Replacing a family PC with a Mac Mini?

Feek

Feek

Feek

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Our 'family' PC is quite old now, it's an AMD XP-3000+ Shuttle and in all reality it does the job well, although slowly. It plays all the games that Mrs. Feek and the kids want, just a bit slowly.

I'm thinking about swapping it out for a 2.53GHz Mac Mini. My concern is how well the handful of Windows games that they want will work. I know that they'd be fine through a bootcamped Windows but I'd rather use Parallels. I know that XP running the new version of Parallels is very good, but is it going to be as acceptable as what they've got?

The games aren't new - A handful of Steam games (Half Life 2, Sam 'n' Max' and the old Lucasarts adventures) and Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

I'm pretty sure that this won't be a problem at all but would like some reassurance. My daughter is a Sims fanatic and Sims 3 is available native for the Mac so that's not a problem.

It'd be driving a 19" monitor at 1280x1024.

I think this will work well, I use my MBP with the same 9400M graphics card, the same amount of memory and a slower CPU to play games natively and it's absolutely fine.

So is this a good plan or what?
 
Well the GPU is going to be the limitation as it's a 9400M using shared system RAM (not it's own GPU GDDR memory). I would say look for reviews of those games on the MacBook as it shares the same GPU. Note the system memory is 1066 rather than 667 MHz so it should be faster..

CPU wise it's going to be twiddling it's thumbs with the SIMs.

Sounds like a plan :D not to mention it can be connected to the family TV.. makes the gaming a little more sociable and possible media centre too :D
 
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Well the other option is to get a good gaming PC but JAMAL is right, I'd rather have a Mac there than a Windows box.

It won't get connected to the telly, I have the Apple TV there already and it's in a different room anyway.
 
Feek said:
I can't remember but it's about six years old and is an ATI something or other. The box also only has 1Gb RAM.
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If it's possible you might want to try replacing the graphics card first, as those titles don't seem to merit an entire new system. I've played games on a weaker computer than that before, obviously there's not as much eye candy but that didn't hold back some platforms *looks at Nintendo DS and Wii sales*
 
I've already considered that, it's not an easy thing to do. It's also maxed out on RAM and spends most of the time thrashing the hard drive already. It's getting noisy (even after a good blow out of dust) and I'm loathe to throw money at it. It won't handle the Sims 3 for my daughter either which is another good reason not to consider upgrading it.
 
I have the 2.26 ghz mac mini - plays Counter Strike Source at about 40-80fps really well at 1920 x 1080 through boot camp. Tried running Crossover games but didn't work as well. Best to bootcamp tbh. The mac mini replaced my amd athlon 64 5000+ rig, and the mac is daaaamn fast! :D
 
Can I suggest an older model iMac? The dedicated video will really help, and the Minis aren't cheap for what you get. Might be a good time to look around as stores sell off ex-display stock/old models.
 
Feek said:
I've already considered that, it's not an easy thing to do. It's also maxed out on RAM and spends most of the time thrashing the hard drive already. It's getting noisy (even after a good blow out of dust) and I'm loathe to throw money at it. It won't handle the Sims 3 for my daughter either which is another good reason not to consider upgrading it.
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If you're dead set on a new machine then I would stick to desktop form factors.
 
It just occurred to me that of course I can test this! My MBP has a slower CPU than the machine I'm considering so I can just set up the VM and see how the games work. If it's all OK then I just move the VM over to a new system and it'll work.
 
Feek said:
It just occurred to me that of course I can test this! My MBP has a slower CPU than the machine I'm considering so I can just set up the VM and see how the games work. If it's all OK then I just move the VM over to a new system and it'll work.
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In my experience 3D applications don't work well with VMs. Unless you've found one with good D3D support?
 
How about a 20" iMac, of the older generation?

My brother in law has my old 20" iMac (White), recently formatted and put SL and Windows XP under bootcamp.

Works flawlessly, it's a Core Duo, 2GB, 250GB and a 256MB ATI X1600 GFX.

He plays his game on it, more than capable for other 'older' games?

Surely you can pick one up cheap on the 'bay?
 
I've had Half Life 2 and a few other games using the Source engine running on my WhiteBook and everything worked fine, ran smoothly and that was with Intel GMA graphics. Although admittedly it was using Boot Camp.

I'd get a nice new Mini, I think you are deserving of a new machine seeing as you've had that old Shuttle for quite some time now! :)
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
I'd get a nice new Mini, I think you are deserving of a new machine seeing as you've had that old Shuttle for quite some time now! :)
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Is the right answer!

This is what I'm looking at.

mini-20100101-175129.png
 
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