not enough RAM being used?

MAC OS X specific questions, problems.
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Fuga
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not enough RAM being used?

Post by Fuga »

I've given up using qB on my M1 iMac.

With the M1 version, once I got over 1,100, it started giving me the beachball just loading a few torrents at a time. For sh!ts & grins I fired up the latest official version (i.e. non M1) and was able to resume loading in batches until I got all 1,295 loaded and running. But then trying to do anything, clicking anything, it is sluggish to the point of being unusable. Better than nothing, better than Deluge, but ...

Looking at RAM use was interesting, informative. The M1 is stingy, using less than 500 MB of RealMemory. (I have 16 GB on the M1 iMac.) The intel qB uses about 1.3 GB Real, IIRC. Both use minimal CPU. OTOH, Transmission gobbles up about 2.5 GB Real and huge chunks of other memory and anywhere from 8 to 20% CPU. Now I know why Transmission runs so solid, resource hog that it is. Luckily the iMac does no heavy lifting otherwise - torrents, media server, quick stuff when someone's too lazy to open their laptop.

The RAM stuff does make me wonder if there's a way to let qB have access to much more.

Any thoughts?
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

Post by Fuga »

Thanks! Any help deciphering this for my needs? ::)
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Peter
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

Post by Peter »

You can go into advanced settings and set disk cache to whatever.
It's used for reads and writing too, mind you. But you can increase/decrease it according to your needs.
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

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Peter wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:10 am You can go into advanced settings and set disk cache to whatever.
It's used for reads and writing too, mind you. But you can increase/decrease it according to your needs.
Thanks!

Tried increasing, first to 256 then 512. Tried disabling OS cache. Tried increasing Transfer list refresh interval. Tried both official Mac Intel (v4.3.9) and the M1 v4.3.5. Interesting is that the Intel version does work better than the M1. While I get a lot of non-responsiveness at least the Intel version does come back. Eventually. Might take 3 minutes to switch from one category to another or even to go from one highlighted torrent entry to another but the GUI does finally respond. Not so the M1 version. It quite often just stays unresponsive, requiring a forced quit.

But otherwise, sadly, I continue to find qBittorrent essentially useless on my M1 iMac when running over 600-700 torrents - would ideally run the 1300+ I have.
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Peter
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

Post by Peter »

Oh you can go wild lol. Put 2048 even, it's fine.

The M1 / Intel version could also differ on how they are built.
I am not sure how the team produces the current binaries, but I've looked into even just renting a virtual mac and it is SO EXPENSIVE it makes testing a real pain. Tried to run a virtual one, but late OS X versions has also made that more difficult. (No matter how I've patched vmware/virtualbox, it would never boot.)

tl;dr: Apple is not exactly helping the situation.
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

Post by Fuga »

Do not get me started on Apple and its decision making, regarding so many things!!! ;) ;)

So I said to myself, "What the hell?!" and set it at 4096 MiB. Almost 6 hours now and it seems serviceable. By now clicking anything would send the pointer spinning for minutes.

Bummer about virtualization. Wish I could help somehow. Apple silicon is amazing. Going to be interesting between Intel and Apple.

Again, thanks!
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

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Peter wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 8:50 am <big ol' snip>

tl;dr: Apple is not exactly helping the situation.
Over 24 hours now and all is good. One issue but easily worked around.

I haven't used Windows since Win 8 came on the scene, and at that just to fire up the now long gone Windows partition to help a family member troubleshoot something. So not a real user since XP days.

On Mac you can 'Hide' an app or you can 'Minimize' a given window, in effect hiding if you the app has only one window. I wish I knew what goes on behind the GUI. When I would hide qB then make it visible (click its icon in the Dock - think Windows' Task Bar) it would become totally unusable when otherwise perfectly useable. But if I *minimize* the GUI window to the Dock and then maximize (again, clicking its icon in the Dock) it springs back to life.

So, as long as I minimize and not hide, I am once again one happy functioning qBittorrent user on an M1 machine.
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

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I neglected to add that qBittorrent's functioning survived while I was also playing an hour long YouTube video, editing a 50 minute audio file in Audition, and for shits & grins also playing a video in VLC in the background, just to see any stress.

Thanks, again, Peter!
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

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Fuga wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:00 pm I neglected to add that qBittorrent's functioning survived while I was also playing an hour long YouTube video, editing a 50 minute audio file in Audition, and for shits & grins also playing a video in VLC in the background, just to see any stress.

Thanks, again, Peter!
Glad to hear that!

I hope one day we'll get back the easy virtualization option. Back years ago, you could install Vmware and an OSX image and you would be in business. Not exactly 100% legal, but to just purchase a whole M1 Mac, and an Intel Mac, just so people can test, is not exactly wallet friendly. One place my friend worked at had both a PC and a Mac at each developer's desk, just to test things. And people wonder why some software costs so much. :/
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Re: not enough RAM being used?

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Peter wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:20 am
Fuga wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:00 pm I neglected to add that qBittorrent's functioning survived while I was also playing an hour long YouTube video, editing a 50 minute audio file in Audition, and for shits & grins also playing a video in VLC in the background, just to see any stress.

Thanks, again, Peter!
Glad to hear that!

I hope one day we'll get back the easy virtualization option. Back years ago, you could install Vmware and an OSX image and you would be in business. Not exactly 100% legal, but to just purchase a whole M1 Mac, and an Intel Mac, just so people can test, is not exactly wallet friendly. One place my friend worked at had both a PC and a Mac at each developer's desk, just to test things. And people wonder why some software costs so much. :/
Effin' Apple. Love the M1 and where it's going but it's killed Win on Mac via virtualization. I assume we also can't have a separate Win partition. That's how I did it - a boot Win partition which VMWare and Parallels could also use if that would suffice for my needs.
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