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MacOS-Fan · Mar 4, 2006, 06:13 PM

Will my new Mini CoreDuo (1GB of RAM) run UT2004?

SpaceMonkey · Mar 4, 2006, 06:24 PM

http://www.macworld.com/2006/03/firs...arks/index.php

It seems to run UT 2004 about the same as the G4 Mac Mini--that is, not very well.

mduell · Mar 4, 2006, 07:08 PM

Run? Yes.
Run well? Depends on resolution.

sniffer · Mar 4, 2006, 07:32 PM

It also depends video quality settings (Macworld ran on highest settings*).. and memory base installed. The Macworld article doesn't mention how much ram the test machines has, which is important because performance on shared memory will naturally suffer a lot more than systems with dedicated vram when it runs out of physical memory. I would believe medium (or lower) video quality would've given the solo at least a little advance over the old mini, but I am only guessing. I've yet to see some real game benchmarks on the new minis yet.

*"We used Unreal Tournament 2004’s Antalus Botmatch average-frames-per-second score; we tested at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and graphics enabled.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 4, 2006, 10:09 PM

OK, this was my fault. allow me to re-phrase my question. I currently play UT2004 on my QuickSilver 2002 G4 1GHz Dual-Processor with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. Will it play as well on my new CoreDuo Mini with 1 GB of RAM as it does on my current machine? I am not sure how the GeForce4 Ti 4600 stacks up. Thanks!

thunderous_funker · Mar 4, 2006, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

OK, this was my fault. allow me to re-phrase my question. I currently play UT2004 on my QuickSilver 2002 G4 1GHz Dual-Processor with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. Will it play as well on my new CoreDuo Mini with 1 GB of RAM as it does on my current machine? I am not sure how the GeForce4 Ti 4600 stacks up. Thanks!

My GeForce3 Ti200 (on my Celeron 800 PC) plays games significantly better in most cases and just as well in other cases than my 1Gb RAM 1.42Ghz G4 Mini.

That leads me to believe you'd see a performance decrease on 3D games switching to the new Mini.

That's not rock solid evidence, but it should make you pretty cautious. Definitely do a thorough test drive before you decide.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 4, 2006, 11:11 PM

Well I am not necessarily getting rid of my Tower just becuase the Mini is coming (it's on order). Thanks for the info.

volcano · Mar 4, 2006, 11:30 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

OK, this was my fault. allow me to re-phrase my question. I currently play UT2004 on my QuickSilver 2002 G4 1GHz Dual-Processor with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600 graphics card. Will it play as well on my new CoreDuo Mini with 1 GB of RAM as it does on my current machine? I am not sure how the GeForce4 Ti 4600 stacks up. Thanks!

That's a toss up - unless there's a patch for the game to make it a Universal Binary, it'll run under emulation via Rosetta on your Intel Mac Mini, thus decreasing performance.

the_glassman · Mar 5, 2006, 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by volcano

That's a toss up - unless there's a patch for the game to make it a Universal Binary, it'll run under emulation via Rosetta on your Intel Mac Mini, thus decreasing performance.

http://www.macminute.com/2006/02/03/unreal-2004/
And it runs slower than the old minis!

JKT · Mar 5, 2006, 09:51 AM

Originally Posted by thunderous_funker

My GeForce3 Ti200 (on my Celeron 800 PC) plays games significantly better in most cases and just as well in other cases than my 1Gb RAM 1.42Ghz G4 Mini.

That leads me to believe you'd see a performance decrease on 3D games switching to the new Mini.

That's not rock solid evidence, but it should make you pretty cautious. Definitely do a thorough test drive before you decide.

FWIW, any game primarily developed for the PC will always play faster than it does on a Mac PPC. Mac games have always suffered in the fps department due to the inevitable loss in optimisation of the game going from the x86 architecture to the PPC. This may be something that changes with the switch to Intel (and fps have improved dramatically in the new Macs with the universal binaries, though that could easily be due to faster FSB/RAM/Graphics card/CPU as anything else).

JKT · Mar 5, 2006, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by sniffer

It also depends video quality settings (Macworld ran on highest settings*).. and memory base installed. The Macworld article doesn't mention how much ram the test machines has, which is important because performance on shared memory will naturally suffer a lot more than systems with dedicated vram when it runs out of physical memory. I would believe medium (or lower) video quality would've given the solo at least a little advance over the old mini, but I am only guessing. I've yet to see some real game benchmarks on the new minis yet.

*"We used Unreal Tournament 2004’s Antalus Botmatch average-frames-per-second score; we tested at a resolution of 1,024 by 768 pixels at the Maximum setting with both audio and graphics enabled.

They state that all machines had 1GB RAM in them at the start of the table's legend.