Anyone running on new Mac Mini?

[Sigmoid]

When I watched the interview with Austin Meyer on youtube, I was a bit taken aback that he said that "this is a computer with only 1 cpu, WITH SIX CORES", and I was like OMFG. XD

 

Currently I have an OLD iMac with a dual-core CPU, so it's no reference whatsoever, but I'm thinking of buying a new Mac Mini, one with a quad-core CPU and lots of RAM. So I wonder if anyone is using X-Plane on those. They have Intel HD Graphics 4000, which, honestly, sounds like bad news.

 

Is XPlane runnable on such a config in any decent quality and FPS rate?

[steven winslow]

I flew V9.7 on a Mac Mini for over a year and it worked perfectly with reasonable frame rates and rendering options.  My Mini is 3 years old now and didn't do well with V10 when it first came out.  I would think a brand new Mini with ram maxed would do a pretty good job.

[Sigmoid]

Geh... I just did a quick search, and it seems that the GPU in my 2009 iMac is 3 times faster than the one in the most expensive current Mac Mini. And the vastly superior, almost fully maxed out new iMac is just $200 more expensive than a maxed out mini + a thunderbolt display.

 

So I might think twice about getting one of those. Anyway, I'm still curious if it would work at all. Intel HD 4000 seems like a pretty sad piece of hardware.

[dpny]

Expect to turn rendering settings most of the way down on a Mini.

[guym-p]

I would have thought a new iMac would be a much better choice.  It's a direct replacement for your old computer, ie with an integral screen, and much better graphics support.  However, as X-Plane and all its add-ons continues to get more and more sophisticated, I can see 1GB VRAM becoming the desirable minimum (if it hasn't done so already) so you will need to shop at the high end of the iMac range.

 

Guy.

[dpny]

I would have thought a new iMac would be a much better choice.  It's a direct replacement for your old computer, ie with an integral screen, and much better graphics support.  However, as X-Plane and all its add-ons continues to get more and more sophisticated, I can see 1GB VRAM becoming the desirable minimum (if it hasn't done so already) so you will need to shop at the high end of the iMac range.

 

Guy.

 

1 GB VRAM is definitely the minimum. Even at that you will have to turn rendering options down.

 

The much bigger issue is the terrible state of nVidia drivers for OS X.

Edited April 8, 2013 by dpny

[Sigmoid]

he much bigger issue is the terrible state of nVidia drivers for OS X.

 

That's weird, given that X-Plane kind of started out as (and still seen as) "the Mac flight simulator".

What exactly is the problem with nVidia drivers? Is it still a problem? Are you a Mac user speaking from experience, or is it just hearsay?

The search I did on the web came up with two year old problems saying that Lion came with defective drivers. It's been quite long since then, and I didn't see a single 2013 article about nVidia driver fault on Macs.

Edited April 9, 2013 by Sigmoid

[starflight]

Geh... I just did a quick search, and it seems that the GPU in my 2009 iMac is 3 times faster than the one in the most expensive current Mac Mini. And the vastly superior, almost fully maxed out new iMac is just $200 more expensive than a maxed out mini + a thunderbolt display.

 

So I might think twice about getting one of those. Anyway, I'm still curious if it would work at all. Intel HD 4000 seems like a pretty sad piece of hardware.

 

Note you're comparing two entirely different graphics technologies. Your 2009 iMac has a dedicated or "discrete" GPU--a mobile version of a more powerful desktop GPU, but dedicated nonetheless.

 

The Mac mini (and any Macbook less than 15") only has a GPU integrated with the processor, and uses system RAM for video memory. Integrated GPUs are a crutch for budget systems, or systems too small to handle dedicated GPU and their heat. It will handle the fancy OS animation effects, common video formats, and basic games. For what it is, the HD4000 isn't actually *that* bad, but just like you don't want to run a marathon on crutches, you don't want to try serious games or X-Plane using an integrated GPU. It can technically be done, but you won't like the results

[dpny]

What exactly is the problem with nVidia drivers?

 

Driver support for the latest generation of nVidia cards is incomplete. The current drivers don't support instancing among other things. Performance is far below the same cards under Windows.

 

Is it still a problem?

 

Yes.

 

Are you a Mac user speaking from experience, or is it just hearsay?

 

Mac user with a 670. The problem has also been verified by X-Plane devs. Searching the .org forums will bring up a lot of threads. Here is one in which Chris K. which shows 1) no instancing support and 2) forcing instancing results in lower frame rates.

[larjeet]

Why would anyone waist their money ?

[Sigmoid]

hy would anyone waist their money ?

 

"Waist" their money?

 

 

LOL.

[Sigmoid]

Driver support for the latest generation of nVidia cards is incomplete. The current drivers don't support instancing among other things. Performance is far below the same cards under Windows.

 

Things seem to have gone sour around OS X. I'm actually tempted to install Windows 7 as a main OS on my Mac at this point.

 

Since the only thing that is really-really OS X specific in my life at this point is iOS app development, I guess I could run OS X Server in a vm, and with that be free of the dual boot menace. XD

[dpny]

Things seem to have gone sour around OS X. I'm actually tempted to install Windows 7 as a main OS on my Mac at this point.

 

I wouldn't go that far. It's an issue which is directly tied to the lack of Mac Pro development, and it really only affects people who either need the GPU power for rendering/editing/etc., or people who want to run X-Plane. People who need the GPU for work can install a 670 or 680 and nVidia's CUDA drivers and be okay. People, like me, who would like to run X-Plane, are at the mercy of nVidia and/or Apple. 

 

I play Windows games in a VM on my Mac Pro with no problems. The issue is that X-Plane pushes the GPU more than just about any other game I can think of, and bad drivers are readily apparent.  And, I have to say, v10 has been pretty much a disaster start to finish for me. However, if I wasn't an X-Plane user I wouldn't have any complaints.

 

Additionally, given the rapidly declining sale numbers for desktops across the computer market I wouldn't be surprised if Apple abandoned the Mac Pro altogether.

 

Since the only thing that is really-really OS X specific in my life at this point is iOS app development, I guess I could run OS X Server in a vm, and with that be free of the dual boot menace. XD

 

Anyone who wants to run X-Plane with the highest frame rates should run it in Linux. The problem, of course, is that many add ons aren't available for Linux. If you want high performance plus lots of add ons, run it in Windows. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy a Mac for X-Plane until nVidia releases better drivers, or until I see some real-world benchmarks from the 7950.

Edited April 15, 2013 by dpny

[chris k]

7950 xp10 benchmarks:

http://www.barefeats.com/gpu7950c.html

[Sigmoid]

Part of the problem is that nVidia is no longer a Mac Pro thing. The new iMacs are ALL nVidia-based.

(Starting to see the upside of Windows. I'd finally have FL Studio... heheh...

To be honest, I'm majorly pissed at Apple for their "gentleman adventurer" approach to drivers and generally backend and boilerplate features. I've been one of the discoverers of a critical OS X bug that causes CREEPING DATA CORRUPTION on volumes larger than 1.5 TB. That bug is YEARS old, Apple knows about it, and no, they don't know when they will fix it. And they sell iMacs with 3TB disks. Add to this the adhesive sponge fastened iMac screens, and suddenly I'm feeling nostalgia for the unversity days of Linux PCs built from scratch.

I was a kid when Apple first went to the dogs, I wonder if we're experiencing the same now that Steve isn't with them anymore.)

Edited April 15, 2013 by Sigmoid

[dpny]

7950 xp10 benchmarks:

http://www.barefeats.com/gpu7950c.html

 

 

Read what their benchmark consists of. It's the single most useless X-Plane benchmark on the planet.