Macmini resolution and performance

[caioferrari]

Hi,
I'm noticing my Macmini 2018 decreases it's performance when I use any scaled resolution. Does it be affected by RAM?

Today, I have 8 Gb and I'm wondering if a 32gb upgrade would make any difference.

Cheers

 

[Boyd01]

This was discussed extensively when the 2018 Mini was first released. Yes, scaled resolutions are definitely a problem on the 2018 Mini, especially if you only have 8gb. Fifteen pages of discussion here:

Officially giving up on the Mac Mini 2018 + 4K monitor dream

I'm getting the i5 Mac Mini and will probably stay at 8 gigs of RAM for a while. I buying this computer as a desktop replacement for media consumption and word processing for the next 6-8 years. I was dreaming of getting something like the LG 27UK850 4K monitor and scale it at 1440p so that...

forums.macrumors.com

I stopped following that thread long ago, but IIRC, upgrading to 16gb helped people who were using 4k screens. But I don't know how much it will help if you're using some odd resolution. Again, just from memory, the theory was that scaled resolutions cause the processor to run hot which eventually leads to CPU throttling and reduced performance. I believe there are other old threads about this as well.

I'm still using my 2018 Mini very heavily, especially with a Windows 10 virtual machine. Performance has always been good for me, but I have 64gb of RAM. And, having read these discussions before purchasing, I was determined NOT to use scaled resolutions. So, I got a 32 inch BenQ QHD screen which I run at the native resolution of 2560x1440. This gives me a user interface with large text that looks good to my old eyes without any scaling.

 

[Omnius]

Hi,
I'm noticing my Macmini 2018 decreases it's performance when I use any scaled resolution. Does it be affected by RAM?

Today, I have 8 Gb and I'm wondering if a 32gb upgrade would make any difference.

Cheers

What are the full specs of your 2018? That’s likely to help you navigate the thread referenced in the post above.

 

[Boyd01]

If scaled resolutions are important, you might consider an upgrade. From all reports, the Silicon Mini's don't have any issues with scaling. Apple sells refurbished M2 Mini's as low as $509

Refurbished Mac mini Apple M2 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 10‑Core GPU

M2 and M2 Pro scale up our breakthrough system on a chip (SoC) architecture, which combines the CPU, GPU, unified memory, and Neural Engine on a single power‑efficient chip. M2 brings a faster, next‑generation CPU and GPU to Mac mini, along with much higher memory bandwidth. M2 Pro delivers even...

www.apple.com

 

[pdoherty]

Yeah I think the problem is that the "regular resolutions" don't require any extra processing, but the scaled ones do, and they use the CPU a lot.

 

[Boyd01]

I think another issue is that the 2018 Mini can do a lot of swapping if it only has 8gb of physical memory. The UHD630 graphics use 1.5 gb of that, which only leaves 6.5 gb for everything else. The SSD runs hot, so heavy swapping further compounds the throttling problem.

 

[Fishrrman]

Boyd wrote:
"I think another issue is that the 2018 Mini can do a lot of swapping if it only has 8gb of physical memory. The UHD630 graphics use 1.5 gb of that, which only leaves 6.5 gb for everything else. The SSD runs hot, so heavy swapping further compounds the throttling problem."

Which is exactly why I ordered my 2018 Mini with 16gb of RAM
AND
Why I immediately DISABLED VM disk swapping while setting it up.

I'm using a Dell 4k 27" display, at the default resolution of (HiDPI) "looks like 1080p".
It runs fine.

NO memory-related crashes.
None at all.

 

[Boyd01]

As I recall, the "looks like 1080p" works fine because it's a power of 2 (1920x1080 is half of 3840x2160). The problem comes when the math is more difficult, like scaling 3840x2160 to 2560x1440 - which is what some people (apparently) do on 27 inch 4k screens.

 

[caioferrari]

What are the full specs of your 2018? That’s likely to help you navigate the thread referenced in the post above.

I have the default i5 spec. 8Gb/512Gb

 

[caioferrari]

Boyd wrote:
"I think another issue is that the 2018 Mini can do a lot of swapping if it only has 8gb of physical memory. The UHD630 graphics use 1.5 gb of that, which only leaves 6.5 gb for everything else. The SSD runs hot, so heavy swapping further compounds the throttling problem."

Which is exactly why I ordered my 2018 Mini with 16gb of RAM
AND
Why I immediately DISABLED VM disk swapping while setting it up.

I'm using a Dell 4k 27" display, at the default resolution of (HiDPI) "looks like 1080p".
It runs fine.

NO memory-related crashes.
None at all.

Your resolution spec works fine even on my 8Gb machine. The problem occurs on other scaled modes

 

[Rychiar]

If scaled resolutions are important, you might consider an upgrade. From all reports, the Silicon Mini's don't have any issues with scaling. Apple sells refurbished M2 Mini's as low as $509

Refurbished Mac mini Apple M2 Chip with 8‑Core CPU and 10‑Core GPU

M2 and M2 Pro scale up our breakthrough system on a chip (SoC) architecture, which combines the CPU, GPU, unified memory, and Neural Engine on a single power‑efficient chip. M2 brings a faster, next‑generation CPU and GPU to Mac mini, along with much higher memory bandwidth. M2 Pro delivers even...

www.apple.com

Why buy a refurb? You can pretty much always get the Mac mini m2 brand new anywhere for $499. It’s been like that almost since it went on sale