Question about RAM requirement for Macbook Air M2 for my usecase.

Vecna · October 28, 2023

I am thinking of buying a Macbook Air M2 base model. I am not a huge multitasker and usually close all applications which are not currently in use and just reopen them later and i prefer to do it this way. I want to play Minecraft occasionally on high settings and a render distance of 12. I also want to use medium quality shaders. Is 8gb ram enough to maintain constant 60fps or will it start feeding into swap?

Needfuldoer · October 28, 2023

I wouldn't get an 8 gig Apple Silicon machine. It might be fine, but there were reports of premature SSD wear early on in the M1's life cycle that seemed to point to heavy swap use. That 8 gigs is also shared between system memory and VRAM, so heavier shaders would just hit RAM even harder.

Since you can't upgrade the SSD or RAM in an Apple Silicon machine (unless your name is Colin Mistr), I'd recommend getting at least 16 gigs of RAM.

BondiBlue · October 28, 2023

If you can afford it I would go with 16GB. I own a 13" M1 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and a 16" M1 Max MacBook Pro with 32GB of RAM. I find that it's very easy to start hitting swap on the 13" MBP with 8GB of RAM, and all that does is cause SSD wear. Since neither component can be upgraded down the road I'd suggest getting 16GB to start with. It's pretty sad that Apple still offers only 8GB as the minimum option these days on such expensive computers. I completely agree with everything @Needfuldoer said above.