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M1 Mac mini - WOW Classic, Adobe Premiere performance

A

aUniqueName

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 29, 2016
53
272
I got my M1 Mac mini in today. I use an LG 4k 43" monitor. I do video production and play games like WoW Classic and Dota 2, etc.

My main machine that I use every day for the above tasks is an AMD 12 core/32 thread in a PCIe 4 motherboard, 64 gigs of ram and a RTX 2080 that I built myself. Its a very fast and powerful machine with one main drawback - Windows 10 which is a horrible piece of **** in my opinion.

Here are my findings after testing my new M1 Mac Mini:
WoW Classic at 4k - sucks on the M1 Mac mini. Lots of stuttering and lag even with all graphics settings set to low or turned off, at 4K its bad. Keep in mind, Blizzard didn't update WoW Classic to native Apple Silicon, only retail and I can't speak to that since I don't play it. But if you use a 4k monitor and wanna play WoW Classic, stick to the PC or a more powerful intel mac until an Apple Silicon Mac Pro Mini or iMac comes out.

Adobe Premiere editing - sucks on the M1 Mac Mini. I opened an older 1080p job with a couple layers and some non after effects motion graphics and the time line was all yellow and red. Scrubbing was not smooth. On the export, my M1 Mac mini exported the 5 minute video in 7:05 minutes. My AMD machine described above did it in 1:45. If you use Premiere and After Effects, don't buy the M1 Macs. Wait for a more powerful chip and/or until Adobe makes them native to Apple Silicon.

These are the only 2 non Apple apps I have tested so far because its what I use every day.

I understand that if you use Final Cut Pro, the M1 Mac smokes other computers so if that's your main thing then get one. If you play WoW Retail at 1080p, it may or may not be great I didn't test that. But WoW Classic on a 4k monitor is a no go.

On a good note, Native programs on the M1 Mac actually open very fast, browser is fast and all the other positive tests and reviews people have done are true. But again, these are the entry level chips. I'd wait for the next generation or the Mac Pro M1 before upgrading if you use Premiere/After Effects for video editing. If you use Final Cut, this machine should rock based on other reviews.

Am I gonna send it back? I don't know yet. I really hate windows but looks like I am stuck on that for my main machine until Apple releases a more capable chip for what I do.
 
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Just got my M1 Air via UPS about an hour ago. Too tired to open it right now but I’ll do some exports in premiere later tonight. I’ll even download final cut to test that on both machines as well. (2018 15” 2.6 32gb 560x).
 

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aUniqueName said:
I got my M1 Mac mini in today. I use an LG 4k 43" monitor. I do video production and play games like WoW Classic and Dota 2, etc.

My main machine that I use every day for the above tasks is an AMD 12 core/32 thread in a PCIe 4 motherboard, 64 gigs of ram and a RTX 2080 that I built myself. Its a very fast and powerful machine with one main drawback - Windows 10 which is a horrible piece of **** in my opinion.

Here are my findings after testing my new M1 Mac Mini:
WoW Classic at 4k - sucks on the M1 Mac mini. Lots of stuttering and lag even with all graphics settings set to low or turned off, at 4K its bad. Keep in mind, Blizzard didn't update WoW Classic to native Apple Silicon, only retail and I can't speak to that since I don't play it. But if you use a 4k monitor and wanna play WoW Classic, stick to the PC or a more powerful intel mac until an Apple Silicon Mac Pro Mini or iMac comes out.

Adobe Premiere editing - sucks on the M1 Mac Mini. I opened an older 1080p job with a couple layers and some non after effects motion graphics and the time line was all yellow and red. Scrubbing was not smooth. On the export, my M1 Mac mini exported the 5 minute video in 7:05 minutes. My AMD machine described above did it in 1:45. If you use Premiere and After Effects, don't buy the M1 Macs. Wait for a more powerful chip and/or until Adobe makes them native to Apple Silicon.

These are the only 2 non Apple apps I have tested so far because its what I use every day.

I understand that if you use Final Cut Pro, the M1 Mac smokes other computers so if that's your main thing then get one. If you play WoW Retail at 1080p, it may or may not be great I didn't test that. But WoW Classic on a 4k monitor is a no go.

On a good note, Native programs on the M1 Mac actually open very fast, browser is fast and all the other positive tests and reviews people have done are true. But again, these are the entry level chips. I'd wait for the next generation or the Mac Pro M1 before upgrading if you use Premiere/After Effects for video editing. If you use Final Cut, this machine should rock based on other reviews.

Am I gonna send it back? I don't know yet. I really hate windows but looks like I am stuck on that for my main machine until Apple releases a more capable chip for what I do.
Click to expand...
Disappointed to hear about premiere, but not surprised. How was playback after you rendered the timeline?
 
OriginalClone said:
Disappointed to hear about premiere, but not surprised. How was playback after you rendered the timeline?
Click to expand...
I didn't check that cause I did the Premiere test first and wanted to try WoW Classic. I think once you render the timeline its fine. But then you do an edit or change and that part will be red. I hope this will improve once the app is updated to native Apple Silicon.
 
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aUniqueName said:
I got my M1 Mac mini in today. I use an LG 4k 43" monitor. I do video production and play games like WoW Classic and Dota 2, etc.

My main machine that I use every day for the above tasks is an AMD 12 core/32 thread in a PCIe 4 motherboard, 64 gigs of ram and a RTX 2080 that I built myself. Its a very fast and powerful machine with one main drawback - Windows 10 which is a horrible piece of **** in my opinion.

Here are my findings after testing my new M1 Mac Mini:
WoW Classic at 4k - sucks on the M1 Mac mini. Lots of stuttering and lag even with all graphics settings set to low or turned off, at 4K its bad. Keep in mind, Blizzard didn't update WoW Classic to native Apple Silicon, only retail and I can't speak to that since I don't play it. But if you use a 4k monitor and wanna play WoW Classic, stick to the PC or a more powerful intel mac until an Apple Silicon Mac Pro Mini or iMac comes out.
Click to expand...

LOL, I have a 3900X on the Crosshair VIII Impact mobo, with 32GB of RAM & awaiting a Sapphire 6800 XT...!

Running Windows now, but torn between trying to build it into a Ryzentosh (Cinema4D & Octane X) or go Ubuntu Studio (Blender)...

Regarding WoW, might you DL retail & test it out...? First 20 levels are free...! ;^p

Looking forward to 2022 & what Apple brings us with the (smaller) Mac Pro powered by Apple Silicon...!!!
 
Boil said:
LOL, I have a 3900X on the Crosshair VIII Impact mobo, with 32GB of RAM & awaiting a Sapphire 6800 XT...!

Running Windows now, but torn between trying to build it into a Ryzentosh (Cinema4D & Octane X) or go Ubuntu Studio (Blender)...
Click to expand...

I was gonna do a Ryzentosh, just dont trust that the code to make that work doesnt give someone a backdoor to my keychain, etc.
 
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aUniqueName said:
I got my M1 Mac mini in today. I use an LG 4k 43" monitor. I do video production and play games like WoW Classic and Dota 2, etc.

My main machine that I use every day for the above tasks is an AMD 12 core/32 thread in a PCIe 4 motherboard, 64 gigs of ram and a RTX 2080 that I built myself. Its a very fast and powerful machine with one main drawback - Windows 10 which is a horrible piece of **** in my opinion.

Here are my findings after testing my new M1 Mac Mini:
WoW Classic at 4k - sucks on the M1 Mac mini. Lots of stuttering and lag even with all graphics settings set to low or turned off, at 4K its bad. Keep in mind, Blizzard didn't update WoW Classic to native Apple Silicon, only retail and I can't speak to that since I don't play it. But if you use a 4k monitor and wanna play WoW Classic, stick to the PC or a more powerful intel mac until an Apple Silicon Mac Pro Mini or iMac comes out.

Adobe Premiere editing - sucks on the M1 Mac Mini. I opened an older 1080p job with a couple layers and some non after effects motion graphics and the time line was all yellow and red. Scrubbing was not smooth. On the export, my M1 Mac mini exported the 5 minute video in 7:05 minutes. My AMD machine described above did it in 1:45. If you use Premiere and After Effects, don't buy the M1 Macs. Wait for a more powerful chip and/or until Adobe makes them native to Apple Silicon.

These are the only 2 non Apple apps I have tested so far because its what I use every day.

I understand that if you use Final Cut Pro, the M1 Mac smokes other computers so if that's your main thing then get one. If you play WoW Retail at 1080p, it may or may not be great I didn't test that. But WoW Classic on a 4k monitor is a no go.

On a good note, Native programs on the M1 Mac actually open very fast, browser is fast and all the other positive tests and reviews people have done are true. But again, these are the entry level chips. I'd wait for the next generation or the Mac Pro M1 before upgrading if you use Premiere/After Effects for video editing. If you use Final Cut, this machine should rock based on other reviews.

Am I gonna send it back? I don't know yet. I really hate windows but looks like I am stuck on that for my main machine until Apple releases a more capable chip for what I do.
Click to expand...
Would you be able to test it again with 1080p or 1440p? 4k gaming tests are pretty tough. I remember even my GTX 1080 could not handle WoW Classic at 4K too well. The GTX 3080 still doesn't maintain 60fps at 4K on some games.
 
xWhiplash said:
Would you be able to test it again with 1080p or 1440p? 4k gaming tests are pretty tough. I remember even my GTX 1080 could not handle WoW Classic at 4K too well. The GTX 3080 still doesn't maintain 60fps at 4K on some games.
Click to expand...
I did set it to 1080p and was still laggy or jerky as I panned around in WoW Classic.
 
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World of Warcraft: Ran natively. Performance was insane! Screenshot tool had some impact on this game, but I made note of it in the comments. It also hard froze once while changing settings. I'm level 5 so I didn't get to bench massive fights. One of the few games I can max pretty much everything at 3840 x 1600 and still get 70+ FPS. I actually turned that down in benchmark images to account for bigger fights. Best part? Dead silent. Cold to the touch at some parts. :)

source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/jw3e1c/_/https

WoW has native support but not WoW classic
 
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This M1 Air is actually pretty impressive. I opened up a project in Premiere. 6 tracks video, 3 tracks audio. 4k 500Mbps log video from a EOS R and 5D mk IV. After loading up the timeline was mostly yellow but red where some effects were. It was playing choppy until I rendered it. It played perfect even at 100% resolution. I had a work area for the first two minutes of the video because it's probably an hour on the timeline. Even outside the work area that was still yellow is playing without issue now. I bounced out a file and even though it was slower than my 15" pro, it wasn't unbearable. If this is how the Air performs I can't wait to see how the 16" M series Pro will perform next year.
 
The things said in this thread are conflicting with some of the YouTube reviews, so the M1 is bad with première pro?
 
Kung gu said:
World of Warcraft: Ran natively. Performance was insane! Screenshot tool had some impact on this game, but I made note of it in the comments. It also hard froze once while changing settings. I'm level 5 so I didn't get to bench massive fights. One of the few games I can max pretty much everything at 3840 x 1600 and still get 70+ FPS. I actually turned that down in benchmark images to account for bigger fights. Best part? Dead silent. Cold to the touch at some parts. :)

source:
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/jw3e1c/_/https

WoW has native support but not WoW classic
Click to expand...
Hi, I have had the same hard freezes with WoW (patch 9.0.2 M1 Native). Had you installed the non native version and played that before the latest update? Im trying to find a cause of the hard freezes as it happens every 7-15 minutes of play. Just realised that you posted this from reddit.
 
Video reviews, other posts here, posts on the wow forums and on reddit seem to all disagree with you. I've literally seen wow classic running better than you describe. And wow native running very well even at 3440x1440
I would NOT expect any 4k gaming to do well on this. 4k gaming is hard even on high end PC's.

Premeire does have some issues right now but from the videos i've watched it's running better than what you've described.
 
Based on how you describe it and how you approached this I feel you are trolling. The reason for that is that you boast about your PC and then you try 4K gaming when you must know how demanding 4K is and yet you don't even try 1080p at all unless we ask you in which you just say its laggy etc.
How about providing fps etc.? How about being a little more objective and less "troll like"?

There is a lot out there to say that you are wrong so that itself is not a good card you are leaving here.

So, do it better or don't do it at all, its that simple!




aUniqueName said:
I got my M1 Mac mini in today. I use an LG 4k 43" monitor. I do video production and play games like WoW Classic and Dota 2, etc.

My main machine that I use every day for the above tasks is an AMD 12 core/32 thread in a PCIe 4 motherboard, 64 gigs of ram and a RTX 2080 that I built myself. Its a very fast and powerful machine with one main drawback - Windows 10 which is a horrible piece of **** in my opinion.

Here are my findings after testing my new M1 Mac Mini:
WoW Classic at 4k - sucks on the M1 Mac mini. Lots of stuttering and lag even with all graphics settings set to low or turned off, at 4K its bad. Keep in mind, Blizzard didn't update WoW Classic to native Apple Silicon, only retail and I can't speak to that since I don't play it. But if you use a 4k monitor and wanna play WoW Classic, stick to the PC or a more powerful intel mac until an Apple Silicon Mac Pro Mini or iMac comes out.

Adobe Premiere editing - sucks on the M1 Mac Mini. I opened an older 1080p job with a couple layers and some non after effects motion graphics and the time line was all yellow and red. Scrubbing was not smooth. On the export, my M1 Mac mini exported the 5 minute video in 7:05 minutes. My AMD machine described above did it in 1:45. If you use Premiere and After Effects, don't buy the M1 Macs. Wait for a more powerful chip and/or until Adobe makes them native to Apple Silicon.

These are the only 2 non Apple apps I have tested so far because its what I use every day.

I understand that if you use Final Cut Pro, the M1 Mac smokes other computers so if that's your main thing then get one. If you play WoW Retail at 1080p, it may or may not be great I didn't test that. But WoW Classic on a 4k monitor is a no go.

On a good note, Native programs on the M1 Mac actually open very fast, browser is fast and all the other positive tests and reviews people have done are true. But again, these are the entry level chips. I'd wait for the next generation or the Mac Pro M1 before upgrading if you use Premiere/After Effects for video editing. If you use Final Cut, this machine should rock based on other reviews.

Am I gonna send it back? I don't know yet. I really hate windows but looks like I am stuck on that for my main machine until Apple releases a more capable chip for what I do.
Click to expand...
 
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Definitely a troll. WoW plays for me at level 9 with > 30 fps and WoW classic at 10 with 60 fps on an M1 Mac Mini. Phenomenal machine and blows any Intel Mac out of the water (except maybe the Mac Pro).
 
eno12 said:
Definitely a troll. WoW plays for me at level 9 with > 30 fps and WoW classic at 10 with 60 fps on an M1 Mac Mini. Phenomenal machine and blows any Intel Mac out of the water (except maybe the Mac Pro).
Click to expand...
I wasn’t trolling. However a few updates are in order. My initial tests were taking the Mac out of the box, installing wow classic and Adobe premiere and trying them out straight away. Wow wasn’t smooth and Premeire wasn’t usable. However, there was a macOS update I hadn’t installed yet.

In wow classic there was this strange lag when I moved around and I figured it was graphics lag because the video chip couldn’t keep up (turned out to be input lag from the Bluetooth mouse I was using). After plugging in a wired mouse (and installing the update) it was smooth @ 4K with medium settings even in raid.

As far as Premiere, after installing the update it was much smoother and I have been using the M1 Mac Mini as my main computer for both gaming and my work editing video.

I am very impressed with this entry level chip and look forward to the pro level Apple Silicon with double or more the cores and ram.
 
aUniqueName said:
I wasn’t trolling. However a few updates are in order. My initial tests were taking the Mac out of the box, installing wow classic and Adobe premiere and trying them out straight away. Wow wasn’t smooth and Premeire wasn’t usable. However, there was a macOS update I hadn’t installed yet.

In wow classic there was this strange lag when I moved around and I figured it was graphics lag because the video chip couldn’t keep up (turned out to be input lag from the Bluetooth mouse I was using). After plugging in a wired mouse (and installing the update) it was smooth @ 4K with medium settings even in raid.

As far as Premiere, after installing the update it was much smoother and I have been using the M1 Mac Mini as my main computer for both gaming and my work editing video.

I am very impressed with this entry level chip and look forward to the pro level Apple Silicon with double or more the cores and ram.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the update. Odd how the mouse made a difference. I am using a wired mouse running @ 1440p with max settings (trilinear, triple-buffer, etc) and it never drops below 57fps. Dropping down to 8 gets 80+ fps. I tried with 1440p double-width 5120x1440 with WoW and got 30 fps at level 8.
 
Finally got my M1 connected to my ultra-wide monitor (there seem to be some driver bugs with detecting this display with displayport-- Monoprice Dark Matter). Both WoW and WoW classic run fairly well with 5120x1440 at level 8. Play with it dialed back to level 6 to keep it above 40 fps. Very good performance for an integrated graphics chip. The 560 in my 16" MBP can't play WoW at this resolution. Can't wait to see what the M2 can do in the next-generation 16".
 
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