Slight choppiness in games

[mygb]

I just bought a mac mini about a half a month ago. I ordered it from apple's website and got 4gb of ram and the 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor upgrade. Eventually I installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit version in order to play Guild Wars from time to time. When I play guild wars for the most part, on all the best settings it performs nicely. ~60fps mostly.

... It is just that every once in awhile, its really unpredictable, about every 3 minutes or so on average, I can notice a slight skip or chop in gameplay. The game will freeze for about a half a second or less even, and then resume and play normal. Then it will do it again...and again...and again. At first I thought it was Guild Wars, even though the game is 5 years old and my mac mini is not even 1 year old I still decided to turn down ALL the settings and set the resolution to low. But this problem still occurs. I am not sure if it is as frequent as compared with when I have the recommended settings on, but it still happens.

So today I tried to install Warcraft 3 on OSX. The same problem happens. I can run the game with ALL the settings on high, and its smooth, but randomly it will freeze for about a quarter of a second. I cannot seem to replicate the problem either. However it's really noticeable to me and it is getting annoying.

I am curious anyone else with the same mac who is playing games on it, do you find something similar to my problem?

 

[mygb]

90 views on no replies, I guess this is helpless but I just thought maybe it's something to do with the hard drive? Is there any settings I can tweak?

 

[PowerGamerX]

90 views on no replies, I guess this is helpless but I just thought maybe it's something to do with the hard drive? Is there any settings I can tweak?

2 things.

Quit everything you have that you don't need thats running in the background.

Also, it sounds like it might be a heat issue.

It could also be something with the hard drive.

 

[QuantumLo0p]

Try dropping your settings down a little, it might help. A bit less than 60 fps won't hurt much and besides, I have always read that your mind "thinks" it's real at 50 fps.

Heat could be creeping into the issue. You could get fan control or something similar to make sure the internal fan is running a little faster than normal. I have not done that yet but I do have a small fan blowing on the top of my new Mini. When I play WoW it does get hot without it. I would also get the iStat Pro widget so you can keep an eye on various temps and the fan rpm's.

One thing I have noticed, and maybe it isn't issue with having 4GB of ram, on my Mini with 2GB or ram I run into stuttering and lag when I'm playing then I start up other apps like safari or itunes. I was hoping more ram would help out. I plan to get a momentus xt and either 2x2GB of ram or 2x4GB. Supposedly matched pairs can make a small difference, but keep in mind we are talking Mini here, not MacPro.

 

[mangrove]

Up the RAM and get a small SSD.

 

[bearcatrp]

The hard drive in the new mini is a 5400 rpm. Not very fast. The graphics chip is not bad but not like a dedicated one. As was suggested before, get a ssd drive to speed things up but the graphics chip is probably hitting it's limit.

 

[mygb]

The hard drive in the new mini is a 5400 rpm. Not very fast. The graphics chip is not bad but not like a dedicated one. As was suggested before, get a ssd drive to speed things up but the graphics chip is probably hitting it's limit.

I understand what you are saying, but I still can't believe the mac mini is not powerful enough to run games that are 5-7 years old without any annoyances.

With requirements like

Minimum system specification

* Windows Vista/XP/2000/ME/98
* Intel Pentium III 1.0 GHz or equivalent
* 512 MB RAM
* DVD-ROM drive1
* 3 GB available HDD space
* ATI Radeon 8500 or NVIDIA GeForce 3 series video card with 64 MB of VRAM
* 16-bit sound card
* Internet connection
* Keyboard and mouse
* DirectX 8

Recommended system specification

* Windows Vista/XP/2000
* Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz or equivalent
* 1 GB RAM
* DVD-ROM drive1
* 4 GB available HDD space
* ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 series video card or above
* 16-bit sound card
* Internet connection
* Keyboard and mouse
* DirectX 9

I thought the mac mini would have no problem with it.

I have a fresh install of Windows 7 64 bit. No other programs have been installed and nothing is running other than default windows services etc.

I was going to get 8 GB of ram, but it was an extra $550 , I expected 4 gigs to suffice anyways.

And getting an SSD, I looked at tutorials on the internet about switching out hard drives in the mac mini, and it looks like something I would not be comfortable doing.

 

[bearcatrp]

Are you boot camping Into win 7 or VM ware? Problem with any computer with integrated graphics is they don't run as well as a dedicated gpu. Am presuming the game is 32 bit. Might be maxing out assigned memory, then reading/writing to virtual memory (hard drive).

 

[mygb]

I am using boot camp and running the game in windows 7.

Might be maxing out assigned memory, then reading/writing to virtual memory (hard drive).

I am not sure what you mean by this... Is it about my RAM?
Windows 7 says my installed ram is 4.00 GB (3.74 usable)

 

[analogkid]

Well, it is Windows, so sometimes you just have to restart. I would try the fan just to see if cooling it off more helps. I game a lot on my Mini with 4gb of ram and it runs fine, but sometimes I get little glitches. All in all the Mini is a great gaming machine unless your into high end.

 

[mygb]

Well, it is Windows, so sometimes you just have to restart. I would try the fan just to see if cooling it off more helps. I game a lot on my Mini with 4gb of ram and it runs fine, but sometimes I get little glitches. All in all the Mini is a great gaming machine unless your into high end.

Oh. What are the name of some of the games that you play?
And "little glitches" what do you mean? Like artifacts or freezing..or?