Long time Windows User thinking of M4 upgrade, unsure what to do

well many of the apps you list exist in macos versions but there may be differences in terms of features

if you remotes to a PC then it would be the PC which would be running the apps in terms of performance it would also mean you would not have only 1 computer

my exp with my synology NAS's works just as well with macOS as with windows and also works great with ios devices

I have a homebuild windows 11 box and a mac mini 2012 and just might replace the mac mini with a mac mini m4 at one time

keymoo wrote:

I need some advice about my computer setup. I have a 4 year old home-built Windows 11 PC which I use mainly for my work. I did use it for MS Flight Sim 2020, but I don't game anymore.

The performance of my PC is easily adequate for my work as an IT guy, I work from home. I use Microsoft Office, Teams, SQL Server Management Studio, Visual Studio 2022, PowerShell, vscode, Remote Desktop to Windows Servers, etc, a lot. I also use Hyper-V as a home lab for testing stuff out for my work.

If your work is so heavily-oriented towards Windows-specific tools – and probably towards Intel/AMD-based PCs – you might be better off keeping that on an Intel/AMD-based PC running an Intel version of Windows.

Neither Apple nor Microsoft support running Windows as a main (dual-boot) operating system on an Apple Silicon Mac. In addition, since Apple Silicon processors have a different kind of machine language than Intel or AMD ones, you cannot run regular Intel versions of Windows inside of a virtual machine. You must run one built for ARM.

To the extent that you can run off-the-shelf Windows/Intel applications, you will be running them inside of an Intel emulation or translation environment, inside of a copy of Windows 11 for ARM that itself is running as a guest OS. One of the limitations of this arrangement is that "Experiences that depend on an additional layer of virtualization (nested virtualization) aren't supported."

Microsoft Support – Options for using Windows 11 with Mac® computers with Apple® M1®, M2™, and M3™ chips

So if you are building Windows/Intel-based or Linux/Intel-based containers for work, it does not sound like you'd have a place to test them.

keymoo wrote:

Lightroom has also become sluggish, and I'm often waiting around for it. I have quite a large library in Lightroom with over 600GB of photos (40,000+).

Lightroom likes to have its catalog and cache files on a fast drive – but it sounds like you already have those things on a SSD. I've also seen people say that Lightroom is memory-hungry, but you have 64 GB of RAM, which seems like it ought to be enough for the program.

The issues here might be something whose resolution depends as much or more on Adobe improving their code as on you throwing more hardware at the problem.

You may also want to review Adobe – Optimize Lightroom Classic Performance , if you have not done so already.

Yes. It will be a bit of a shock moving to a Mac but a pleasant one. Lately I’ve watched several videos on Davinci Resolve (DR from this point on) and the new Mac Mini bought as a base model (M4 and 16GB RAM with 256 or 512 MB SSD). My favourite DR person to learn from is Chadwick at Creative Video Tips on YouTube Creative Video Tips and he’s done a review. Now, before I tell you how happy I am with my Mac Studio and how impressed I am with the new Mac Mini I would recommend you watch about 6 videos on YouTube (YT) about optimising your Preferences and Project Settings because tweaking can make a HUGE difference. Now that I understand about 70% of the settings my Mac Studio with M2Max and 64GB of RAM operates much more efficiently. To cut a long argument short. If you buy a Mac Mini and Studio display and run the DR Studio version you’ll be able to tweak the settings so you’re able to take advantage of Apple Silicon (system on a chip that encompasses CPU, GPU, Neural Engine and use multiple cores) The free version of Resolve only allows you to use only 1 GPU core). If you try to build a Windows PC to be just a powerful you’d be up for a lot more money. If you do buy a Mac Mini I’d probably configure it with 32 or 64 GB to future proof it somewhat. BUT. I wouldn’t go too silly on the size of the SSD because a Samsung T7 external drive (2TB or 4TB) will be ample. You might want to confirm this, but I don’t think the Samsung T9 will offer any benefit as Mac don’t use this recent 3 x2 storage thing that I don’t really understand. Samsung and Crucial are good drives. Having said that there are still certain Davinci Resolve items that need to be stored on the Mac’s internal drive to maintain efficiency. So don’t think you can just offload everything. So 512MB or 1TB SSD should be selected when ordering from Apple. I can save you $300-500 by telling you this now. If you buy the Davinci Resolve Speed Editor you might just get the DR Studio License free. So why pay $300-$500 for the Studio version. By the time you've done this You’ll have a Speed Editor and the Studio version for only about $100 extra. I don’t know when this offer by BlackMagicDesign is going to end. As for the Apple Studio monitor. It’s 5K and some will argue it doesn’t have a 120Hz refresh rate for a $2000 display BUT.....It is color accurate, bright, looks nice, the in-built Studio Display Speakers are pretty **** good and its Centre-Stage camera (follows you around) is great for video comms. I am warning you however once you get 1 Apple product you’ll find it hard not to want everything else they make. Anyhow if you’ve got other questions just reach out. Everything I’ve mentioned here is because I own it and use DR Studio. I also made the switch from Adobe Photoshop to Affinity Photo2 so I wasn’t being slugged $A30 per month. I’ve rarely used it due to me focusing on DR but it’s squarely based on PhotoShop so you’ll be right at home probably. Anyway glad to help. Here for you. Andre