I checked the Apple website yesterday to find that the Mac Mini has been totally revamped in all directions. Awesome! I'm really thinking of buying a Mini, as my sister loves her Mini and my dad loves his Macbook Pro. I was a little disappointed though, to find that just like the new Macbooks, only 256 megabytes of the Mini's system ram were dedicated to the new graphics. Obviously I'm not going to be running really taxing 3d games, but even on light games like Portal and Team Fortress 2 (the kind of things I would be playing, after all, steam did come out for Mac) 256 is a little sketchy. Giving the graphics just a little more ram, say, 512 MBs, would be really nice. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I couldn't, but before I buy a computer, I was just wondering if it's possible to do that.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Hi, I have a question about the new Mini, concerning graphics ram.
- Thread starter Dan92
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You got a link or source for that? My old MB13 and MBP15 also has a 9400m thats shared with the system memory (same GPU the previous Mac Mini).
Pretty sure it has 256MB, even with 4GB of memory.
Your right, I stand corrected, just checked and my mini is 256mb with 4GB memory....
The footnotes on the Mac Mini specs page say:
"Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 256MB."
perhaps it goes up to 512mb as needed on the fly, or perhaps when 8gb is installed.
Anyone have a new mini with 8gb of ram?
"Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 256MB."
perhaps it goes up to 512mb as needed on the fly, or perhaps when 8gb is installed.
Anyone have a new mini with 8gb of ram?
I am very interested in this. If plunking in 8gb of RAM would increase the graphics memory beyond 256MB, I could maybe justify upgrading from my early 2009 Mini.
Confirmed that it's always 256MB of allocated memory regardless of system memory (2GB, 4GB or 8GB).
The minimum allocated to the graphics chip is 256MB. It can use more, if needed.
This is a direct quote from the 2010 Mini tech specs, "Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 256MB."
That means that graphics has priority access to memory, and the OS allocation may be reduced if the graphics requires more than 256MB. I can see this being the case when rendering complex 3D textures at the maximum resolution of 2560x1600 on an external display through the Mini DisplayPort, while simultaneously feeding 1920x1200 through HDMI to another display.
This is a direct quote from the 2010 Mini tech specs, "Memory available to Mac OS X may vary depending on graphics needs. Minimum graphics memory usage is 256MB."
That means that graphics has priority access to memory, and the OS allocation may be reduced if the graphics requires more than 256MB. I can see this being the case when rendering complex 3D textures at the maximum resolution of 2560x1600 on an external display through the Mini DisplayPort, while simultaneously feeding 1920x1200 through HDMI to another display.