PT 2020.12 on M1 w/Big sur

[Ben Jenssen]

I found a good deal on a mac mini m1 w/16/512.

12500 NOK, about $1400 usd. New. Hopefully here by the weekend.

The way I see it, it's just about right for my type of thing, in terms of memory and flash disk size. And other stuff that held me off apple silicon until now, doesn't matter anymore. And I'm guessing next generation ARM chips are still a long way away, and it'll be expensive, so I feel it's time to move on. (And I'm craving the cpu power!)

I let my perpetual license expire on 2020.12. I have bought a redemption code on the december offer, but I don't want to redeem it before I have to.

Anyone tried running 2020.12 on Big Sur?
I'll be trying it out soon, just thought I'd check.

(If it comes w/Monterey, I'll downgrade to Big Sur, in case anyone wonder)


It's not supported, that's why I ask:

Pro Tools Operating System Compatibility Chart
…and I'm of course going to try it with the latest version of Big Sur.

[its2loud]

Not sure what the M1 Mac Minis are going for in Norway but in the US they’re starting at around $600.

2021.12 is running fine on it as are most plugins. I don’t think you’re going to get very far with 2020.12. The oldest version I installed was 2021.3 which ran pretty well. Running Big Sur 11.4.

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by its2loud

Not sure what the M1 Mac Minis are going for in Norway but in the US they’re starting at around $600.

2021.12 is running fine on it as are most plugins. Running Big Sur 11.4.

Thanks.
16gb ram and 512gb ssd would be about 2x $600 where you are, don't you think?


Added: actually, from the apple store, it's almost $1700 usd from where I'm sitting.

[dominicperry]

Not quite what you're asking - but I'm not convinced 16GB RAM is enough for PT and Monterey on M1 Max. I don't know about Big Sur.

My Intel MBP2015 on Catalina only ever used a maximum of 9GB RAM out of 16GB available. I bought the M1 Max with 64GB, thinking it was probably overkill, and I use 20GB as a matter of course. I have no idea why it uses so much.

You may be fine on Big Sur, and of course the M1 and M1 Max might be behaving differently. But also, the M1 machines are famous for swapping memory out to disk a lot, especially the 8GB model. It might just be that because I have so much RAM, there's no need to swap.

Dominic

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Thanks.
16gb ram and 512gb ssd would be about 2x $600 where you are, don't you think?


Added: actually, from the apple store, it's almost $1700 usd from where I'm sitting.

Sorry there’s such a price discrepancy. That’s a bummer. I think you’ll be happy with the machine though. FYI. There is rumored to be a new Mac Mini coming soon with the M1 Max and Pro chips.

[dominicperry]

Originally Posted by its2loud

Sorry there’s such a price discrepancy. That’s a bummer. I think you’ll be happy with the machine though. FYI. There is rumored to be a new Mac Mini coming soon with the M1 Max and Pro chips.

Announcement supposedly likely on 8th March. Might well be worth waiting - but of course you will be compelled to use Monterey with anything new.

Dominic

[Ben Jenssen]

Up and running!
It was delivered this aftenoon, and after an evening of OS downgrade, and fine tuning the basic stuff, it seems to work very nicely indeed.
I'll be back with details in a day or two, after thorough test running.
My Intel i7 Mini had a boot time of about 30 seconds from chime to desktop, this baby takes it down to 15 seconds!
I'm expecting to get back about 80% of the expence when I sell the old i7/32gb.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

My Intel i7 Mini had a boot time of about 30 seconds from chime to desktop.

Interesting. Mine boots in about 15 secs.

Wonder if there’s something it’s getting hung up during boot. I had that issue years back on a different studio machine. Can’t recall what it was off the top of my head, but I think it was a certain peripheral that slowed the boot time down. Removing it drastically sped up the boot up process.

Have fun with the new machine. My M1 MBA arrived yesterday. Won’t have much time to play with it but having experienced general computer usage on the one I bought for my partner a year ago (same machine but only 8GB RAM) I can’t wait to put it through its paces.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by Sardi

Interesting. Mine boots in about 15 secs.

Wonder if there’s something it’s getting hung up during boot. I had that issue years back on a different studio machine. Can’t recall what it was off the top of my head, but I think it was a certain peripheral that slowed the boot time down. Removing it drastically sped up the boot up process.

Have fun with the new machine. My M1 MBA arrived yesterday. Won’t have much time to play with it but having experienced general computer usage on the one I bought for my partner a year ago (same machine but only 8GB RAM) I can’t wait to put it through its paces.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just a guess, do you perhaps have a bigger and therefore faster internal flash disk than the 512gb in my i7? Peripherals connected and network settings might also affect these boot times.

[Sardi]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

Just a guess, do you perhaps have a bigger and therefore faster internal flash disk than the 512gb in my i7? Peripherals connected and network settings might also affect these boot times.

Mine is 512GB as well. 16GB RAM.

It’s interesting how the different configs can affect things quite drastically.

Also, my current boot partition is far from what I would call lean. Lots of apps and plugins. Has turned into a bit of test bed.