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What does 'unified memory' mean?
MacBook Pro (2020 and later)
One could write a small book to answer that question.
What question, exactly, are you trying to answer?
This is one take on an answer to that question:
https://bigtechquestion.com/2021/04/30/software/mac/what-is-unified-memory/
.
One could write a small book to answer that question.
What question, exactly, are you trying to answer?
This is one take on an answer to that question:
https://bigtechquestion.com/2021/04/30/software/mac/what-is-unified-memory/
.
It used to be that to support large fast displays, you needed special Display RAM that was a lot faster than "regular" RAM used for computing. For display RAM, you need guaranteed access in strongly-constrained time frame (fetching the data for each Row of dots for each display) to refresh the screen(s) 60 or more times a second. Failure to provide adequate access to that RAM meant part of the screen data would not get its data and that portion would have to be blanked out. [Unacceptable for cinema-quaility.]
Because it was a lot faster, it was expensive and there was less of it. Being separate introduced its own performance penalties for access.
Because Apple has control of the entire architecture, Apple can re-arrange everything to eliminate the problems around display RAM. They have found a way to make the RAM (and access to it) seem the same from all sources, and the ability to eliminate the penalties of special display RAM.
Thanks a lot for the link, Grant. The info in that article works for me.
What does 'unified memory' mean?
