Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

2012 Mini owners... have you tried any games out yet?

madeirabhoy said:
and even when there is a mac version the system requirements are always steeper.

my mac gaming is football manager and civ...anything else is in bootcamp but id rather bootcamp from a mac than have just a pc
Click to expand...

You know, I've found that, after mountain lion came out, my Mac versions of games (portal 2, and half life 2 and such) have gotten a lot better frame rates with higher settings. If you have some games on steam that have a Mac version, you might want to check it out. Apple may be catching up in the video driver department. As for your last statement... Amen brother!

Ps Is that football manager game a soccer game or an American football game?
 
Aware that there is a difference on what you can run on mac OS, but I am switching over the whole house to apple. I have quite a steam library and if they dont run on mac steam will be using bootcamp. Its the only time I expect to be in windows tho!

My current laptop is getting on for six years old and has a m7950gtx in it. The thing was a beast when i got it costing several thousand and can still handly anything, but it on reduced settings. The Mac mini low end I am getting for my daughter beats the crap out of it for a fraction of the cost. Very Cool! :)
 
Treq said:
You know, I've found that, after mountain lion came out, my Mac versions of games (portal 2, and half life 2 and such) have gotten a lot better frame rates with higher settings. If you have some games on steam that have a Mac version, you might want to check it out. Apple may be catching up in the video driver department. As for your last statement... Amen brother!

Ps Is that football manager game a soccer game or an American football game?
Click to expand...

main issue for me was civ games, always better on pc ...


football manager is THE football (ie soccer to you) management game.
 
Would someone know (or be willing to test) how CS:GO is performing on the new Mac Mini? It runs with almost everything on low on my 2010 MBA, so I'm guessing it will run decent.

Probably going for the i7/8GB with a Dell 23" screen.
 
Zorba said:
Would someone know (or be willing to test) how CS:GO is performing on the new Mac Mini? It runs with almost everything on low on my 2010 MBA, so I'm guessing it will run decent.

Probably going for the i7/8GB with a Dell 23" screen.
Click to expand...

I've got a 2012 Air and a 2011 Mac Mini...Pretty much anything running on the Air (WoW, D3, etc.) runs just fine on the Mini, w/ slightly higher settings.

(Keep in mind, I threw 8gb of RAM into the Mini)

If there'd be any difference w/ a 2012 Mac Mini, it'd be...well, scratch that, same difference. no discrete card, but better CPU+ (still) more RAM than the MBA should let you step things up a *little*
 
fig said:
Video playback is primarily CPU driven and has little to do with the graphics card.

It also isn't THAT taxing on the system just for playback, I watch HD video on my 3 1/2 year old aluminum 13" MacBook.
Click to expand...

Um what?!?! Actually almost all video playback is done by the GPU.... Otherwise people wouldn't upgrade their Video Card in their HTPC's to get smoother playback. The GPU is what does the decoding of MPEG2 and H.264 videos.
 
I stand corrected. As my crappy onboard video from almost 4 years ago plays back HD just fine I didn't think it had much to do with the card.
 
I have the Mid 2.3 GHz i7 with 8GB of ram (16GB on the way) and I just tried out COD4 mac version and have it at 1920x1080 and it played just fine. I was getting 35 - 65 FPS all settings on max.

I went from a 27" iMac to this mini and so far I'm very please with it overall performance is noticeably faster then my iMac (Had a 2011 i5) and its nice to know that it can handle some games.
 
dlewis23 said:
I have the Mid 2.3 GHz i7 with 8GB of ram (16GB on the way) and I just tried out COD4 mac version and have it at 1920x1080 and it played just fine. I was getting 35 - 65 FPS all settings on max.

I went from a 27" iMac to this mini and so far I'm very please with it overall performance is noticeably faster then my iMac (Had a 2011 i5) and its nice to know that it can handle some games.
Click to expand...

Was that in OSX or did you bootcamp into windows? And how was the fan noise? I have my finger in the purchase button...
 
Treq said:
Was that in OSX or did you bootcamp into windows? And how was the fan noise? I have my finger in the purchase button...
Click to expand...

It was in OSX, I have the mac version. I couldn't tell the fan rev. up till I exited the game and say that it was at 3800 RPM.

Real quite. Overall very good, push the buy button. :D
 
has anyone tried skyrim, civ 5, la noire, deus ex 3, borderlands on one?

is the choice of model likely to make much of a difference?
 
Trtrmitya said:
Before they had external Graphics card.
2012 model lacks one.
Click to expand...

Modern graphics cards do heavy lifting for 3D rendering engines. Decoding video codecs is a totally different thing and not dependent on having a high end video chip.

----------
fig said:
I stand corrected. As my crappy onboard video from almost 4 years ago plays back HD just fine I didn't think it had much to do with the card.
Click to expand...

It doesn't, it's just people who have no clue what the parts in their computer do QQing because of their own ignorance.
 
Anyone tried World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria yet? It's the only game I play, and it is manageable on lowest settings on my Macbook Air (with the HD3000 integrated graphics) running a Thunderbolt display. I'm assuming the HD4000 would be a nice little bump, as I'm planning on switching to a Mac mini as my primary computer.
 
Call me crazy, but having an Xbox and Ps3 right next to my computer I honestly see no need to ever game on a computer......

By the same token, is it really that hard/expensive for the mac Mini to at least have a graphics card like the Xbox 360 has which is at least 5 years old?
 
tears2040 said:
Call me crazy, but having an Xbox and Ps3 right next to my computer I honestly see no need to ever game on a computer......

By the same token, is it really that hard/expensive for the mac Mini to at least have a graphics card like the Xbox 360 has which is at least 5 years old?
Click to expand...

The graphics card on a console is a cheap card optimised to within an inch of its life for games performance at 720p or 1080p and 30 or sometimes 60fps. Even then there are trade offs within that to get things looking good. Forza Motorsport 4 runs at 60FPS, because the environment is limited to a few miles of racetrack and landscape. Forza Horizon is 30FPS to allow the 'mini Colorado' open world environment.

A computer graphics system has to handle higher frame rates and higher resolutions than 1080p and a wider range of uses so isn't optimised for frame rate like a console.

Basically, a graphics card from a 360 in a computer would not be a nice thing :p .
 
My Mac Mini is finally set up, and it seems to be as fast as I hoped (although I hadn't time to test any heavy duty tasks yet). Will try out some games on 1440p now.

Okay, first off, Diablo 3. On 1440p with high textures, you get around 17 fps, but it doesn't drop in combat, so it was surprisingly playable (although it did look quite laggy), with all settings on low you get 19 - 25 fps. On 1080p with high textures you get quite stable 30 fps.

Now, Starcraft 2. This was a very positive surprise! With medium textures, all CPU dependent graphic settings on ultra and all GPU dependent graphic settings on low I got quite stable 55 fps in 1440p resolution! It drops somewhat below 35 fps in combat, but is always perfectly playable!
 
Last edited:
Poki said:
Now, Starcraft 2. This was a very positive surprise! With medium textures, all CPU dependent graphic settings on ultra and all GPU dependent graphic settings on low I got quite stable 55 fps in 1440p resolution! It drops somewhat below 35 fps in combat, but is always perfectly playable!
Click to expand...

Could be a dumb question but how do you know which settings are CPU / GPU dependent?
 
InsanO said:
Could be a dumb question but how do you know which settings are CPU / GPU dependent?
Click to expand...

In most Blizzard games, it shows you if it's GPU or CPU dependent when you hover over the setting with your mouse.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back