[intel mac mini] what about graphix?

[zoran]

Intel GMA950, thats the mac mini grafx card! Does anyone know what its capable of? Can it play warcraft3, wow, quake?

 

[jsw]

Depending on who you ask, it'll either be sufficient for "mid-tier" games like WCIII, or it'll be barely capable of displaying text on the screen.

I'd wait for reviews of real-world performance before paying much heed to anyone's predictions.

 

[yoda13]

I would wait for real world benchmarks too. I am dissappointed in the card, but that doesn't mean it won't be able to do the job. From what I read last night, the consensus seems to lean towards the fact that it will do everything but play games well, if you outfit the machine with enough RAM. However, I feel that most folks, including me are biased agaisnt this card based on what it has done in a PC. We all need to take a deep breath and see what it can do in a Mac.

 

[zoran]

However, I feel that most folks, including me are biased agaisnt this card based on what it has done in a PC. We all need to take a deep breath and see what it can do in a Mac.

This phrase of yours reminds me of Apples promo, whats an intel cpu doing in a mac...a whole lot more than in a pc, promo stuff which is made for selling. Personally id like to wait and see but i dont see how can a grafx card make a difference. With cpus its different, duo core was never before in a pc so it cant be used for comparison and thats what Apple promo is doing. Comparing apples with oranges! Still im very pleased that intel is inside!

 

[Airforce]

The benchmarks out on it are the exact same performance you will get as far as Mac gaming. If not the same, less. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

 

[generik]

My bet is that it should be more than enough for Warcraft III at the very least.

I had a PC run WC3 with not much trouble, and it was a P4 1.8Ghz (yes, the old P4) with nothing more than integrated graphics.

 

[yoda13]

Hehe. I can assure you that I am not trying to spread Apple propaganda. I have been over in the "I just ordered an Intel Mac Mini" thread a lot tonight and there appears to be some creedence to the supposition that the card may perform better in the mac mini then it does in a PC. PC benchmarks show the chipset majorly sucking, so this would have to have something to do with the Mac drivers, and true enough the fact that it running with a new chip, that is new to both sides of the isle..PC and Mac. At any rate, no one has posted one way or the other as to where their's will play 3d games or not. So we'll just have to wait and see...still.

 

[mulletman13]

My Rev. B 12" PowerBook ran WC3 fine on an external 1280x1024 screen. I can't imagine this integrated solution is any worse than what was in there.

 

[thies]

Intel GMA950, thats the mac mini grafx card! Does anyone know what its capable of? Can it play warcraft3, wow, quake?

If it can run WoW on standard settings at 1280x786 I could be swayed to buy one afterall.

 

[generik]

WoW is not a very graphics intensive game.. on the other hand Guild Wars (not for Macs) is really needy in this department.

 

[rdowns]

Well, here's what Apple had to say on Monday, before the new mini with integrated graphics was released. More RAM, would be nice if they weren't shipping the sucker with 2 x 256 sticks.

 

[tjwett]

xterm has posted his XBench results in some other threads here and at digg and they don't look to shabby at all. Completely spanked the PPC mini. i know XBench isn't the greatest test but it's something. there is also a takeapart posted at digg which says it doesn't even look like they had room on the logicboard for dedicated graphics.

http://www.digg.com/search?search=intel+mac+mini&submit=Search&area=all&type=both&age=60

 

[cube]

Look at the benchmarks in macintouch. The Solo is slower than the PPC mini in Cinebench
when using the gfx hardware.