undefined | Better HN

0 pointsfluoridation7mo ago0 comments

> If any 32 bit app is launched the shared libraries will be loaded.

Like I said, if the 32-bit stuff is getting used, that's an argument not remove the support.

> And being able to get away with less RAM also improves battery life because keeping RAM refreshed uses energy - again a bigger factor on mobile.

Memory allocation exists purely at the software level. The hardware doesn't understand whether a particular region has been allocated or not; the only difference between an allocated page and an unallocated one is that the former appears in the OS's VMM data structure as allocated (i.e. it's just more bits in memory). The power consumption of RAM scales with the total cells installed, not with how much the OS has decided is "in use".

0 comments

JustExAWS7mo ago

That’s what I’m saying - iPhones have traditionally come with less memory than Android phones of the Dane generation. Apple has been able to get away with it.

So should Apple have also kept the PPC emulator around for Macs?

fluoridationOP7mo ago

>That’s what I’m saying - iPhones have traditionally come with less memory than Android phones of the Dane generation. Apple has been able to get away with it.

There's no such thing as "how little RAM you can get away with". A user is always better served by having more RAM. The limiting factor is the monetary budget, not the power budget. If a manufacturer puts less RAM on a computer it's only to cut costs, not as a power optimization. Compared to the CPU, RAM is free, power-wise. In fact, since optimizing for space is often in opposition to optimizing for time, having more RAM can save power by saving time spent computing things.

>So should Apple have also kept the PPC emulator around for Macs?

I'm not really interested in discussing what compatibility support should be included in any given OS. It's not the topic of discussion. The topic of discussion is whether cutting x86 support from x86-64 processors would result in significant power savings, and I maintain that it wouldn't. It would result in at best marginal power savings at the cost of a useful feature.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse