Good to see games look alright on the Mini. I'm looking at getting the same model for video production and atm the only games I play on my Macbook are GTA:SA and Unreal 2004.
It's nice to know I'll be able to play them at 1920 x 1200 if you can play more modern games quite well. My only concern is that some VRAM will be spent on my second monitor but that shouldn't make too much of a difference.
@Deokishisu Well you can play UT 2004 and GTA:SA at full HD resolution but you can't use as high resolution in the newer games on this Mac mini. It's good point you made that 256 MB of VRAM is very little in these days. I don't know how that VRAM will work with multiple monitors. I only know that I can't use high resolutions on demanding games.. otherwise this mini performs great in everyday use. 720p is enough for me :)
@pafcio1978 Hello! If you are taking the full advantage of the Mac mini's CPU and you are running games for example on highest possible settings (so that game won't lag) and fps is like 30 then the fans are making some loud noise.
Of course it's difficult to say how loud you would think the sound is but for me it isn't too loud at all. When Mac mini is idle you can barely hear the fans.
@yazeed0ps3 Why so many are asking how this Mac mini can run Minecraft :D . I think it can run at least almost at the highest settings except very high resolutions like 1080p. I am almost sure this Mac mini can run Minecraft at the highest settings and 720p resolution.
Can it play any higher end games? Because the games you demoed aren't really that demanding -- I can run them on my cheap laptop with integrated graphics. I don't expect it to be able to run Crysis or anything (although it probably could on low to medium settings), but maybe something like GTA 4?
@SalientK This my i7 and HD Radeon 6630 configured Mac mini can run Crysis 1 at 720p and medium setting perfectly. I hope you aren't playing GTA 4 on PC because it's ported to that platform very badly. You can run GTA 4 on this Mac mini at medium settings for sure. GTA 4 is quite old game already so it can run on the Mac mini just great. I am playing BF3 on Mac mini with lowest setting and at 720p. I hope this demostrated Mac mini's performance.
@mattoffthewall I would say that these aren't running very well on 1080p. I know that Portal 2 is running fluently only just barely but other games will have serious lag. Of course some lighter games will run smoothly on 1080p but not like Crysis 2 or BF3.
@darth2499 Good question! I haven't found but only just one thing what is causing lag because of overheating and that is facebook game Sims Social. I found this very odd because that is the ONLY thing when mac is overheating too much in my use. I don't play any other flash games so the problem must be because of flash. I don't have any problems with overall use or running installed games or software. Believe me, only flash is behind any kind of overheating but I don't know why.
@TH370M1N470R I'm not sure. However I know that especially 5400rpm hard drive will make everyday use a little bit slower than 7200rpm hard drive. I recommend that 7200rpm HDD much more. Between i5 and i7 you could see some difference in performance but not very huge.
@4mIhere Thank you very much, but remember that the iMac 21.5 inch minimum configuration is only £100 more and it has a quad core processor (2.5ghz i5), a much better GPU (the AMD Radeon 6750M with 512mb of GDDR5 memory) and it comes with 1080p 21.5 inch LED display and a magic mouse and wireless keyboard. The only was the mac mini is better is in hard drive space (750GB over the iMac's 500GB (Both at 7200rpm)) By the way, thanks for subscribing to my channel :).
thinking of getting either the cheaper mac mini, or the more expensive one with the AMD graphics card. i want to start gaming but was just wondering if the Intel HD 3000 iGPU is good enough for a newbie gamer, or whether i should fork out more money to get the upgraded one?
@MrJackAVFC I highly recommend to buy the Mac mini with AMD HD Radeon 6630 GPU. Intel's GPU's aren't none as good as AMD's. That Intel HD 3000 is good enough for light gaming but games won't look particularly great.
@MrJackAVFC The Intel HD Graphics 3000 are TERRIBLE, the AMD will be far better, I have that model currently (but with 8gb of RAM), although there is a problem with the fans, I'm going to back to Apple and try and get an iMac ;). On Minecraft it only performs as well as an integrated GPU (fast graphics, short render distance, everything else off (except bobbing, that's okay ;) )), and even then it gets hot, at one point my mac mini got hot to touch, although the fans are broken.
This is one of the most comprehensive gameplay demo videos of the mac mini online. Though is it possible for me to request 1920x1080 gameplay footage? I'm curious to see how the new mac mini handles gaming at high resolutions, as it's not very graphically intensive at the resolutions you we're running.
@edihan Good point! I may upload (sometimes) 1920x1080 resolution gameplay videos but I can say straight off that this Mac mini can't run games on that high resolution very smoothly. Only the most lightest games can run fluently but graphic settings must be at the lowest for sure except of that resolution of course.
@4mIhere Had my Mac Mini for a few months now. From what I've discovered, games seem to have horrible compatibility issues with the HDMI cable and games set at 1920x1080. So even if the Mini could potentially run those games at that resolution, the problem hinders the game so much that it appears as if it couldn't. So I'm actually "stuck" at running games at 1280x720 myself too.
@edihan The reason isn't because of HDMI cable/port issues. It's because of 256MB VRAM (Video RAM). Today at least 1GB of VRAM is quite recommended for gaming so this Mac mini's 256MB of VRAM is so little that it can't hande high resolutions like 1080p.
What's the point of playing this on bootcamp when you have Mac version of the same game? Yes I know Mac version will cut few fps than Windows version but you should show the gameplay in Mac version.
@HLM190586 I don't know any good screen recording programs to OS X and that is the only reason why I don't record games on OS X. I like using Fraps because it records uncompressed video so it wont take much CPU's power. I think it's stupid to use an external camera because then the picture quality is not at its best. I don't think that Mac version is cutting any more fps than Windows version if you would have Fraps on OS X.
@HLM190586 Yes but I believe it boots up in 32 bit by default but is compatible with 64 bit apps on Leopard and Lion, and you can boot in 64 mode bit if you want too, but with only four gigs of ram on my 2009 model, why bother? Its all good.
I do multitrack audio recording and it does the job just fine. I only asked because I noticed the new mini's can hold more than 4 gigs of ram.
@mattoffthewall Portal 2 and BioShock 2 are running mostly on highest settings but Left 4 Dead 2 is running with medium settings. All are using 1280x720 resolution what is HD video quality so it's looking great. Those games aren't using as high settings as they could. Note that recording these games is taking some CPU's power. So without recording while playing I can use almost highest settings.
@mattoffthewall Thanks for asking! I am recording this on Windows using recording program called Fraps. You can install Windows to Mac using Boot Camp which comes with OS X. Boot Camp is a program that assists you in installing Windows to Mac.
Well this pc outperforms mine with 4x the VRAM in every way but anti aliasing which you wouldn't need on this becauseceverything is already very smooth and fast
@Nilsfried I don't think that there are very big difference between the i5 and i7. As long as you select the model which has AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics card.
@Nilsfried I can quite surely say that it do not have a very big difference. I can recommend i5 for sure even for gaming but I just wanted the most fastest processor available for the Mac mini ;)
@4mIhere I have the i5 2.5GHz version now... Of course it's not really fast, but for me it's ok, didn't expect much more of this tiny box :) Even though I wanted to get the i7, but didn't wanna wait for it and pay another 160 bugs for a feature I didn't really know about how big the difference was (I got it for 738€ from amazon instead of 799€ + 100€ for the i7)...
@Nilsfried Go for 8GB of RAM, that makes a big difference. My 13" Early-2011 MBP (I believe Mac Mini uses the same motherboard and CPU as lower end MBP) is a lot smoother after I installed 2 x 4GB 1333 MHz Kingston RAM and could handle some games even with Intel HD 3000 now.
absolutely great, planning to buy one with the exact same configuration, add 4gb RAM later, apple charges 4 times as much as they should. I might add a small SSD for the OS later, to give it an extra performace boost. Great Video! Subscribed!
@marcuccio Actually I just added those 8GB of memory. What I know at least games just do not need more than 4GB of memory so it wouldn't affect on games performance. 8GB of memory would still be a lot of help to heavy video and image editing programs.
Good to see games look alright on the Mini. I'm looking at getting the same model for video production and atm the only games I play on my Macbook are GTA:SA and Unreal 2004.
It's nice to know I'll be able to play them at 1920 x 1200 if you can play more modern games quite well. My only concern is that some VRAM will be spent on my second monitor but that shouldn't make too much of a difference.
Deokishisu 4 days ago
@Deokishisu Well you can play UT 2004 and GTA:SA at full HD resolution but you can't use as high resolution in the newer games on this Mac mini. It's good point you made that 256 MB of VRAM is very little in these days. I don't know how that VRAM will work with multiple monitors. I only know that I can't use high resolutions on demanding games.. otherwise this mini performs great in everyday use. 720p is enough for me :)
4mIhere 4 days ago
Hi! Is Your mac mini noisy durning gaming?
pafcio1978 1 week ago
@pafcio1978 Hello! If you are taking the full advantage of the Mac mini's CPU and you are running games for example on highest possible settings (so that game won't lag) and fps is like 30 then the fans are making some loud noise.
Of course it's difficult to say how loud you would think the sound is but for me it isn't too loud at all. When Mac mini is idle you can barely hear the fans.
4mIhere 1 week ago
Thank you - very useful vid :D
JmaesN 2 weeks ago
why does that woman speak with autotune on ?
alex2mason 3 weeks ago
@alex2mason Because "she" is a machine!
4mIhere 1 week ago
Do you think that this can run minecraft at the max settings?
yazeed0ps3 1 month ago
@yazeed0ps3 Why so many are asking how this Mac mini can run Minecraft :D . I think it can run at least almost at the highest settings except very high resolutions like 1080p. I am almost sure this Mac mini can run Minecraft at the highest settings and 720p resolution.
4mIhere 1 month ago
Can it play any higher end games? Because the games you demoed aren't really that demanding -- I can run them on my cheap laptop with integrated graphics. I don't expect it to be able to run Crysis or anything (although it probably could on low to medium settings), but maybe something like GTA 4?
SalientK 1 month ago
@SalientK This my i7 and HD Radeon 6630 configured Mac mini can run Crysis 1 at 720p and medium setting perfectly. I hope you aren't playing GTA 4 on PC because it's ported to that platform very badly. You can run GTA 4 on this Mac mini at medium settings for sure. GTA 4 is quite old game already so it can run on the Mac mini just great. I am playing BF3 on Mac mini with lowest setting and at 720p. I hope this demostrated Mac mini's performance.
4mIhere 1 month ago
how do these games play on 1080p?
mattoffthewall 2 months ago
@mattoffthewall I would say that these aren't running very well on 1080p. I know that Portal 2 is running fluently only just barely but other games will have serious lag. Of course some lighter games will run smoothly on 1080p but not like Crysis 2 or BF3.
4mIhere 2 months ago
any overheat that may cause lag?
darth2499 3 months ago
@darth2499 Good question! I haven't found but only just one thing what is causing lag because of overheating and that is facebook game Sims Social. I found this very odd because that is the ONLY thing when mac is overheating too much in my use. I don't play any other flash games so the problem must be because of flash. I don't have any problems with overall use or running installed games or software. Believe me, only flash is behind any kind of overheating but I don't know why.
4mIhere 2 months ago
Nice what a mac mini can do!
ZBSlaya 3 months ago
Do you think it would have such a performance with the 2.5GHz i5, 5400rpm 500gb HDD, but 8gb of ram?
TH370M1N470R 4 months ago
@TH370M1N470R I'm not sure. However I know that especially 5400rpm hard drive will make everyday use a little bit slower than 7200rpm hard drive. I recommend that 7200rpm HDD much more. Between i5 and i7 you could see some difference in performance but not very huge.
4mIhere 4 months ago
@4mIhere Thank you very much, but remember that the iMac 21.5 inch minimum configuration is only £100 more and it has a quad core processor (2.5ghz i5), a much better GPU (the AMD Radeon 6750M with 512mb of GDDR5 memory) and it comes with 1080p 21.5 inch LED display and a magic mouse and wireless keyboard. The only was the mac mini is better is in hard drive space (750GB over the iMac's 500GB (Both at 7200rpm)) By the way, thanks for subscribing to my channel :).
TH370M1N470R 4 months ago
@TH370M1N470R Oops, I was looking at the subscriptions rather than the subscribers :P
TH370M1N470R 4 months ago
thinking of getting either the cheaper mac mini, or the more expensive one with the AMD graphics card. i want to start gaming but was just wondering if the Intel HD 3000 iGPU is good enough for a newbie gamer, or whether i should fork out more money to get the upgraded one?
MrJackAVFC 4 months ago
@MrJackAVFC I highly recommend to buy the Mac mini with AMD HD Radeon 6630 GPU. Intel's GPU's aren't none as good as AMD's. That Intel HD 3000 is good enough for light gaming but games won't look particularly great.
4mIhere 4 months ago
@MrJackAVFC The Intel HD Graphics 3000 are TERRIBLE, the AMD will be far better, I have that model currently (but with 8gb of RAM), although there is a problem with the fans, I'm going to back to Apple and try and get an iMac ;). On Minecraft it only performs as well as an integrated GPU (fast graphics, short render distance, everything else off (except bobbing, that's okay ;) )), and even then it gets hot, at one point my mac mini got hot to touch, although the fans are broken.
TH370M1N470R 4 months ago
This is one of the most comprehensive gameplay demo videos of the mac mini online. Though is it possible for me to request 1920x1080 gameplay footage? I'm curious to see how the new mac mini handles gaming at high resolutions, as it's not very graphically intensive at the resolutions you we're running.
edihan 4 months ago 2
@edihan Good point! I may upload (sometimes) 1920x1080 resolution gameplay videos but I can say straight off that this Mac mini can't run games on that high resolution very smoothly. Only the most lightest games can run fluently but graphic settings must be at the lowest for sure except of that resolution of course.
4mIhere 2 months ago
@4mIhere Had my Mac Mini for a few months now. From what I've discovered, games seem to have horrible compatibility issues with the HDMI cable and games set at 1920x1080. So even if the Mini could potentially run those games at that resolution, the problem hinders the game so much that it appears as if it couldn't. So I'm actually "stuck" at running games at 1280x720 myself too.
edihan 2 months ago
@edihan yes that's true.. only VERY light games can run in that 1080p resolution
4mIhere 1 month ago
@edihan The reason isn't because of HDMI cable/port issues. It's because of 256MB VRAM (Video RAM). Today at least 1GB of VRAM is quite recommended for gaming so this Mac mini's 256MB of VRAM is so little that it can't hande high resolutions like 1080p.
4mIhere 1 week ago
@4mIhere Wow. That actually makes a lot of sense. I never even considered that factor. Thanks!
edihan 1 week ago
What's the point of playing this on bootcamp when you have Mac version of the same game? Yes I know Mac version will cut few fps than Windows version but you should show the gameplay in Mac version.
I rather buy separate gaming PC for that.
HLM190586 5 months ago
@HLM190586 I don't know any good screen recording programs to OS X and that is the only reason why I don't record games on OS X. I like using Fraps because it records uncompressed video so it wont take much CPU's power. I think it's stupid to use an external camera because then the picture quality is not at its best. I don't think that Mac version is cutting any more fps than Windows version if you would have Fraps on OS X.
4mIhere 5 months ago
@4mIhere Try Screenflow.
mattoffthewall 3 months ago
@mattoffthewall Thanks a lot! :)
4mIhere 2 months ago
Does the 2011 mini run on 64bit?
benthemiester 5 months ago
@benthemiester Yes! This is running on 64-bit Windows 7 and OS X Lion is of course 64-bit.
4mIhere 5 months ago
@benthemiester
The Mini uses 64-bit processor since 2008.
HLM190586 5 months ago
@HLM190586 Yes but I believe it boots up in 32 bit by default but is compatible with 64 bit apps on Leopard and Lion, and you can boot in 64 mode bit if you want too, but with only four gigs of ram on my 2009 model, why bother? Its all good.
I do multitrack audio recording and it does the job just fine. I only asked because I noticed the new mini's can hold more than 4 gigs of ram.
benthemiester 5 months ago
are you running the game on windows or mac os x? thanks :D
FelixSchmetzTV 5 months ago
@FelixSchmetzTV You will find the answer to your question by clicking 11:39 :)
4mIhere 5 months ago
thanks for uploading :)
TheARTnSTUFF 5 months ago
Are you playing on the highest res.?
mattoffthewall 5 months ago
@mattoffthewall Portal 2 and BioShock 2 are running mostly on highest settings but Left 4 Dead 2 is running with medium settings. All are using 1280x720 resolution what is HD video quality so it's looking great. Those games aren't using as high settings as they could. Note that recording these games is taking some CPU's power. So without recording while playing I can use almost highest settings.
4mIhere 5 months ago
@4mIhere Thanks!!
mattoffthewall 5 months ago
is this Mac OS X or Windows?
mattoffthewall 5 months ago
@mattoffthewall Thanks for asking! I am recording this on Windows using recording program called Fraps. You can install Windows to Mac using Boot Camp which comes with OS X. Boot Camp is a program that assists you in installing Windows to Mac.
4mIhere 5 months ago
Comment removed
mattoffthewall 5 months ago
can you try out team fortress 2 and uberstrike for me? both are free to play. thanks :)
aRAUSEr7 5 months ago
@aRAUSEr7 I will try at least Team Fortress 2 when I have time. Just wait :)
4mIhere 5 months ago
@4mIhere alright thank you :D
aRAUSEr7 5 months ago
If you're running FRAPS, your running the game through Bootcamp and not actually through the Mac OS.
padawanmage71 6 months ago
And yes I know it's a mac, also try out minecraft
WellUnder9000 6 months ago
Well this pc outperforms mine with 4x the VRAM in every way but anti aliasing which you wouldn't need on this becauseceverything is already very smooth and fast
WellUnder9000 6 months ago
Do you know if the upgrade to the i7 CPU makes a big difference for gaming or other programs?
Nilsfried 6 months ago
@Nilsfried I don't think that there are very big difference between the i5 and i7. As long as you select the model which has AMD Radeon HD 6630 graphics card.
4mIhere 5 months ago
@4mIhere Thanks for the reply!
Nilsfried 5 months ago
@Nilsfried I can quite surely say that it do not have a very big difference. I can recommend i5 for sure even for gaming but I just wanted the most fastest processor available for the Mac mini ;)
4mIhere 2 months ago
@4mIhere I have the i5 2.5GHz version now... Of course it's not really fast, but for me it's ok, didn't expect much more of this tiny box :) Even though I wanted to get the i7, but didn't wanna wait for it and pay another 160 bugs for a feature I didn't really know about how big the difference was (I got it for 738€ from amazon instead of 799€ + 100€ for the i7)...
Nilsfried 2 months ago
@Nilsfried That was a great bargain ;)
4mIhere 1 month ago
@Nilsfried Go for 8GB of RAM, that makes a big difference. My 13" Early-2011 MBP (I believe Mac Mini uses the same motherboard and CPU as lower end MBP) is a lot smoother after I installed 2 x 4GB 1333 MHz Kingston RAM and could handle some games even with Intel HD 3000 now.
Enzo20061234 3 weeks ago
would like to see how it handles minecraft, on full settings......in a boat
koopa64z 6 months ago
Really helpful vid, please keep uploading more on this model! :-D
TRMugshoTT1337 6 months ago
thanks, this was really helpful
molotovcobra 6 months ago
absolutely great, planning to buy one with the exact same configuration, add 4gb RAM later, apple charges 4 times as much as they should. I might add a small SSD for the OS later, to give it an extra performace boost. Great Video! Subscribed!
theinbetweener91 6 months ago
@theinbetweener91 You cannot "add" 4GB; if you want to upgrade to 8GB RAM you have to replace 2x2GB by 2x4GB, so you would have to buy all the 8GB.
Nilsfried 6 months ago
@Nilsfried true, my mistake, since the mac mini only has two RAM slots.
theinbetweener91 6 months ago
This is great. You actually "Show" what it can do and not talk about it (no disrespect). Keeps those games coming. Thanks.
nattrak 6 months ago
great vid :-)
MikeyZeov 6 months ago
Wow !! Not bad at all !! Do you think that with 8gb of RAM the performance will be better ?? I'm waiting for more videos ;-)
marcuccio 6 months ago
@marcuccio Actually I just added those 8GB of memory. What I know at least games just do not need more than 4GB of memory so it wouldn't affect on games performance. 8GB of memory would still be a lot of help to heavy video and image editing programs.
4mIhere 6 months ago