MacPro and Minecraft

[Southern Dad]

I've got an early 2009 MacPro 4,1. Could this computer be made into Minecraft playing machine for a thirteen-year-old? He's currently using an HP15 laptop so I am thinking that anything would be a step up. My thought was to throw a bunch of RAM in it and a good video card, then turn him loose with it. Truthfully, the computer isn't being used now and I think this would be a good use for it.

Anyone with comments will be appreciated, especially suggestions. Yes, I know nothing about Minecraft.

 

[Pakaku]

I think the game would appreciate the Xeons, probably even more than the graphics card.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

All respect to gamers, but Minecraft doesn't really fit into the category of, "If my machine is a femto second slower than the other guys', I'm dead." That Mac Pro should be fine just as it is, but if you want to soup it up a bit, I'm sure your son won't complain.

 

[Farthen]

All respect to gamers, but Minecraft doesn't really fit into the category of, "If my machine is a femto second slower than the other guys', I'm dead."

I would disagree. Minecraft has pretty high performance requirements. It doesn't seem like it but try playing Minecraft with a slow CPU. It's pretty terrible.

 

[SuperMatt]

You should post this in the Mac Pro hardware forum. There are many contributors there who can give you tons of tips on the most cost-efficient way to upgrade the machine.

 

[Southern Dad]

All respect to gamers, but Minecraft doesn't really fit into the category of, "If my machine is a femto second slower than the other guys', I'm dead." That Mac Pro should be fine just as it is, but if you want to soup it up a bit, I'm sure your son won't complain.

Right now, that computer doesn't have a video card in it. Since I need to purchase a video card, I want to make sure and get one that will really work specifically with Minecraft.

You should post this in the Mac Pro hardware forum. There are many contributors there who can give you tons of tips on the most cost-efficient way to upgrade the machine.

Excellent suggestion. I may just do that.

 

[IHelpId10t5]

This should work fine. We have a Polycarbonate (white) MacBook from 2008 or 2009 that my Son still uses occasionally to play Minecraft (when we have more kids over than we have computers in the house). It's slow playing Minecraft but with some tweaking of the Minecraft graphics settings it does "work". A Mac Pro should have far better performance. Minecraft is more CPU intensive than video card so give it a try before investing in a new video card.

 

[Southern Dad]

This should work fine. We have a Polycarbonate (white) MacBook from 2008 or 2009 that my Son still uses occasionally to play Minecraft (when we have more kids over than we have computers in the house). It's slow playing Minecraft but with some tweaking of the Minecraft graphics settings it does "work". A Mac Pro should have far better performance. Minecraft is more CPU intensive than video card so give it a try before investing in a new video card.

Excellent suggestion, what about RAM?

 

[s0nicpr0s]

Excellent suggestion, what about RAM?

I used to play Minecraft at a decent level on 4GB of RAM. Honestly, anything above that is just fine, and in many cases would be overkill. Mojang (the developers) recommend 4GB, and require at least 2GB as the minimum. By default, Minecraft will not take advantage of all available memory, and will instead give itself a set amount and work within that. You or your son can configure it to use more by altering some options in the launcher, but unless your son will be using a lot of mod packs, this is basically unneeded. Looking online suggests your machine shipped with either 3 or 6 GB. So I'd recommend throwing 8GB in just to be safe.

As for a video card, honestly just about anything will be just fine. My mom has a windows machine with an integrated GPU, and that can run the game on a playable level. Mojang suggests an Nvidia 2XX+ series, or AMD 5XXX+ series. So just track something down that works with your mac and go for it. All that is required is being able to run the OpenGL 2.1 tech.

An additional upgrade that would hurt nothing and would improve overall computing speed would be an SSD.

Here is the link to what Mojang is expecting from your machine: https://help.mojang.com/customer/en/portal/articles/325948-minecraft-system-requirements

 

[macroid]

Your MacPro will run Minecraft just fine.

Just be sure to install a good graphic card with at least 512 MB of Vram.