Im taking the plunge but I have a few questions

[7254278]

Hi all,
After 2 years of suffering and after 2 years spending every day on apple.com looking at their great machines I finally saved enough to get one and let my just say YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY.
Originally i wanted a powerbook but I have $700 and i decided who cares ill get the mini.

Now what I wanted to know is if this mini can run some of the programs listed below and also how well can it run them.

Mac mini:
1.25 G4
512MB RAM
combo drive
40 GB Drice(i have a usb 2 160 lacie porsche drive)
Airport
Apple wire mouse and keyboard
Ati radeon 9200 32mb
17" Flat screen LG CRT

Programs I want to run:
World of warcraft
Diablo 2
Football manager 2004-2005
URT 2003
Adobe Photoshop
Microsoft office
itunes+Garageband+imovie
Bryce 5
Safari/Camino

Also can the video card be upgraded?
Thx in advanced.
PS:
IM SO FRIGGIN HAPPY I GOT A MAC BABY YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Everything except that world of warcraft, check its minimum specs but i think it needs a 64 mb video and Mini has 32. everything else will do fine. Apple should spend the $10 more bucks so we can have this option. 64 would make Mini a worldbeater in my view. Id buy 2 more today if they had it. There isnt anything close to it when you consider what you get .Halo and UT2003 both run on mini at 800 x 600 with normal/low settings.A 64 video would allow everything on at 800 x 600 where now you need to turn a few things off down or run at 640 x 480 if you want stuff on. Still very playable,the bottleneck in this case is without a doubt the ati 9200 32mb. A minor fix from apple like oops we put those fx5200s 64 in there by mistake? Come on Apple make it a B.T.O.

 

[jsw]

WoW will be slow, but turn down the eye candy and you'll be able to play (but frame rates will be low). Edit: yeah, I think it does require 64MB (I was thinking it was a suggested amount, but maybe it's required). Edit of my edit: no, the book say 32MB, 64 recommended. It should play, albeit not at peak form.

GarageBand might not be phenomenal, but, at least with a relatively small number of tracks, it'll play OK.

The other stuff should be fine.

Note, though, that with 512MB, you should be able to do one or two apps fine, but you'll see some slowdown if you load them all and switch between them frequently. However, it's fine - congrats on your purchase! - and even though, yes, 1.25GB would be better, 512MB will run 95% as well 90% of the time.

 

[7254278]

Will WoW frame rates be lower then lets say 15-20fps

 

[mpw]

...Programs I want to run:
...Microsoft Works...

Do they make a MS Works for Mac.?

If not you should be fine with AppleWorks for real basic stuff but you might want Word/Excel or equivalents. Worth checking out Pages for the word pro. but I wouldn't know what to recommend in place of Excel.

 

[7254278]

Do they make a MS Works for Mac.?

If not you should be fine with AppleWorks for real basic stuff but you might want Word/Excel or equivalents. Worth checking out Pages for the word pro. but I wouldn't know what to recommend in place of Excel.

Sorry ment to say office.
WOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOO IM GETTIN A MAC YEAH BABY!
Sorry just slipped out

 

[ravenvii]

Dudes, WoW doesn't require a 32 MB card. I once (ONCE) played it on my G3 900 iBook with the 7500 32 MB card. It ain't pretty, let me tell you, but it did run.

 

[7254278]

Dudes, WoW doesn't require a 32 MB card. I once (ONCE) played it on my G3 900 iBook with the 7500 32 MB card. It ain't pretty, let me tell you, but it did run.

So what are you saying it won´t run decently?

 

[DaiKirai]

There's a .35GHz difference in CPUs and a slightly better GPU in the Mini, so I'd expect it to be better.

 

[7254278]

Great thanks for the responses!