I was wondering what peoples thoughts are on the Mini Macs? There are 3 reasons I want to get a Mac.
The main reason is to be able to support and test anything I create with unity on a Mac.
The second one is I am looking for a cheap entry into 3d modeling/animation and I keep hearing very good things about Cheetah3D which is (and from reading will always be) a MacOS only application.
Third is that is would be nice to be able to develop for the iphone as some point.
I am looking for a Mac computer that is going to last me for at least 2 years (hopefully three or more) but does not have the pricey tag that all macs seems to have. I am looking at the mid range mini mac for $799 with the dual core 2.53, 4GB MEM, 320GB HD, and the 9400M video card. Is this a viable option for me considering what I am looking for?
Yes, that will be fine. The weakest part is the graphics, but it’s not half as bad as it used to be in the older model with the GMA 950, and is adequate for most things. Well, the hard drive isn’t blazing fast either, but again, adequate.
Yea, the specs of the mini mac and MacBookPro 17inch are basically the same besides a little extra HD space and a slightly faster processor (which makes me wonder why the MacBookPro is 3 times the cost).
Currently my laptop has a 8800GTX mobile video card so the Mini Mac is actually an upgrade.
Also, as far as the HD speed, my laptop currently has the same 5400 RPMs and I have not notices any real slowness.
Well my current video card in actually the nvidia 8600GT 512MB mobile. Just looked and the mini mobile only have 256MB VRAM. Looks like I will not be developing for mac
I’m not sure why 256MB VRAM vs. 512MB VRAM would make any particular difference. On OpenGL, VRAM is virtualized anyway, not to mention that an indie developer would be hard pressed to use that much in the first place, and there are plenty of Windows machines with 256MB and under. The 9400M is an integrated chip that just uses system RAM anyway, so it’s possible there might be a way to hack it to use more “VRAM” (of course you’d lose system RAM then). But I’d advise not worrying about VRAM.
I’ve got the now ancient 950 GMA, with 1.83GHz, and it’s pretty good. It still sucks like nothing else, but it works, and until I can afford to upgrade, it’s what I’ve got. Not terribly bad, but you’ll want to go right back to your nice windows box just for the speed boost.
I’m using a Mac Mini as my main development box and don’t have any complaints. Installing the 4GB of ram was a bit of a pain but after that upgrade it has been quite nice.
I went to the mac store to ask a few questions and found out that I can wait a full year until I have to buy the extend warranty which it nice. I don’t see a hug difference in specs between the 2 (and hardware experts chime in if i am wrong) and since I don’t need a laptop, I think I will be getting the Mac-Mini.
