While mac access violation crashes seem resolved or greatly reduced with this update (a real deal killer) now RM8 opens in a tiny upper left corner window if your dock is on the side. Manual adjustment, full screen, etc has no effect. Tiny reappears after quit and reopen. IF the dock is on the bottom manual adjustment does seem to work. Clearly window behaviour is non-standard. Perhaps in Windows OS you can’t change the position of their task bar from the bottom.
M1 iMac 8GB with Monterey 12.5.1 - RM 8.2.5.0
On this machine left/bottom/right docking opens RM8 with correct window sizing and on screen position. Quit then reopen without issues.
Windows 11, as is, allows a centre and left aligned taskbar but a registry hack can reposition to side, top etc.
No access violations since the update to RM 8.2.5.0 and it is now possible to export/import a ged without floating point errors. Both of these comments with a qualified, so far…
There is a high CPU usage of around 19% at idle and Idle Wake-Ups are excessive in the range 150 - 200. RM8 is slow to load at around 14 seconds and the scrolling response is hesitant. The display chin is noticeably warmer than with other genealogy apps so the ARM SoC is under some additional load. I would be interested to see a native ARM version of RM8. I did go as far as trying to run RM8 in Parallels 18 with Windows 11 ARM but was stopped by access violations - perhaps 8.2.5.0 would be an improvement?
An example M1 iMac vs Win11 PC:
RM 8 (8.2.5) opens for me, on both my MacBook (Intel chip, Monterey 12.5.1) and iMac (M1 chip, Monterey 12.5.1) with correct screen size and position, as it always has. My dock, on both machines is on the lefthand side of the screen.
So far, very pleased with update 8.2.5
Larger iMac screen probably handled better by RM8 than on a small 14" with M1 chip. Did you have to manually adjust your screen to get the ancestry sidebar icon to show up? This is a common issue on laptop screens.
RM8 also is a CPU hog using 18% at idle while FTM sits at 0.1% like most other programs. RAM usage is normal though at about 200-300MB
AV crashes seem gone or much reduced. have not tested the gedcom to see if it is still a big problem getting out of RM8.
Rooty,
Here’s a really stupid question: How can a program that is using 18% of the CPU be idle
My MacBook Pro 13" (intel) opens the tree just fine. All windows are in their correct place. I did get an access violation report while using tree share. I had linked a person from my ancestry file with the uninked RM person in my database. And voila, there was an access error that was duly reported.
Exactly! When RM8 has finished opening (I think the tea is ready) and there is no user activity it uses about 18% of my state of the art M1 Pro CPU while RAM usage is a reasonable 300MB. For comparison FTM 2019 uses too little CPU to show a % and 20MB RAM when open and not being used (ie idle).
Just because you aren’t clicking your mouse or pounding on your keyboard doesn’t mean it is idle. Is it doing some communication with FS or another service. If RM is the only program running but you are not using it, are your disk i/o and network activity flatlined? If you’ve got network activity, run a packet sniffer to see what the cause is.
RM has to be doing something to use CPU.
Oh RM8 is definitely doing something but it is not useful or efficient activity. FTM would also be communicating with Ancestry and Familysearch as needed.
On a mac you always have several programs open with files and hop around so there is always disk and network activity. Safari for example is keeping multiple tabs updated but uses 1-2% cpu at best.
Only one other of my 22 installed programs is Intel only code and it also idles at 10 to 15% CPU. Perhaps the required translation for non-universal apps is the cause although many programs actually ran better on mac than intel chips before recoding. However tech support told me they have no current interest in recoding RM8 for Apple chips.
Agree with your comments and as a user am happy that the access violations bug appears to have been squashed. I am concerned that RM8 hogs CPU cycles - there is a lot going on behind the scenes when compared with other family history apps. On a PC RM8 performs as expected. Would RM8 have these same issues on an Intel Mac - anyone for a comment?
I took the opportunity to better quantify Intel PC/Win11 vs. M1 iMac. Both machines on 15 minutes from cold (off overnight so only about 15 minutes in the previous 12 hours), only RM8 loaded (no browser etc), FamilySearch Support/Media Hints disabled, the same media item open on both but otherwise idle (no editing etc):
Open RM8 from cold - PC 4 seconds, iMac 9 seconds (average of 5 runs on each)
See attached for CPU, network activity and RM8’s energy utilization on the iMac.
Using a tool to see the instantaneous CPU usage - there are 8 ARM cores and the first 4 performance cores are in use. In this case 41.9 % CPU is a proportion of CPU load at that instant not a proportion of total available CPU capacity, I think! It does highlight RM8 hogging CPU but in the overall picture CPU usage appears to be, relatively low. There are 2 cores at about 25% of total CPU availability. RM8 is atypical in its CPU usage is a reasonable conclusion?
Monterey (latest version) Mac Book Pro early 2015 version 13” screen, 128 SSD with 60+ gb available, 11000 entries and close to 5000 photographs. Bar is at bottom showing many pieces of software and disappears/appears just fine! Second screen, when i use it, is used for web browser, etc. RM 8 is on primary screen only.
Version 8.2.5 RM8 is working fine, including starting just fine. Quit having large problem with AV errors after this update… keeping my finger crossed!!!
1 Like
I’m currently using RM on an old MacBook Pro (2012) running Mojave OS 10.14.6, so Intel. I updated RM8 from v8.1.9 to 8.2.5.0 just now. It seems to open a bit faster - in about 15 seconds rather than 30 seconds, but that’s only with two attempts to measure. As with v8.1.9 Activity Monitor shows high usage (more than 30% CPU) for five minutes or so, then hovers around 2%-4% CPU for about 15 minutes, then drops to 0.1% CPU. I do enable it to look for web links, so maybe it potters about with that a lot. It seldom finds a web link new to me, so maybe I’ll turn that off.
RM8 apparently is not a cpu hog on an intel mac while it is on a M1 mac. This means the need to translate an intel app has a serious cpu penalty. I have one other intel only app and it too idles at 18% cpu. A year ago when most developers were converting to universal code many old intel code apps actually ran better on M1 macs.
I would LOVE to have RM or any other app open in 9 seconds. My iMac is a slug and nothing will open in less than Minutes. Many minutes.
Does your iMac have an SSD (or Fusion drive), or just an HDD?
Mine is 6 years old (so Intel) and running Big Sur, at 16 GB has plenty of memory (at least for RM purposes), and a fusion drive (mix of SSD and HDD, but with active files on the SDD), and RM8 opens the current database in about 10-15 seconds, a similar time to that reported by some others. I have about 5000 people in the file, so not particularly large.
I just wonder if disk type is a significant factor in the time it takes - or whether there is some other significant factor
My 12 years old MacBook Pro with its Intel processor has a fairly recent SSD and 12GB of memory, so that probably makes it quite a bit faster to open files than if it had a HDD and minimum RAM.
FWIW
Open RM8 from cold - PC 4 seconds, iMac 9 seconds (average of 5 runs on each)
An empty test.rmtree - (no browser etc), file categories empty, FamilySearch Support/Media Hints disabled. Open from cold - M1 iMac improved to 8 seconds (average of 5 runs on each). Idle CPU high at 20.2% but idle wake-ups were down to 183. An empty RM8 database at idle is doing a lot of work.
You must have an old obsolete hardware setup. Time to update to the M1…M2 units and current software.
M1 Pro MBP 14" takes 14 seconds to open RM8 400 person…500 media file and also uses 18% CPU at idle. The high cpu usage reflects the use of intel only code and happens in my only other such app. The latter however opens in ~1 second. Apparently not having apps in universal code is a handicap for CPU usage. Slow opening probably reflects problems in the program itself.