/jconsole 10 timespacex '%. 1000 1000 ?@$0' *0.594186* 4.40428e7 10 timespacex '%. 20 20 ?@$1000x' *1.31935* 730720 JVERSION Engine: j903/j64/darwin Beta-o: commercial/2021-08-24T18:59:19 Library: 9.03.06 Platform: Darwin 64 Installer: J903 install InstallPath: /applications/j903 Contact: www.jsoftware.com Sooooo.... M1 vs (oldish) Intel: M1 is approx twice as fast on both benchmarks. (see timings: bold underlined; benchmarks courtesy of Joey, if memory serves) Thanks to Devon for a more thorough set of benchmarks: I'll have to try those when I get time. Now for my conjectures ....... The Mac mini (M1, 2020) ran this race with its back legs tied together. I understand the J903 macOS build I downloaded was compiled for *Intel* (nonAVX) architecture. The M1 is *arm64* architecture (also non-AVX), which I believe is the same in the more recent iPads (which don't use the M1 but a generic arm64 chip). Yes, there's a lot more goodies on the M1 chip than an arm64 cpu, but I doubt JE sees any of that. It may see a higher clock speed. But I'm out of my comfort zone — I'm a UI man, not a JE man. So there's a layer of emulation: Intel-->arm64, called Rosetta, slowing down the M1. That's one back leg tied. Next: although I see some arm code in JE, I doubt JE has been as spectacularly optimized for native arm64 as it has recently for Intel and AVX. Henry and Bill know: I'm just guessing. That's another back leg. Yet another back leg (…funny horse, this) – METAL. https://developer.apple.com/metal/ The METAL API gives access to the GPU, which the Mac mini possesses, and which Apple has recently been touting for number-crunching, not just for hardware-assisted graphics, its nominal purpose. What if we use METAL to hardware-assist the J primitives? I can't believe Apple would offer this prospect unless the result would be *a lot* faster than coding natively for arm64. Unless it's only a sneaky way of getting developers to write code which can't be ported easily from an Apple platform. (The operative word being "only".) Ian On Tue, 7 Sept 2021 at 06:55, 'Nollaig MacKenzie' via General < [email protected]> wrote: > I haven’t been paying close enough attention probably, but I seem to > recall mention recently > of difficulty installing J on the most recent version of the Mac mini. I > should replace my old > mini sometime soon, but if a new mini wouldn’t fit with J, I’d have to > think about a different > machine. > > I don’t need, and probably wouldn’t understand, a lot of information. > “Don’t worry” or “Forget > a new mini” would be ideal. :-) > > TIA, N. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
