Intel HD Graphics 3000 processor with 288MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory3
Thunderbolt port with support for up to 2560x1600 resolution
HDMI port with support for up to 1920x1200 resolution
DVI output using HDMI to DVI Adapter (included)
Support for dual display and video mirroring
Audio line in mini-jack (digital/analog)
Audio line out / headphone mini-jack (digital/analog)
HDMI port supports multichannel audio output
Support for Apple iPhone headset with microphone
Built-in speaker
I Mac [All in one]
Processor
2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 with 6MB on-chip shared L3 cache
Memory
4GB (two 2GB) of 1333MHz DDR3 memory
500GB (7200 rpm) hard drive
AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics processor with 512MB of GDDR5 memory
What type of game are you planing to make? Both would easily open Unity but if you are making a simulation of the universe then you would need more power.
The 2.5GHz Mac Mini has a discrete GPU, whereas the 2.3GHz model has integrated graphics. I would be tempted to go for the higher spec Mini because of this.
Do you have a good PC? My setup that seems to work great is a top of the range PC to do all my main dev work on, code, graphics and sound. Then I copy the project to my 2009 mac mini to deploy and test on the IOS devices. Works great. It does cost me about 30 minutes when I transfer and change target but I don’t do that very often.
I deleted a few posts here. When somebody starts a topic about which Mac to buy, that’s not an invitation to start arguing about PC vs. Mac (for the 10 billionth time). If you don’t like Macs, just ignore the topic. Thank you.
It depends. Are you targeting only the iPhone or just making casual games? if so, probably you could save and get the lower model. If you are targeting mac/pc/web, then it’s probably better to get the more expensive model.
I wasn’t arguing PC vs Mac, I wasn’t in any way suggesting that the poster shouldn’t buy a mac. My advice was to buy a cheap mac and then buy a better one after they make money selling apps. I only mentioned PC to give a reference to how the mac pricing works. What else could I reference, linux? If somebody took my post as an invitation to start a PC vs Mac argument then that’s on them.
Any semi-recent Mac is plenty powerful enough to do development on. The older mini with the Intel GMA950 couldn’t do occlusion culling, since that’s done with the GPU. That’s not an issue anymore since the GMA950 model was retired years ago.
Sure. Firstly I’ve used PC’s in various forms for quarter of a century so I’m more comfortable using that than the Mac (Dont delete this Eric! Please)
But when I came to want to release games and apps on IOS, I had no choice but to buy a cheap 2nd hand Mac Mini. You can’t get more old and basic than the one I bought on ebay. I had no idea of what I needed in a Mac for the job so decided to go cheap, make some money and then re evaluate and buy a better Mac if I needed it. Well here I am a year later still with an i7 PC and an early 2009 Mac mini with no need to change the essential Mac.
To answer your question, my procedure is as follows. On the PC I create all my assets using Photoshop, Cinema 4D, Cool Edit, Fruity Loops and the in my opinion essential Visual studio 2008 (Changing to 2010 soon).
I do all my coding and play testing on the PC. (To this point I’ve not even turned the Mac on yet).
When I have most of the game done I copy the Unity project folder to the Mac Mini. In unity load it in and go to project build settings and change target to IOS.
This part takes ages (30 minutes at least) Please speed this part up Unity team.
Hit build and run and when it’s done Xcode automatically opens and compiles the game.
When it’s done, in xcode add the version number that Unity forgets to put in the Xcode project, also add your provisioning and distribution profile.
Not hit run in xcode with your ipad or iphone plugged into the Mac. Voila! within a minute or two your game will be running on the IOS device.
Chances are before you got to this part you will have had a load of warnings in Unity on the Mac that you are using compressed textures for things like icons and splash screens and you might like to un compress them for qualitys sake.
I then spend a few days getting it working in all resoloutions on an ipad1, 3 and iPhone, before copying it back to the main PC.
Now I probably spend a few more weeks on the PC adding levels, more graphics, sounds etc, fine tuning the game before copying it back for the
last time to the Mac to actually final test on the device, let other people play it and then deploy to the store.
This and any subsecquent copyies to the Mac are quicker as Unity remembers mostly what it did last time. (This is the only part that having a faster and better Mac
will improve your workfrow with regards to speed).
I’ve now released 4 games to the iTunes store now using this procedure and this very old Mac and I’ve no regrets. When the Mac is doing the time consuming change of target I go and make my dinner or something.
In an ideal world I’d do it all on one Machine but as my preferred development environment is the PC and Apple force you to use Xcode on the Mac, I have no choice but to do it this way.
Meanwhile I have been using the Mac more and trying to make it work more like my PC. I’ve just put Parallels and VS2010 on the Mac to try and acclimatise myself more to the Mac with the vain hope that one day I can move lock stock to an all Mac environment. Hope this helps.
Oh just noticed the last bit of your question. The Mac Mini literally is just used to cross compile your game using xCode to target IOS and Mac desktops, You could also target windows and android on it. There is no feature a duff old mac mini can’t do (although I think it has to be an intel version). Agreed if you are targeting the Mac itself to release stuff on, you might have some graphical features missing, but it won’t stop you deploying to all the other targets.