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pzarker · Mar 2, 2006, 03:20 PM

Looks like the new graphics chip isnt so bad afterall.
http://thedailycup.acupo.com/?p=43

lookmark · Mar 2, 2006, 03:41 PM

Not terrible. Or not *too* terrible, I guess. I'd like to see some benchmarks for a Universal 3D game like UT or WOW, just for kicks.

Eug Wanker · Mar 2, 2006, 03:52 PM

Actually, it's terrible, according to the numbers in that blog. The only test in those benches that stresses the GPU is the Shading OpenGL Hardware Lighting Test.

ie. In the test that uses the GPU, the old Mac mini is 21% faster.

This is not to say this is representative of gaming, but it certainly doesn't look good for the integrated graphics.

lookmark · Mar 2, 2006, 04:55 PM

Yeah, the GPU marks aren't impressive... but certainly no one will be using the mini for any serious 3D/GPU-dependent work. The question is what the Core + (the somewhat inferior) GMA950 bring to the table for casual/casual-intermediate gamers.

pzarker · Mar 2, 2006, 06:36 PM

well in reality most people wont be using the mac mini for gaming, let alone intense gaming.

Altair · Mar 2, 2006, 07:28 PM

Originally Posted by pzarker

well in reality most people wont be using the mac mini for gaming, let alone intense gaming.

A lot of people that would buy a mini would like to play World of Warcraft.

greenamp · Mar 3, 2006, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by Altair

A lot of people that would buy a mini would like to play World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft is playable at low settings on G3s. The intel mini should be able to handle it.

lookmark · Mar 3, 2006, 02:16 AM

Sure, it'll be "playable." The question is whether the new mini has worse, equal, or better performance for 3D games as opposed to the old ones. So far, very little information.

Tomchu · Mar 3, 2006, 02:21 AM

UT 2004 runs at medium quality @ 1024x768 very nicely on my 1.42 GHz PPC Mini. Quake 3 at 1024x768 at max details runs at 60-110 FPS (depending on the scene).

I would say that's great performance when it comes to medium-end games. The GMA950 doesn't hold a candle to a dedicated Radeon 9200 solution.

lookmark · Mar 3, 2006, 12:59 PM

Still no rough benchmarks for 3d games for the new mini? C'mon, one of you new mini owners with a 1GB+ of RAM give a UB 3D game, like WoW or UT, a whirl, tell us your impression.

eddiecatflap · Mar 3, 2006, 04:52 PM

the dual core will more than make up for it

plus rev b will be awesome

Eug Wanker · Mar 3, 2006, 05:04 PM

Originally Posted by lookmark

Still no rough benchmarks for 3d games for the new mini? C'mon, one of you new mini owners with a 1GB+ of RAM give a UB 3D game, like WoW or UT, a whirl, tell us your impression.

Look here.

Originally Posted by eddiecatflap

rev b will be awesome

I damn well hope so. I am considering getting a version B Intel Mac mini.

lookmark · Mar 3, 2006, 05:20 PM

Yup, saw that, but I've no idea if they tested using the default amount of RAM (?!), and it's noted as preliminary ... though certainly not looking so good, it seems. I'd like to see a test with the Core Duo mini as well.

Will just have to wait, apparently, for the full Ars & Macworld reviews...

ururk · Mar 3, 2006, 08:54 PM

Puzzlepirates runs on the new mini

Not exactly what people want to hear though...

inkhead · Mar 5, 2006, 09:59 PM

Actually the graphics are "very fast" if you aren't going to be playing games. Videos, finder, imovie, iphoto and things like this rock. I suspect the cpu has more to do with this. You can't believe how "snappy" this damn thing feels, especially when you look at how small it is. It feels faster than my dual processor g5 even. I suspect it probably is for finder operations, and day to day stuff like web browsing.

far200 · Mar 5, 2006, 10:24 PM

So after reading a few post most people say that the graphics on the new mini are ok ( not great by any means.) And that the CPU has a lot to do with the good bench marks for the new mini's on board graphics... So if I was to pick up one of the new mini's should I go for the core duo being that I would get better CPU power or will the core solo due just fine for running basic mac stuff ( ilife, dvd movies, internet..) I want to hook it up to my HDTV....

ururk · Mar 6, 2006, 12:40 AM

I'm going to add to inkhead's comments. I've got the Core Duo, and man, it FEELS snappier than my old Dual 2Ghz G5 work machine does, at least in the web-finder-mail applications. I don't know if the CPU is at play, in regards to this "snappyness". However...

I did some Flash 8 work this weekend and was BLOWN away by how responsive Flash was. Illustrator CS (not CS2) was OK, but for some reason I'm having trouble getting a font to be recognized in Ill. Occasionally Ill felt like the mouse was lagging by a few milliseconds.

All in all, I'm very impressed and for my needs (no heavy gaming, Illustrator/Photoshop/Flash workflow), it just works! I haven't launched Dreamweaver as I heard it is very sluggish, and am not going to need it for a while.

turbopants · Mar 6, 2006, 01:01 AM

I'd say the dual core is the way to go. For the extra money you can use that machine much longer, and any applications you run will be that much better. I'd do it.

ururk · Mar 6, 2006, 01:01 AM

Whoops, double post.

lookmark · Mar 6, 2006, 06:46 AM

I have to agree that it's pretty nice that you can now purchase a dual-core machine from Apple in the mini form factor for $800.

It's looking that games on the mini are going to be about the same (or a little worse) than the PPC mini. Could anyone witb a new Core/Duo mini (with 1GB+ of RAM) confirm this for WOW or UT? Thanks.

(And btw: yes, I've seen the MW initial benchmarks, and no, I don't consider game benchmarks with the anemic ~440MB of RAM the mini comes with very interesting.)

MacOS-Fan · Mar 6, 2006, 01:08 PM

My wife just called me and said that my new Mini (CoreDuo with 1 GB of RAM) has arrived. When I get home this evening I will play UT2004 on it and tell you what I think. The only thing that I have to compare it to is my current QuickSilver 2002 Dual 1GHz Processors G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. I don't know if that will help anyone or not.

Tuishimi · Mar 6, 2006, 04:08 PM

I have Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Black & White. I can try those once my monitor arrives. I also have Warcraft, but not WoW. I also have SimCity 4... but that didn't even play well on my 2.0ghz iMac G5. It ran horribly.

JKT · Mar 6, 2006, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by lookmark

(And btw: yes, I've seen the MW initial benchmarks, and no, I don't consider game benchmarks with the anemic ~440MB of RAM the mini comes with very interesting.)

In the MW test the mini had 1GB of RAM in it, but they used 1024x768 with max settings so it'll be worthwhile seeing how it performs at a lower resolution where it might actually be playable.

lookmark · Mar 6, 2006, 08:11 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

My wife just called me and said that my new Mini (CoreDuo with 1 GB of RAM) has arrived. When I get home this evening I will play UT2004 on it and tell you what I think. The only thing that I have to compare it to is my current QuickSilver 2002 Dual 1GHz Processors G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. I don't know if that will help anyone or not.

That's super -- thanks.

Originally Posted by Tuishimi

I have Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Black & White. I can try those once my monitor arrives. I also have Warcraft, but not WoW. I also have SimCity 4... but that didn't even play well on my 2.0ghz iMac G5. It ran horribly.

Yeah, you can be sure that anything but the oldest/most casual games running in Rosetta will not run well at all. I'm curious how Core + GMA950 fares for Universal games, as opposed to the G4 + Radeon 9200.

Originally Posted by JKT

In the MW test the mini had 1GB of RAM in it, but they used 1024x768 with max
settings so it'll be worthwhile seeing how it performs at a lower resolution where it might actually be playable.

It did? Where did they say they installed a gig of RAM? I don't see it.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 6, 2006, 08:47 PM

Well although the new Mini (CoreDuo) seems sweet in every other aspect, it won't handle UT2004. I tried to play it with many different setting and it's just not happening. I am literally about to throw up from motion sickness. Even on the LOWEST settings and a resolution of 800x600 (I think) it was VERY choppy and no fun at all. I am not saying that it is pretty bad, I am saying that it is very bad. Now I never owned a G4 Mini to compare it to. As I said above I can only compare it to my QuickSilver 2002 Dual 1GHz Processors G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. There is no comparison at all.

I'm not upset about this at all. I certainly didn't buy the Mini to play games on, although playing my UT2004 would have been a nice bonus. I save the gaming for my PS2 and 55" HDTV!

My new Mini has BLOWN through all other tasks and tests so far. It is a very fast and capable little puter!

jtaylr77 · Mar 6, 2006, 09:03 PM

good info. Is UT2004 universal code or does the mini run it under rosetta?

lookmark · Mar 6, 2006, 09:41 PM

Originally Posted by jtaylr77

good info. Is UT2004 universal code or does the mini run it under rosetta?

It's Universal. Well, there you have it. Thanks for the report. I'd like to hear if WOW fares any better, but it's looking like the verdict is pretty much out, at least for non-casual games.

lookmark · Mar 6, 2006, 09:42 PM

[x]

MaxPower2k3 · Mar 6, 2006, 11:34 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

Well although the new Mini (CoreDuo) seems sweet in every other aspect, it won't handle UT2004. I tried to play it with many different setting and it's just not happening. I am literally about to throw up from motion sickness. Even on the LOWEST settings and a resolution of 800x600 (I think) it was VERY choppy and no fun at all. I am not saying that it is pretty bad, I am saying that it is very bad. Now I never owned a G4 Mini to compare it to. As I said above I can only compare it to my QuickSilver 2002 Dual 1GHz Processors G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. There is no comparison at all.

I'm not upset about this at all. I certainly didn't buy the Mini to play games on, although playing my UT2004 would have been a nice bonus. I save the gaming for my PS2 and 55" HDTV!

My new Mini has BLOWN through all other tasks and tests so far. It is a very fast and capable little puter!

This may be an obvious question, but you do have the universal binary patch for UT, correct? That seems even worse than I would've expected... I would think that it'd at least be playable at 800x600 on the lowest settings.

doctre · Mar 7, 2006, 12:06 AM

Originally Posted by lookmark

It's Universal. Well, there you have it. Thanks for the report. I'd like to hear if WOW fares any better, but it's looking like the verdict is pretty much out, at least for non-casual games.

I installed WOW today and running around Org (you know how that is) I get between 8 and 18 fps with all sliders set to high running at 1280x1024 24bit 1x multisample (default). Its definitely playable in my opinion and actually handling better than the G4 mini did at the same resolution with all sliders at low.

lookmark · Mar 7, 2006, 12:30 PM

Ah, that's somewhat more encouraging news ... thanks for testing.

More info the mini's capabilities for WOW this thread here.

Long and short of it: don't even try running WOW on an Intel mini without bumping up the RAM.

JKT · Mar 7, 2006, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by lookmark

It did? Where did they say they installed a gig of RAM? I don't see it.

The table legend:

Speedmark 4.5 scores are relative to those of a 1.25GHz Mac mini, which is assigned a score of 100. Adobe Photoshop, Cinema 4D XL, iMovie, iTunes, and Zip Archive scores are in minutes:seconds. All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with 1GB of RAM, with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable. The Photoshop Suite test is a set of 14 scripted tasks using a 50MB file. Photoshop’s memory was set to 70 percent and History was set to Minimum. In iMovie, we applied the Aged video effect to a 1-minute movie. We converted 45 minutes of AAC audio files to MP3 using iTunes’ High Quality setting. 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. We created a Zip archive in the Finder from a 1GB folder.—Macworld Lab testing by James Galbraith and Jerry Jung

D'Espice · Mar 7, 2006, 12:43 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

Well although the new Mini (CoreDuo) seems sweet in every other aspect, it won't handle UT2004. I tried to play it with many different setting and it's just not happening. I am literally about to throw up from motion sickness. Even on the LOWEST settings and a resolution of 800x600 (I think) it was VERY choppy and no fun at all. I am not saying that it is pretty bad, I am saying that it is very bad. Now I never owned a G4 Mini to compare it to. As I said above I can only compare it to my QuickSilver 2002 Dual 1GHz Processors G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM and a GeForce4 Ti 4600. There is no comparison at all.

I'm not upset about this at all. I certainly didn't buy the Mini to play games on, although playing my UT2004 would have been a nice bonus. I save the gaming for my PS2 and 55" HDTV!

My new Mini has BLOWN through all other tasks and tests so far. It is a very fast and capable little puter!

This sounds like you're not running the universal binary but the PPC binary. I tried MTX Mototrax which is PPC and it runs like crap. According to other people, the UT2004 universal binary should run just fine on the Mini.

sniffer · 01:06 PM

Originally Posted by doctre

I installed WOW today and running around Org (you know how that is) I get between 8 and 18 fps with all sliders set to high running at 1280x1024 24bit 1x multisample (default). Its definitely playable in my opinion and actually handling better than the G4 mini did at the same resolution with all sliders at low.

Thanks for the info. Maybe that extra core is doing more than keeping an eye on WindowServer in the background. Tried setting the video settings down a bit and running around the auction houses?

doctre · Mar 7, 2006, 03:14 PM

Well they were all the way down when I first started and I was getting in the 20s in Org. Once I get home tonight I'll go through and see what best rates I can get with different settings.

sniffer · Mar 7, 2006, 04:06 PM

I would appreciate that doctre. Even if the GMA 950 is said to be a slouch for gaming, having a system fast enough to squeeze the game floating at all times in the double digits would make a world of difference for many of us coming from WOW on G4s.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 7, 2006, 04:51 PM

To be honest, I am not sure what binary I am running. I just loaded the game (UT2004) onto my Mini and tried to play it. Where would I obtain the correct binary?

JKT · Mar 7, 2006, 05:03 PM

Macupdate page on UT 2004 or Macgamefiles.com. You will have been playing the non-native version which will hopefully explain the poor fps.

lookmark · Mar 7, 2006, 05:21 PM

Originally Posted by JKT

The table legend:
All systems were running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with 1GB of RAM, with processor performance set to Highest in the Energy Saver preference pane when applicable.

Ah, thanks. Somehow I missed that.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 7, 2006, 05:59 PM

I am going to try again right now. I'll let you know. I just thought that since it was universal it would be ready to go on the Intel Macs.

D'Espice · Mar 7, 2006, 06:43 PM

Also, next time you wanna find out, right-click and Information will tell you whether it's PPC, Universal or Intel Binary.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 7, 2006, 07:16 PM

This patch is 200MB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MacOS-Fan · Mar 7, 2006, 07:50 PM

Well, MAYBE it got a little better at best. It is still no good. It's still choppy and hesitant. even at 640x480 it didn't play right. Any other ideas?

Tuoder · Mar 7, 2006, 08:35 PM

Originally Posted by MacOS-Fan

Well, MAYBE it got a little better at best. It is still no good. It's still choppy and hesitant. even at 640x480 it didn't play right. Any other ideas?

Wait for a Macintel desktop with a decent graphics card, like the iMac or Macbook Pro has already.

MacOS-Fan · Mar 8, 2006, 12:06 AM

Like I said above, I really don't care. I personally leave the gaming to my PS2 and 55" HDTV. I never planned on my Mini being a game machine.

doctre · Mar 8, 2006, 11:53 PM

Originally Posted by sniffer

I would appreciate that doctre. Even if the GMA 950 is said to be a slouch for gaming, having a system fast enough to squeeze the game floating at all times in the double digits would make a world of difference for many of us coming from WOW on G4s.

sniffer,
Sorry it took so long to respond. I've been playing with different settings all evening... I can't get any noticable change in fps. I went to freewind post in Thousand needles and at every rez and color depth I would get between 8 and 23 fps depending on which way I faced and what was around me. This was at all resolutions from 800x600 to 1680x1050. I couldn't get it to hold an average rate it was all over the place the whole time. Its still playable but I couldn't find any settings that could guarantee a frame rate.

sniffer · 02:42 AM

Thanks for taking the time to test all this doctre. I have a solo in order (three weeks shipping time in Scandinavia, poor us), so it's good to know WOW at least is an option for these machines, thought I was hoping for a little better results. Not that gaming is the main purpose for my investment thought. (Even if gaming was the reason to get a new machine, I wouldn't have cashed out for an iMac anyway, stupid Apple.)