[LoganDark]

This is even more true today, because Apple Silicon Macs are able to store twice the amount of information in the same amount of memory, meaning that a paltry 8GB configuration can store 16GB of FizzBuzz boilerplate, 4 Google Chrome tabs, or 20% of the average node_modules.

[smoldesu]

I don't think that feature is exclusive to Apple Silicon, or Macs.

[LoganDark]

It's a joke (clearly not a very good one) based on my experience that when Apple first offered only 8GB of RAM on the first ASi Macs, everyone's response was that Apple Silicon can simply store more data in the same amount of memory or something. Back when I used macOS on Intel, 16GB was relatively comfortable, but I can't imagine that switching to ARM would magically halve memory requirements.

(Yes, the Intel Mac had memory compression as well. And my Windows 11 PC also has memory compression, but only if you also enable swap because Microsoft says "fuck you".)

[astrange]

The AS memory compression is better as it's hardware accelerated.

IIRC Windows doesn't like to overcommit memory and its allocation calls will actually fail instead, but I don't remember the details.

[LoganDark]

I think ASi Macs also use swap by default now, because the SSDs are so fast that it's actually a tenable solution to memory pressure. My Intel Mac never had any swap.

> IIRC Windows doesn't like to overcommit memory and its allocation calls will actually fail instead

Yeah... one of the reasons why I dislike it.

[Kwpolska]

Intel Macs have swap too. You can check it in Activity Monitor: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/activity-monitor/actmn...

[smoldesu]

zswap supports pretty much any cryptographic accelerator. Accelerating memory compression isn't really a new or particularly "better" innovation.

[astrange]

Not cryptographic acceleration, compression acceleration. Anyway, they ain't got one, so it doesn't matter if it's supported.