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Intel Mac mini vram 256 meg????

Passante

Passante

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 16, 2004
860
0
on the sofa
Went to the Apple store today and tested the Mac Mini's handling of HD content from the Apple site. It was a dual core mini with 512 meg of ram.

Downloaded the wildlife reel from Apple's web site (720p resolution) and ran it in quicktime while I played with iPhoto effects and also previewed a slide show in iPhoto that contained lots of transitions. I also played with expose repeatedly while the quicktime move played. The mini hardly ever dropped blow 29 fps. Very impressive

I checked system profiler and checked the graphics card. It showed the Intel GMA950 graphics card with 256 meg of vram? Checked two minis and saw the same thing. What's with that? BTW nothing was open when I did this.

I also opened activity monitor and could not see the ram utilized by the graphics card.

Not sure about the info in the system profiler but I am impressed with the ability to decode HD content. Much better than my powerbook.
 
Kingsly

Kingsly

macrumors 68040
Aug 9, 2005
3,389
14
Either in front of a computer or behind a camera.
The Intel GMA950 shares system memory, so the OS was running on only 256 Mbytes of RAM. I think.
Anyway, I am happy to hear the Mini performs at least as well (if not better than) as its PPC ancestor.
For anyone that is interested, here is some info about the 950 (pulled from the above link):

256-bit graphics core running at 400MHz
Up to 10.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth with DDR2 667 system memory
1.6 GPixels/sec and 1.6 GTexels/sec fill rate
Up to 224 MB maximum video memory
2048x1536 at 75 Hz maximum resolution
Dynamic Display Modes for flat-panel, wide-screen and Digital TV support
Up to 4 pixels per clock rendering
Dual screen support through ADD2 digital video devices
HDTV 480i/p, 576i/p, 720i/p and 1080i/p display resolution support
Interlaced Display output support
16x9 and 16x10 Aspect Ratio for widescreen displays
2x2 Panel Scaler
High Definition Hardware Motion Compensation to support high definition hi-bitrate MPEG2 media playback
Up and Down Scaling of Video Content
High Definition Content Decode - up to two stream support
5x3 Overlay Filtering.

Overall, not bad for an Integrated Chipset.
 
BWhaler

BWhaler

macrumors 68040
Jan 8, 2003
3,789
6,249
Respectfully, I am not sure I buy this.

Apple reps are quotes as saying it is hard-wired to only use 64MB for apps, even if you have 2gigs installed.

Don't get me wrong, I hope you are right. I just bought a mini for my wife with 2gigs, so I would be happy if the OS assigned memory to the GPU dynamically...
 
iHeartTheApple

iHeartTheApple

macrumors 6502
Feb 13, 2006
338
0
Boston, MA
Passante said:
I checked system profiler and checked the graphics card. It showed the Intel GMA950 graphics card with 256 meg of vram? Checked two minis and saw the same thing. What's with that? BTW nothing was open when I did this.
Click to expand...

Very interesting...this sounds similar to the other thread where the system profiler said Intel Core Duo 1.5GHz and the "About This Mac" Screen said Intel Core Solo...

Can anyone verify that this is the case? JSW or any other new mini owners? This would be great if it's not a typo! :)
 
A

admanimal

macrumors 68040
Apr 22, 2005
3,531
2
iHeartTheApple said:
Very interesting...this sounds similar to the other thread where the system profiler said Intel Core Duo 1.5GHz and the "About This Mac" Screen said Intel Core Solo...

Can anyone verify that this is the case? JSW or any other new mini owners? This would be great if it's not a typo! :)
Click to expand...

My Core Solo (the one who's About This Mac reports being a Core Duo) says 64MB of VRAM in the system profiler.

My Mini will also play 720p with no sweat (about 60% CPU use), so the fact that the one that reported 256MB of VRAM could also play 720p doesn't really mean anything. If it was a Core Solo and could play 1080p with no sweat, then it would be something special.
 
Passante

Passante

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 16, 2004
860
0
on the sofa
BWhaler said:
Respectfully, I am not sure I buy this.

Apple reps are quotes as saying it is hard-wired to only use 64MB for apps, even if you have 2gigs installed.

Don't get me wrong, I hope you are right. I just bought a mini for my wife with 2gigs, so I would be happy if the OS assigned memory to the GPU dynamically...
Click to expand...

I saw it and I don't believe it. I was at the Apple store to play with the mini cause I want one for under my LCD tv. I imagine its a bug in the system profiler. I asked an apple rep about it and he gave some BS answer about that the great thing about integrated graphics. The 256 meg vram aside the mini felt snappy and handled iPhoto very well while decoding 720 p HD and driving a 20 inch LCD. Hope to see more definitive tests.

Nice of you to buy your wife a mini with 2 gigs ram wow!
 
generik

generik

macrumors 601
Aug 5, 2005
4,116
1
Minitrue
Kingsly said:
Apparently not. I am actually happy that they used a GMA950. Gone are the days of maxing out VRAM and cursing that Apple didn't include an upgrade slot.
Click to expand...

I just checked mine and it is definitely 64mb of shared memory.. is there somewhere in openfirmware or something where you can change the amount of ram allocated to the graphics chip?
 
Passante

Passante

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 16, 2004
860
0
on the sofa
generik said:
I just checked mine and it is definitely 64mb of shared memory.. is there somewhere in openfirmware or something where you can change the amount of ram allocated to the graphics chip?
Click to expand...

Now I'm starting to doubt myself. If anyone is near the King of Prussia Apple store please check the vram on the minis on the floor. :confused:
 
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