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Gaming On The Mini? (Redo)

C

CCBPES34

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
16
0
Ok, now that the new Mac Mini is released. I figured I'd ask again. I am planning to get a new computer this year, and I can't really afford the iMac I'd like. It will be for casual use with some gaming thrown in. Now before I go on, I'd like to say that I do not demand 60 FPS with everything on high. I am a casual gamer who is used to Wii Gaming. In fact, I shot the Wii the other day after it finally broke (good riddance.:)) I'd be happy with 30 FPS on mediumish settings. The games I like or would like to play are:
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Left 4 Dead
  • Left 4 Dead 2
  • Portal
  • Portal 2
  • Mafia II
  • COD 4
  • COD 5
  • Modern Warfare 3 ( only if there is no IWnet)
  • Battlefield 3
  • Bad Company 2
  • Garry's Mod
  • Assassin's Creed 2 (maybe)
  • Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (maybe)
Yeah I know, long list. Obviously, I'd have to Boot Camp it for some like Mafia, or more importantly BF3. How do you think the Base Mini would handle those games? I could afford the Mini with the AMD, but I'd like to save as much as I can. Any recommended upgrades?
Thanks in advance, CCB
 
If I were on a budget I'll go for a hackintosh and good controllers, other than that I think the mini is great for those games. My MB from 2006 stills doing good with casual gaming
 
superericla said:
The Mac Mini with the AMD discrete graphics would be highly recommended for playing games.
Click to expand...

The AMD mini will do OK as a casual gaming machine it will run all the games we currently sell (and some of the up and coming ones I can't talk about ;)). I would highly recommend having 4GB (or more) of RAM as 2GB is not really enough, you will notice the improvement in all applications not just games.

Edwin
 
edddeduck said:
The AMD mini will do OK as a casual gaming machine it will run all the games we currently sell (and some of the up and coming ones I can't talk about ;)). I would highly recommend having 4GB (or more) of RAM as 2GB is not really enough, you will notice the improvement in all applications not just games.

Edwin
Click to expand...

How would the Base Mini with 8 GBs run the games? The Intel shares with the main memory correct? So, in this case, more is better, or am I completely wrong? I have no doubt that the AMD would be very good, especially with what I am used to, but I think twice about it because of the overpriced memory that Apple has on it. I cannot justify paying $100 for 2 GBs of memory more, when you can get 8 GBs for $70. Mind you, The Apple Factory RAM upgrade looks good, as I have never upgraded memory before, but since Apple makes it look so easy on their website, I assume its a piece of cake?
 
Games wouldn't likely benefit from the 8GB of RAM over 4GB, but your overall computing experience will benefit. It will help when you can ignore leaving programs open like a web browser, email, and other things and you can launch a game and not worry about closing apps.

The 6630 should run most of those games on Medium or High settings well. Newer games and one listed that isn't even out yet will probably be on Low to Medium graphics settings.
 
CCBPES34 said:
How would the Base Mini with 8 GBs run the games? The Intel shares with the main memory correct? So, in this case, more is better, or am I completely wrong? I have no doubt that the AMD would be very good, especially with what I am used to, but I think twice about it because of the overpriced memory that Apple has on it. I cannot justify paying $100 for 2 GBs of memory more, when you can get 8 GBs for $70. Mind you, The Apple Factory RAM upgrade looks good, as I have never upgraded memory before, but since Apple makes it look so easy on their website, I assume its a piece of cake?
Click to expand...

I would personally buy the RAM separately as it is usually a lot cheaper to buy it from crucial and install it yourself. Installing RAM in a Metal form factor mini is quite easy.

I would highly recommend you get the mini with the AMD card, you can always upgrade to more RAM (as the post above says the more RAM the better). Remember with the mini you can buy more RAM at a later date you cannot upgrade your graphics card.

The difference between the Intel card and the AMD is the AMD can run modern games on Medium (in some cases slightly higher) the HD 3000 Intel card will play games on the Low settings so will get out of date a lot faster.

Finally having a dedicated card like the AMD 6000 series means you are not sharing your system RAM with your graphics card which gives you more RAM for your system as it does not need to donate at least 256MB to the graphics card.

Edwin
 
I just got a new Mac mini 2011 with the AMD graphics chip and can tell you that running games is smooth. Out of the following games you posted, I can run the following below with no hitch. As for the others make sure they are Mac compliant and i'm sure they will work also! :)

CCBPES34 said:
  • Team Fortress 2
  • Left 4 Dead
  • Left 4 Dead 2
  • Portal
  • Portal 2
  • Garry's Mod
Click to expand...

I recommend you check out the Steam store for other games. I believe Assassins Creed will run fine, but expect you'l need Windows in order to run Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 when they are released. Also you can download a copy of COD4 via the MAc App Store but be expecting to pa £30 for it, a bit overpriced I think. However there is no other way to get it legit as the Mac mini has no optical drive...
 
Ryan Stewart said:
I just got a new Mac mini 2011 with the AMD graphics chip and can tell you that running games is smooth. Out of the following games you posted, I can run the following below with no hitch. As for the others make sure they are Mac compliant and i'm sure they will work also! :)



I recommend you check out the Steam store for other games. I believe Assassins Creed will run fine, but expect you'l need Windows in order to run Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3 when they are released. Also you can download a copy of COD4 via the MAc App Store but be expecting to pa £30 for it, a bit overpriced I think. However there is no other way to get it legit as the Mac mini has no optical drive...
Click to expand...

You can always use a cheap $20 USB DVD drive, I have a MacBookPro with no DVD drive (I removed it for a second HD) and a cheap under £20 external DVD does me proud when I need to use the odd optical media.

Edwin
 
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