Mac Mini & Games

[Ninja_Turtle]

as all of you know, the Mac Mini is out and its very astonishing...now everyone says its a Mac for the current PC user and that its only for n00b mac users, but you guys are forgetting the long time Mac users who dont have enough money to buy an iMac or a G5 (high school students like myself), anyways, alot of people are talking about its graphic card, now im not complaining, but is there anyway there would be a way to open up the Mini and upgrade the graphic card to play games/edit video/run Tiger? the 9200 is good, for its day, but now...i guess there needs a little more kick, would there be any way to upgrade the video card?

cheers~

[neoelectronaut]

No.

[Lord Blackadder]

The video hardware is soldered on to the very small mobo - so unless you have a DEEP understanding of video firmware and are EXTREMELY handy with a soldering iron, that's a negative.

The Mac mini can play most Powermac G4-era games pretty well with a RAM bump, but forget most newer games - WoW, Doom 3 (snicker), and others.

The newest stuff that will play decent (not great) will be UT2k4, CoD, maybe BF1942, IMO.

[ricebag]

The newest stuff that will play decent (not great) will be UT2k4, CoD, maybe BF1942, IMO.

That's not so bad...

[whooleytoo]

And yet on its' site, Apple is making note of how the mini will be able to play Halo, whereas budget PCs wouldn't. I'd love to see Apple's benchmarks (and xlr8yourmac.com's reactions to those!).

[Timelessblur]

I just love the screen shot of Halo..... Yeah that pretty much clearly BS and there is no way that the mini mac can do that heck imac is not playble at those high res much less an mini mac.

Got to love how apple says how good it computers are for games when clearly they dont care about games coming to there computer because there no willing to allow them to get real graphic cards.

speaking of apple basicly blantly lieing about there comptuer ablitly look at the imac they ajusted it after barefeet clearly showed how much they where lieing (still over blown but better than before) Time to just wait until some does the same for the mini

[Benj]

I have a G3 900 iBook. No idea what graphics card is in it. Probably horrible. It runs Age of Mythology, Tropico etc etc absolutely fine. Mac Mini will have no problems with these sorts of games.

[Plutonius]

I know people playing WoW with a 9200 graphics card. Up the Mac Mini's RAM to 512k and WoW should be playable.

I'm sure a website will run benchmarks on all the popular games / applications when they can get their hands on a Mac Mini.

[benpatient]

WoW with a 9200 graphics card.

...with 32mb of VRAM?

not over 800x600 with details turned up reasonably.

I wish they would feel so compelled to lie about their products. The Mac mini has a really great potential if you look at it for what it is, but as soon as they say "budget PCs usually come with integrated graphics and the mac mini can play Halo at high resolutions" i get annoyed. Why lie about it? a 500 dollar PC with no keyboard/mouse or monitor is going to play games better than this thing is. But that isn't what it is for. That's not the point of the mini. It is a really cool, really small, all-in-one that people who have iMacs have been begging for for years. headless. simple. acceptably fast for things that you do in an office. NOT for games. It can play games from 2-4 years ago just fine, but so can stupid intel integrated graphics. Anything short of the 9600/5700 range of cards in a NEW machine means that you don't mention anything about games at all if you are smart. Because none of the modern games will do very well, and NO future games will, unless they decide not to use the graphics card for some reason.

I find myself really wanting a Mac mini, but I don't think I'll even install a game demo on it, except maybe to see how terribly it runs.

It will be a good iLife computer, and great for browsing the net, etc...But games?!? naw. not from this century.

[csubear]

The video hardware is soldered on to the very small mobo - so unless you have a DEEP understanding of video firmware and are EXTREMELY handy with a soldering iron, that's a negative.

The Mac mini can play most Powermac G4-era games pretty well with a RAM bump, but forget most newer games - WoW, Doom 3 (snicker), and others.

The newest stuff that will play decent (not great) will be UT2k4, CoD, maybe BF1942, IMO.

Um those of use playing those games on rev C. 12" powerbooks may disagree with you. I personly play WoW on my rev C. and the Imac in my sig. It plays just fine. Not 100 million frames a min, but good enought to play the game (25-30 on the pb, 20-25 on the imac).

So yes, get you self the 1.4 Ghz mini, and I think you will be able to play most of todays games just fine. Its tommrows games that you may worry about.


Edit: sorry Lord Blackadder, i missed the part where you said decent.

[Veldek]

The mini is not too bad. It would be great to take on a LAN for WC3 or something like that.

[neoelectronaut]

My reccomendations for stuff to play on the Mac Mini:

Max Payne
Unreal Tournament ('99)
Diablo Series
Red Faction
No One Lives Forever
Sacrifice
Starcraft Series
The Sims Series (Not 2, however...well, maybe, I dunno.)
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Aliens vs. Predator
Quake Series
Doom Series
Tony Hawk Series
Simcity 4
Star Wars: Jedi Knight & Jedi Academy
Medal of Honor Series
RAYMAN 3

Anyone care to debunk the theory that these would run well or suggest more, go ahead.

[benpatient]

jedi academy won't really be worth it.

sims 2 is probably a "no" even though it meets the general specs (if the game ever comes out, anyway)...

it is EXTREMELY reliant on graphics card power. Upgrading my 9600 P to a 6600 GT made Sims 2 an entirely different game. I went from 1024 with no fsaa and most details on and getting "ok" framerates to 1600x1200x4xFSAA and remarkably smooth framerates...on the same exact system (2500+, 1GB PC3200, SATA HDD).

The G4 will be fine for sims 2, but the 32mb of RAM for textures will but a major hit on performance, no matter what settings you run it at.

most of those other games will work just fine, though (provided you can get them to run in X, some of those are VERY old)

[neoelectronaut]

jedi academy won't really be worth it.

sims 2 is probably a "no" even though it meets the general specs (if the game ever comes out, anyway)...

it is EXTREMELY reliant on graphics card power. Upgrading my 9600 P to a 6600 GT made Sims 2 an entirely different game. I went from 1024 with no fsaa and most details on and getting "ok" framerates to 1600x1200x4xFSAA and remarkably smooth framerates...on the same exact system (2500+, 1GB PC3200, SATA HDD).

The G4 will be fine for sims 2, but the 32mb of RAM for textures will but a major hit on performance, no matter what settings you run it at.

most of those other games will work just fine, though (provided you can get them to run in X, some of those are VERY old)

With the exception of Unreal Tournament (Which actually will be available for OS X soon) all of those are Native to OS X, as I actually own most of them. :P

[Lord Blackadder]

It's funny, but the 9200 is more of a games bottleneck than the G4 is, which is maybe a tribute to that much-maligned class of processor.

If I had to sum up I'd say that the Mac mini is NOT a "gaming" computer in design, but can play a lot of pretty new games at acceptable, though not great, levels of performance. However, it will not age well. Doom 3 is pretty much beyond it's capabilities, and WoW will be stretching the limits of "acceptable" framerates.

I could be wrong, but if you look at Apple's hardware line the Mac mini is the least capable, so don't expect it to better the performance of other current Macs. That doesn't mean you can't game, just don't expect mad framerates on any game that requires a 32MB video card minimum.

[jer2eydevil88]

This machine uses laptop parts so don't expect anywhere near the performance you would get for games using desktop parts. These parts are slower and smaller not exactly ideal for gaming.

If you want to play games on your mac buy a G5 tower lol if you want to buy a mac you can afford and don't mind playing few if any games then buy the mini.

:D

[vga4life]

The mini is an eMac sans monitor.

It's the same hardware spec as a current generation eMac.

I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I've played plenty of WC3, C&C Generals, and Q3A on my 1.25GHz, 32MB Radeon 9200-equipped eMac. It's fine at lowish (1024x768 or 800x600) resolutions.

Bottom line, it's not a gamer's machine, but it's fine for playing semi-recent games.

[pgc6000]

It seems to be the same thing with us laptop users. It probaly won't be good for playing the latest and greatest, but you could probaly play some good games with the mini mac. Call of Duty, Age of Empires II, Age of Mythology, and Medal of Honor. There are also some others, but those are just my favorites. But of course the video card it's equiped with isn't great from what people are saying. But the games I mentioned should run well.

[Rootman]

I'm going to buy this to play Halo and America's Army, which runs semi-crappy-OK on a 700-MHz eMac with 32-MB video. I know the 9200 is the bottleneck in the mini, but should I go for the faster chip for the extra $100?

This little computer is cool, but the more I think about it, the more I wish it had turned out to be a $499 pizza box Mac with slots inside.

[vga4life]

I'm going to buy this to play Halo and America's Army, which runs semi-crappy-OK on a 700-MHz eMac with 32-MB video. I know the 9200 is the bottleneck in the mini, but should I go for the faster chip for the extra $100?

If it's a choice between upgrading the RAM and buying the faster model, upgrade the RAM.

[rozwell]

i gamed pretty well on a 12" powerbook 1.33ghz with 1.25 gb of ram. any game i wanted to play, i could at medium detail 800x600, so i really dont see why the mini couldnt pull it off. get the 1.4 drop a gig of ram in it, and you should be fine.

what i played:

Halo
the Sims
UT
UT2k4
Tropico
Nanosaur 2
Splinter Cell
Alice

[oingoboingo]

Um those of use playing those games on rev C. 12" powerbooks may disagree with you. I personly play WoW on my rev C. and the Imac in my sig. It plays just fine. Not 100 million frames a min, but good enought to play the game (25-30 on the pb, 20-25 on the imac).

So yes, get you self the 1.4 Ghz mini, and I think you will be able to play most of todays games just fine. Its tommrows games that you may worry about.

A Rev C 12" PowerBook has a 64MB nVidia FX 5200 Go. The Mac mini has a 32MB ATI Radeon 9200. You're comparing apples and oranges a bit there methinks.

[rozwell]

A Rev C 12" PowerBook has a 64MB nVidia FX 5200 Go. The Mac mini has a 32MB ATI Radeon 9200. You're comparing apples and oranges a bit there methinks.
isnt that the same or similar card to an iBook? cant iBooks do most of the games listed? i could be wrong but as i recall you can game ok on an iBook. also keep in mind its only $500 as compared to a $1000 iBook, $1600 12" powerbook, and less than any g5. so if you can game on it at any rate, its not such a bad deal. you get what you pay for.

didnt even notice my first post was almost identical to csubear's, sorry bout that, but i can contest that laptop tech suits my gaming needs. anothing i didnt realize until i finished watching the keynote, is how small the mini really is. i am at a loss for words concerning that.

[QCassidy352]

there are many reports of WoW running acceptably well on 1.2 Ghz ibooks so I would expect that it would run ok on the mac mini as well. Far from great, but playable.

[oingoboingo]

isnt that the same or similar card to an iBook? cant iBooks do most of the games listed? i could be wrong but as i recall you can game ok on an iBook. also keep in mind its only $500 as compared to a $1000 iBook, $1600 12" powerbook, and less than any g5. so if you can game on it at any rate, its not such a bad deal. you get what you pay for.

The iBook has a 32MB ATI Radeon 9200 Mobility, so it has half the VRAM and a different GPU to a 12" PowerBook. The Radeon 9200 family will also not support OS X 10.4's Core Image hardware acceleration, while the nVidia FX 5200 Go in the 12" PowerBook will.

Anyway, I'm being a bit nitpicky. Yeah, the current iBook and eMac models do a passable job of playing recent games at modest resolution and detail settings, and the Mac mini (having an almost identical graphics and CPU configuration to the current iBook and eMac) will almost certainly perform similarly. It'll do an 'adequate' job, nothing more. But as you say, you get what you pay for. I think the Mac mini is a great machine for the price, especially considering the insanely small size. People won't be buying this machine for gaming. I still can't get over how small it is...especially the retail box it comes in! :)

[rozwell]

I still can't get over how small it is...especially the retail box it comes in! :)
when i first saw on the website that it was 6.5x6.5 i was like 'that small' but when steve showed one on video and it fit on the palm of his hand, i was floored. and the box is a joke to (in a good way).

[Sol]

The Mac mini is a good computer for most games. Anything that uses the Unreal or Quake engines will runn just fine. Doom 3 will propably run if you make the necessary compromises in the graphics settings. Personally I do not think that gameplay is affected by the resolution a 3D graphics engine runs in.

The great thing about the Mac mini is that the price is so low that you could buy a new one every time it gets updated. Before long many Mac houses will have a mini for every room!

[Timelessblur]

The Mac mini is a good computer for most games. Anything that uses the Unreal or Quake engines will runn just fine. Doom 3 will propably run if you make the necessary compromises in the graphics settings. Personally I do not think that gameplay is affected by the resolution a 3D graphics engine runs in.

The great thing about the Mac mini is that the price is so low that you could buy a new one every time it gets updated. Before long many Mac houses will have a mini for every room!


I think you are really dreaming if you think that doom will run on it. In another post in this tread they showed the system requirements for doom3. The currnet imac bareily meet the minual requirements and those min requirements really mean you turned off all the extra stuff in it

from what it looks like the mini mac is pretty much an emac with out a monitor more or less.

[Ninja_Turtle]

well, the games i play the most are Quake3 and Age OF Empires 2, i have other games like MoH:AA and AvsP, but they run choppy on my g3 ibook 600mhz, quake3 runs extremely well on medium settings, i get like 60-70fps on my ibook...with at least 5 other bots on a fairly huge map, but if install mods, it gets real choppy...so i wouldnt understand how someone said they play Q3 on their eMac and get decent framerates, i play on my ibook with medium settings (and it looks quiet well) and i get 60-70, if i boost up the quality it jumps down to a 30 fps but i have to take out some bots, the games i would like to play on the mini would possibly be CoD, BattleField 1942,UT2k3/4, and StarWars:KOTOR...as long as it plays in decent graphics with ok fps, its ok in my book, and i sometimes play games, i mostly do graphics and video editing for my senior film class and also for my portfolio for college and also as a hobbie...would the mac mini be at least good/moderate at that? cuz my ibook is a little overdue :p

[Lord Blackadder]

Doom's system requirements recommend a G5, so don't expect it to be playable on a Mac mini. IMG previewed a beta that was sluggish on a Dual 2.5(!). The only G4 machines with a chance (this is my guess) are heavily upgraded G4 towers with fast hard drives, dual procs (maybe 1.25/1.42 singles), 1-1.5GB RAM, 9600/9700/9800/GeForce4Ti GPUs.And they probably won't be that great either.

[benpatient]

The Mac mini is a good computer for most games. Anything that uses the Unreal or Quake engines will runn just fine. Doom 3 will propably run if you make the necessary compromises in the graphics settings.

sorry, but that's just not true.

D3 will probably not run well enough to call it "running" at all. it will be more of a "well, it boots up to the menu screen, and after that i see some nice, low-res pictures in a slideshow" sort of experience.

You wouldn't be able to actually progress in the game, though.

Also, you'll find America's Army and other more taxing Unreal-based games will perform quite badly if you try running anything above 800x600.

Personally I do not think that gameplay is affected by the resolution a 3D graphics engine runs in.


You should come watch the difference between 800x600x130fps and 1600x1200x55fps in HL2 on my PC...All I can say is that nobody who sees this will agree with you at all. Ever. I am constantly amazed by how beautiful the detail in motion really is. I won't even begin to talk about how much more precise you can be with 2x the vertical and horizontal rows of resolution when aiming.

There are games where running at a very high resolution could almost be considered cheating in multiplayer...it REALLY matters sometimes...

[Patmian212]

There is no way you are getting that card out of that Mac!

[vraxtus]

OK to all of you that say D3 will run on a Mac mini... go home.

The hardware spec is nowhere near the min requirements for that game.

However that said I would expect the mini to be able to play most games up to and including WoW... *playably*

Like it's been said, Q3 engine based games should be fine, and UT2K3, Halo, and WoW would be *pushing* it...

[Rootman]

The upcoming Panther update with OpenGL improvements might make gameplay a bit better on the Radeon 9200 than what we're accustomed to from the iBooks and eMac on past OSX versions.

See http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=818

[Lord Blackadder]

The upcoming Panther update with OpenGL improvements might make gameplay a bit better on the Radeon 9200 than what we're accustomed to from the iBooks and eMac on past OSX versions.

See http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=818

I noticed (somebody posted this before) that Apple has removed its Core Image preview page, and the list of compatible cards is gone as a result. It is possible that Core Image in its final released form will squeeze extra performance out of even the 9200...

[benpatient]

The upcoming Panther update with OpenGL improvements might make gameplay a bit better on the Radeon 9200 than what we're accustomed to from the iBooks and eMac on past OSX versions.


I think that you'll find the performance issues in the 5200 and 9200 graphics cards are NOT software related. They are just slow. Improved code can help some, but it won't be noticeable. Let's put it this way. Suppose they figure out that shader code isn't totally optimized (these kinds of things are what they are updating, primarily...programmable things, efficiency of complex processes, etc) and they write a new um...volumetric fog (or whatever) shader path. Well, they improve efficiency 20% in doing this (that would be an unusually good optimization), and that all scenes rendering this particular shader primitive gain 10-20% increase in FPS.

well, when the 9200 is rendering the scene, with the old code, let's say it gets 10 fps. A 6800 gets 60 on the same scene with the same settings, or so (just throwing out an example). Now, a 20% increase for 10fps jumps you up to an amazing 12fps! 20% with the 6800 yields something more like 70-75...a notable (visibly) improvement in gameplay.

Here's the obligatory car analogy if I lost anyone:

contestant #1: A 1.6 liter toyota engine that cranks out about 110 hp from the factory.

contestant #2: a 3.6 liter porsche turbo that cranks out 415 hp from the factory

Take both engines and do port/polish and intake/exhaust work on them.

You will see MUCH bigger increases in the 3.6 than in the 1.6...for any number of reasons.

This OpenGL upgrade will probably yield something like 5-10% increases in the more modern, shader-driven games, and less in more simple coding environments (most mac games other than halo and ut04 and a couple of others). You might get Q3 to go from 200fps to 205 fps or something.

big whoop.

[Rootman]

I think that you'll find the performance issues in the 5200 and 9200 graphics cards are NOT software related. They are just slow. Improved code can help some, but it won't be noticeable. Let's put it this way. Suppose they figure out that shader code isn't totally optimized (these kinds of things are what they are updating, primarily...programmable things, efficiency of complex processes, etc) and they write a new um...volumetric fog (or whatever) shader path. Well, they improve efficiency 20% in doing this (that would be an unusually good optimization), and that all scenes rendering this particular shader primitive gain 10-20% increase in FPS.

well, when the 9200 is rendering the scene, with the old code, let's say it gets 10 fps. A 6800 gets 60 on the same scene with the same settings, or so (just throwing out an example). Now, a 20% increase for 10fps jumps you up to an amazing 12fps! 20% with the 6800 yields something more like 70-75...a notable (visibly) improvement in gameplay.

Here's the obligatory car analogy if I lost anyone:

contestant #1: A 1.6 liter toyota engine that cranks out about 110 hp from the factory.

contestant #2: a 3.6 liter porsche turbo that cranks out 415 hp from the factory

Take both engines and do port/polish and intake/exhaust work on them.

You will see MUCH bigger increases in the 3.6 than in the 1.6...for any number of reasons.

This OpenGL upgrade will probably yield something like 5-10% increases in the more modern, shader-driven games, and less in more simple coding environments (most mac games other than halo and ut04 and a couple of others). You might get Q3 to go from 200fps to 205 fps or something.

big whoop.

No, you are wrong.

[Converted2Truth]

...stuff goes here...
I get what you're trying to say, and i agree with you. Teaching a turtle the shortest path between two points won't change the fact that he still moves slow as hell. 10fps and 12fps is welcome, but it's not going to turn anyones frown upside down.

[Jigglelicious]

I have a feeling the only reason Apple removed the Core Image requirements from their site is because people kept spreading misinformation about how Tiger will be incompatible or not look "pretty" on new products that use the Radeon 9200 like the current iBook, eMac and the new Mac mini, thus affecting sales.

Apple has clearly stated that if the GPU is not up to snuff, the effects will be done on the CPU.

[neonart]

If it's a choice between upgrading the RAM and buying the faster model, upgrade the RAM.

I disagree. In time people will be prying these things open and doing whatever they want as far as RAM and hard drives go. On the other hand the CPU is truly unupgradeable (plus you get another 40GB in the deal). If you get the slow CPU it'll be slow for good, whereas RAM and even the HD are replaceable. (You take the risk of messing something up, but if you do a good job you can make it stock again if anything pops up later.)

But spending the extra $75 for 512MB of RAM if you are not one of the brave ones would be a REALLY good idea.

I would personally get the 1.42 Ghz with 512MB. Still a good deal at $674.

[Timelessblur]

I have a feeling the only reason Apple removed the Core Image requirements from their site is because people kept spreading misinformation about how Tiger will be incompatible or not look "pretty" on new products that use the Radeon 9200 like the current iBook, eMac and the new Mac mini, thus affecting sales.

Apple has clearly stated that if the GPU is not up to snuff, the effects will be done on the CPU.


I might like to point out than a CPU can only pick up so much of the slack of a video. Problem is the Ram the CPU can use is slower than the ram of the Graphic card. Yeah it helps but not as much as you think it will. For gaming a CPU can only help out so much.

[neonart]

I think the Mini will be decent for light gaming, just not as a main 'gaming machine'.

I have 2 machines that I game on that should help understand how the Mac mini can do.

My main machine I got mostly for games. It's a Dual 2.0 with a 128MB R9800, 2GB of RAM, and a 10K RPM Raptor. It does great in the Mac gaming department.

The Games I play on it are Call of Duty 1600x1200 very high settings, Ghost Recon 1600x1200 as high as it'll crank, Halo 1280x960 fairly high settings, Splinter Cell 1280x1024 very high settings, Raven Shield 1600x1200 very high settings, Sim City 4 1600x1200 very high settings.

But my other machine is similar to a Mac mini. I have a RevB 12" Powerbook. 1Ghz G4, 32MB Geforce Crap, 768MB RAM, 7200RPM Hitachi.

All the above games are actually playable and enjoyable. Yes, it's harder to play at lower resolutions and settings, but it's still fun. Here is how I run them: CoD 1024x768 med settings, GR 1024x768 upper mid settings, Halo 800x600 lower mid settings, Splinter Cell seems to be ok at 800x600 mid settings, but I have not passed the training yet on that machine (just installed it), Raven Shield 1024x768 at upper mid settings, and SC4 1024x768 at upper mid settings.

So even though there is HUGE difference in playing the same games on these two machines, the little 4 lb Powerbook can provide me with entertainment when Im not in front of my 50 lb G5.

Considering that I was able to play most of these games while at 512MB, with a 4200RPM drive, what I think is a worse video card, and 400Mhz less than a Mac mini(1.42 model), then the mini should play these games too.

With 512MB+ and maybe an illegal ;) hard drive upgrade the Mac Mini should do OK for light gaming.

But just don't expect to play Doom 3 on it. Really.

[Ninja_Turtle]

I think the Mini will be decent for light gaming, just not as a main 'gaming machine'.

I have 2 machines that I game on that should help understand how the Mac mini can do.

My main machine I got mostly for games. It's a Dual 2.0 with a 128MB R9800, 2GB of RAM, and a 10K RPM Raptor. It does great in the Mac gaming department.

The Games I play on it are Call of Duty 1600x1200 very high settings, Ghost Recon 1600x1200 as high as it'll crank, Halo 1280x960 fairly high settings, Splinter Cell 1280x1024 very high settings, Raven Shield 1600x1200 very high settings, Sim City 4 1600x1200 very high settings.

But my other machine is similar to a Mac mini. I have a RevB 12" Powerbook. 1Ghz G4, 32MB Geforce Crap, 768MB RAM, 7200RPM Hitachi.

All the above games are actually playable and enjoyable. Yes, it's harder to play at lower resolutions and settings, but it's still fun. Here is how I run them: CoD 1024x768 med settings, GR 1024x768 upper mid settings, Halo 800x600 lower mid settings, Splinter Cell seems to be ok at 800x600 mid settings, but I have not passed the training yet on that machine (just installed it), Raven Shield 1024x768 at upper mid settings, and SC4 1024x768 at upper mid settings.

So even though there is HUGE difference in playing the same games on these two machines, the little 4 lb Powerbook can provide me with entertainment when Im not in front of my 50 lb G5.

Considering that I was able to play most of these games while at 512MB, with a 4200RPM drive, what I think is a worse video card, and 400Mhz less than a Mac mini(1.42 model), then the mini should play these games too.

With 512MB+ and maybe an illegal ;) hard drive upgrade the Mac Mini should do OK for light gaming.

But just don't expect to play Doom 3 on it. Really.

how would you be able to open it up and change the HD? say, if i were to change it to a 160gig HD 7200 RPM instead of the terrible 80 gig 4200RPM???

[Rootman]

I disagree. In time people will be prying these things open and doing whatever they want as far as RAM and hard drives go. On the other hand the CPU is truly unupgradeable (plus you get another 40GB in the deal). If you get the slow CPU it'll be slow for good, whereas RAM and even the HD are replaceable. (You take the risk of messing something up, but if you do a good job you can make it stock again if anything pops up later.)

But spending the extra $75 for 512MB of RAM if you are not one of the brave ones would be a REALLY good idea.

I would personally get the 1.42 Ghz with 512MB. Still a good deal at $674.


For the cost of increasing the game performance of the mini, I could buy an XBox, and use the cheapest Mini kit for non-game Mac apps. What do you think?

I think I read that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox they sell, so it'll be worth it.

[Jigglelicious]

I might like to point out than a CPU can only pick up so much of the slack of a video. Problem is the Ram the CPU can use is slower than the ram of the Graphic card. Yeah it helps but not as much as you think it will. For gaming a CPU can only help out so much.

Core Image has nothing to do with gaming. And a CPU can do anything a video card can, and much much more. A GPU is just a very fast CPU that has very specific instructions required for rendering 3d. That doesn't mean the CPU can't do it - only that its slower at doing it. Just like on non-quartz extreme Macs, for example. The expose effects and genie effect still take place. They are just slower and/or choppier than if you had QE.

[benpatient]

i think it might be a bad idea to replace the 4200rpm drive with a 7200rpm one in the mini...well, the first question is...how hot does the thing run at stock levels? it might have some heating issues.

also, do we know that the HDD isn't a laptop-based drive instead of a standard 3.5" one? I think it might be a laptop HD...and while they have them in 7200rpm variants now, they don't have them up to more than 100gb.

[oingoboingo]

i think it might be a bad idea to replace the 4200rpm drive with a 7200rpm one in the mini...well, the first question is...how hot does the thing run at stock levels? it might have some heating issues.

also, do we know that the HDD isn't a laptop-based drive instead of a standard 3.5" one? I think it might be a laptop HD...and while they have them in 7200rpm variants now, they don't have them up to more than 100gb.

The 80GB model is a 2.5" 4200rpm Toshiba MK8025GAS. Someone at MWSF took a screenshot of the System Profiler on one of the new minis and posted the image to a forum board which showed the hard drive model number. Specs for this drive are here:

http://www.baber.com/drives/internal_hard_drives/laptops/toshiba_mk8025gas_specs.htm

[Rootman]

Core Image has nothing to do with gaming.

Is this true? I don't think so.

[TheGimp]

Anyone planning to buy a mini on which to play even 1-2 year old games is in for a *big* disappointment. On the other hand, if you plan to play RTCW and emulate PSX, N64, and Genesis, and mostly plan to do iLife stuff, then you'll be happy. Remember that used Powermac G4's are still out there, many with radeon 9800 Pro's.

Ram on the Mac mini sucks bigtime. 1 memory slot means you'll need to shell out several hundred $$$ just to get games to where there's little 'hitching' (never mind low framerates). Add the price of a display and you've got one expensive iLife rig that still can't play Halo over 640x480 at smooth enough framerates for online play.

[Rezet]

Mini would be a neat thing to hook up to HDTV.
Throw in wireless keyboard and a mouse. And it's Media Mac. ;)

[neonart]

how would you be able to open it up and change the HD? say, if i were to change it to a 160gig HD 7200 RPM instead of the terrible 80 gig 4200RPM???

While opening it up will void the warranty (if Apple finds out), I'm sure we'll see a diasassembly web page from those cool Japanese guys Kodawarisan (http://www.kodawarisan.com/kodawarisan/archives/2005/01/acaaaieappleaca.html) in a few days.

Just cuz Apple says "don't go in there" hasn't stopped tons and tons of people (like myself) from upgrading iBooks, Powerbooks, G4 iMacs, and the like.

If it's not your thing, don't touch it. But there is room to upgrade. As far as I know, there are no 2.5" 160GB drives. But a 60GB 7200 RPM Hitachi would be very nice! Or a 5400RPM 100GB Seagate.

For the cost of increasing the game performance of the mini, I could buy an XBox, and use the cheapest Mini kit for non-game Mac apps. What do you think?

I think I read that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox they sell, so it'll be worth it.

Sure. Thats always a great option if you like console gaming. But some people just dont care for it anymore. I personally like gaming on my Mac. Going from Illustrator to Splinter Cell to Mail is awesome!

i think it might be a bad idea to replace the 4200rpm drive with a 7200rpm one in the mini...well, the first question is...how hot does the thing run at stock levels? it might have some heating issues.


This has ALWAYS been a common question. With Cubes, Slot-load iMacs, Powerbooks, etc. People still do it, and no issues have really been found. A faster hard drive is not that much more heat- at least not like in the old days of 10K RPM SCSI's.

Think of this. Did Apple make the 12" Powerbook to top out at 867Mhz beacuse of heat? 1Ghz? 1.33 Ghz? Higher? What about the Mini? Will it go to past 1.42Ghz. Of course! CPU cycles produce more heat than a slightly faster HD.

Of course the advice is if it worries you, don't do it.

[AdamR01]

Looking at the box for Doom 3 for the PC you can pretty much say it will not run on the Mini for the sole fact that it requires a 64mb graphics card. The 9200 probably could run it if it had more vram but it does not. The PC requirements state a 1.5GHz Pentium 4. The 1.42GHz G4 would probably pass though. I can say that running on my PC with a 1.7@2.0GHz Celeron and a Radeon 9600SE and 512mb of ram I get 15-60fps. I would say the average is somewhere around 30. That is running at 640x480 with all the eye candy turned on. It is playable for the most part but gets bad when there are a lot of enemies. The Radeon 9600SE is actually slower at times than a Radeon 9200 because it only has a 64bit wide memory bus.

[Wyvernspirit]

Sure. Thats always a great option if you like console gaming. But some people just dont care for it anymore. I personally like gaming on my Mac. Going from Illustrator to Splinter Cell to Mail is awesome!



You could always hook the XBox up to the Mac and use it taht way.

[Maxx Power]

The Radeon 9600SE is actually slower at times than a Radeon 9200 because it only has a 64bit wide memory bus.

Actually, the integrated version of the Radeon 9200 with only 32 MB of ram is only 64 bit wide memory bus wise too. Only the 64 MB version has the necessary four memory chips to produce the 128 Bit bus where each chip is connected via a 32 bit bus.

[Lord Blackadder]

While opening it up will void the warranty (if Apple finds out), I'm sure we'll see a diasassembly web page from those cool Japanese guys Kodawarisan (http://www.kodawarisan.com/kodawarisan/archives/2005/01/acaaaieappleaca.html) in a few days.

Just cuz Apple says "don't go in there" hasn't stopped tons and tons of people (like myself) from upgrading iBooks, Powerbooks, G4 iMacs, and the like.

Agreed. If it can be done, it will be done. Look at how far people have taken the cube - 1.5GHz CPUs, 7200RPM drives and Radeon 9800 GPUs.

[chaos86]

i dont know what the heck you are all talking about, quake 3 is the greatest game ever and it runs on my grandmas 300mhz g3 imac.

[benpatient]

quake 3 is boring now in the same way that Doom 1 and 2 are boring now.

They don't have that long-term appeal that games like Starcraft and Mario 3 seem to have...even with the best, most advanced video/audio/interface systems in the world, a game that is as much fun as Starcraft or Mario 3 is extremely rare.

I know a lot of people liked Q3 a lot, but honestly, it was more important as an engine than as a game. Frantic, cartoonish deathmatch is about as appealing to me as sprite-based 3d "adventure" games are. They had their day in the sun, and we've moved on. Some Q3 engine-based games are more fun than Q3 ever thought of being. (especially some of the star wars universe games)

Q3 may run on a 300 mhz G3, but, when its primary benefits were graphics and sound quality...it just doesn't hold up.

It'd be sad to think that 7 year old games is what Mac mini gamers have to look forward to...

[chaos86]

quake 3 is boring now in the same way that Doom 1 and 2 are boring now.

They don't have that long-term appeal that games like Starcraft and Mario 3 seem to have...even with the best, most advanced video/audio/interface systems in the world, a game that is as much fun as Starcraft or Mario 3 is extremely rare.

I know a lot of people liked Q3 a lot, but honestly, it was more important as an engine than as a game. Frantic, cartoonish deathmatch is about as appealing to me as sprite-based 3d "adventure" games are. They had their day in the sun, and we've moved on. Some Q3 engine-based games are more fun than Q3 ever thought of being. (especially some of the star wars universe games)

Q3 may run on a 300 mhz G3, but, when its primary benefits were graphics and sound quality...it just doesn't hold up.

It'd be sad to think that 7 year old games is what Mac mini gamers have to look forward to...

jesus christ dude stop being so morbid. the mini can play games younger than 7, i love quake 3 even if you have game ADD, and star wars games never do justice to the movies.

[neoelectronaut]

quake 3 is boring now in the same way that Doom 1 and 2 are boring now.

They don't have that long-term appeal that games like Starcraft and Mario 3 seem to have...even with the best, most advanced video/audio/interface systems in the world, a game that is as much fun as Starcraft or Mario 3 is extremely rare.

I know a lot of people liked Q3 a lot, but honestly, it was more important as an engine than as a game. Frantic, cartoonish deathmatch is about as appealing to me as sprite-based 3d "adventure" games are. They had their day in the sun, and we've moved on. Some Q3 engine-based games are more fun than Q3 ever thought of being. (especially some of the star wars universe games)

Q3 may run on a 300 mhz G3, but, when its primary benefits were graphics and sound quality...it just doesn't hold up.

It'd be sad to think that 7 year old games is what Mac mini gamers have to look forward to...

That's where mods come in. You spend $10 on Q3:A and you end up with about 50 mods to play around with.

[benpatient]

um. star wars: episode 1 happened.

You can't deny it, and you can't disown it. And therefore, you can't blanket statement-style relegate the games to second-class status.

JKII and KOTOR are both considerably better than Phantom Menace.

[AdamR01]

um. star wars: episode 1 happened.

You can't deny it, and you can't disown it. And therefore, you can't blanket statement-style relegate the games to second-class status.

JKII and KOTOR are both considerably better than Phantom Menace.

Yes, and Putt Putt Goes to the Moon (http://www.thereviewzone.com/pputtmoon.html) is better than the Phantom Menace, whats your point? :D

[Gregory]

The iBook has a 32MB ATI Radeon 9200 Mobility, so it has half the VRAM and a different GPU to a 12" PowerBook. The Radeon 9200 family will also not support OS X 10.4's Core Image hardware acceleration, while the nVidia FX 5200 Go in the 12" PowerBook will.

Anyway, I'm being a bit nitpicky. Yeah, the current iBook and eMac models do a passable job of playing recent games at modest resolution and detail settings, and the Mac mini (having an almost identical graphics and CPU configuration to the current iBook and eMac) will almost certainly perform similarly. It'll do an 'adequate' job, nothing more. But as you say, you get what you pay for. I think the Mac mini is a great machine for the price, especially considering the insanely small size. People won't be buying this machine for gaming. I still can't get over how small it is...especially the retail box it comes in! :)

The Mac Mini will play games close to a ibook, but for game play at least and imac G5 is a better choice for games. . . Go to Apples web site here. . .
http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html and apple shows a chart comparing the imac G4 to the imac G5 in game play. . .

[benpatient]

that star wars movies aren't always better than star wars games. as stated by chaos86

[AdamR01]

I guess I don't count the Phantom Menace as a Star Wars film lol. The Phantom Edit is a little better though.

[Wyvernspirit]

My favorite computer game right now has to be Neverwinter Nights. I still haven't finished the OC, have finished SoU, though I am replaying it (as I lost that game/character in a Hard Drive malfunction), and still have yet to play HoU. I run this game at acceptible rates on my Quicksilver 2002 (800Mhz). This game is older (not 7 years old), and yes its underlining tech is even older, but if it can run on my machine the mini should run circles around it. There are still a number of games that will run on my mac (I did not say great, though they might) that recently came out. Some of the newer ones are getting ahead of it, but then the mini is better then what I have.

I'm not sure I would get the mini for myself though, as I can upgrade my Graphix card and Processor to meet or beet the mini for the same price. It may have a slightly fater bus and DDR memory (Though I believe DDR on a G4 is basically a joke) My machine can compare favorably to it using the money on upgrades and still have some room to grow.

The Mini would be perfect for my mother.

[backwar]

I am running a PIII 733 with 1gig of PC-133 not DDR, and a 128meg 9200SE on an AGP 2x bus, about the lowest end version of the 9200 that you can get. I am able to run Battlefield 1942, Freelancer, and many other good games without incident at 1024x768 with all the eye candy turned on. I would admit that upgrading to a 7200 rpm harddrive would be a very good idea. I have a 10k SCSI drive in mine. I have have also run the games without real incident on a 5400 rpm drive. It seems to me like far too many people in the mac community simply whine when their game doesn't work directly out of the box with no thought to optimization. Even if you have to take some of the eye candy off you can do so without really jepordizing the image quality. PS I have read that the drivers for the 9200 can be modified to access some of your System memory as well. If you have a gig what is sparing another 32 - 96 megs of ram. Accept the mini for what it is and stop complaining when it can't output the graphics of a card that pulls almost as much electricity as the entire Mini.