Mac Mini good enough for TGB work?

#1 You'll be able to compile & run T2D on a Mac Mini.
Don't count on very good speed though.
Last I tested, TGB ran fine on a Mac Mini. Still, I can't say I recommend it for game dev, because it has an intel built-in graphics card.

Share and Enjoy.

/Paul

#2 Is a mac mini the one with the core solo processor in it? I'd be curious how good that is. :)

#3 I use mine as a test-base, plus if the G5 is being used for editing and such. So, yeah. It can run it. It's not super speedy in the dev department as Paul noted, but it's fine in the testing dept.

#4 Yeah, the new Mac Minis don't have a dedicated graphics accelerator. I wouldn't develop with it unless you *intend* to target that machine as the slowest machine you'll support. It's not really designed for games though, so I'd target some machine that at least has a custom graphics card. And then develop on that or a faster machine.

I think a much better option for you would be to invest in the $1200 17" iMac. It's an Intel dual-core machine with a custom graphics processor. Install Windows dual-boot, and use that as your Windows machine too. That's what I'm doing. Windows runs great on it. That way, you get a good graphics card too. (I've run Doom 3 on the Windows side, and it runs great.)

(NOTE: The $999 iMac does NOT have a custom graphics card, so do NOT get that one! Really disappoints me that Apple is making so many computer available with really no true graphics acceleration. It's sad.)

@Chris -- the issue really isn't dual vs. solo with the Mac mini when it comes to games. The issue is graphics acceleration, or lack thereof, in the Intel Mac Minis. :-(

#5 I disagree with Paul on this one. The age-old gripe against integrated graphics simply isn't as valid as it once was. While a Mac mini might not be a graphics powerhouse, it is certain adequate for game development using Torque; especially in a situation where you're doing 90% of your work on a late-model Windows box. [The TGB engine runs just fine on my original PPC Mac mini. Every game I've tried runs nicely. The Level Editor, on the other hand, is pretty painful to use; unless you run it in fullscreen mode and at a fairly low resolution.]

Chris, all Mac minis now use the Intel Core Duo processors.

#6

Quote:
The Level Editor, on the other hand, is pretty painful to use; unless you run it in fullscreen mode and at a fairly low resolution.]

Pardon me jumping in, but this is at least one of the reasons why a Mac Mini isn't a very strong choice for game development. Often, tools may take more processing power than the final product, and if the level editor is quite painful to use, then your time using it won't be efficient/effective :)

#7 If you want some hard stats (single core Intel Mac Mini with 512MB RAM):

Full clean re-build times for TGE:

Universal == about 12 minutes
Native Only == about 6 minutes

Dual core and more memory would speed that up a bit. TGB is a bit smaller then TGE and thus will probably not take quite so long. However, its still pretty painful when you're used to 2 - 3 minute build times ;)

As far as the integrated graphics go:

A quick run around TGE's stronghold.mis with TGE 1.4 showed between 45 and 90 fps depending
on where I was looking. So, not great, but plenty good enough to be playable.

I don't have a recent copy of TGB on the Mac at the moment since I havent done any TGB stuff in a while, but theoretically it should perform better then TGE.

T.

Edit: Along the lines of what Stephen said, yeh, it's pretty painful if it's your only development machine. However, there's nothing stopping you doing 90% of your dev on another box and using the mini only for porting/mac specific stuff/testing. Then the tools thing is a non-issue.

#8 Thanks for all the info! I'll look into the iMac, that's not outrageously expensive and would only take a bit longer to save up for. :-)

Mainly I just need the box for porting purposes, so if I can't wange an iMac I'll probably just get a Mini and deal with it being slow. ;-p

#9 Don Schaper wrote:

Quote:I disagree with Paul on this one. The age-old gripe against integrated graphics simply isn't as valid as it once was. While a Mac mini might not be a graphics powerhouse, it is certain adequate for game development using Torque; especially in a situation where you're doing 90% of your work on a late-model Windows box. [The TGB engine runs just fine on my original PPC Mac mini. Every game I've tried runs nicely.

The original PPC Mac Mini had its own dedicated hardware accelerator card. They took this out once they went Intel. MacWorld Lab tests show a pretty big decrease in frame rate when running Universal Binary games on Intel vs. the old PPC Mini. The Intel one is far slower.

I haven't personally tried TGB on an Intel Mac Mini, so it might be functional, but I'd test it persoanally first... It's not at all the same beast as the PPC Mini was. It's faster for processor-intensive stuff, but definitely slower for graphics accelerated stuff.

#10 @Don/Vern

Ah, cool. I knew Apple had switched totally to Intel, I just didn't know what the Mac Mini's used. I'd like to get a dual-boot MacBook Pro myself as well. I actually work for Intel right now... I wonder if I get some sort of discount? :)

On a side note, I've got like a Dell Inspiron 2200 I delveop/test on. All it has is integrated Intel video and it runs pretty well.

#11 I'd like to second Vern's recommendation of the $1200 17" iMac.
It's what I'm using, and it's a good dev machine w/ a good graphics card, and it make a very sleek windows box if you swing that way.

The 17" iMac is what I'm using, and this thing is pretty freaking ideal for x-platf game dev.

On build times: yeah, they're significantly slower than vc, but if you've got multiple intel macs around, then distcc is your new speedy friend.

#12 Chris,

I have MacBook Pro with dual processors, and am happy with it! I bought it so I could run TGB, since all I had was an old Powerbook.
(Had a nice Alienware too, but gave it to my parents since it's very hard to move a big computer from US to Hong Kong.)