W7 vs Lion on old MacMini=W7 is better.

Ben Cole · 4 Dec 2013 at 19:48

Wonder if anyone can help here.

I have an old Mac Mini, 2.0Ghz C2D but only GMA950 gfx and 2.5Gb RAM.

On W7 Netflix works fine and all my videos play well too. On Lion videos suffer tearing and jitteryness, Netflix struggles a bit and the general GUI seems choppy and jittery when asked to manipulate anything remotely detailed.

Now I realise this is old stuff but is there anything I can do to bring OSX Lion's performance up to Windows 7 levels? Long time PC tweaker but know little about Mac.

Thanks in advance.

bloodiedathame · 4 Dec 2013 at 21:24

What browser are you using? And is W7 running on your Mac Mini? Or something with comparable spec?

Ben Cole · 4 Dec 2013 at 21:32

Yes, its W7 on the MacMini.

IE on Windows, Safari on Lion.

Even stuff outside a browser is poor though. For example minimising a video in QT player results in a very poor animation and as I said playing the video on QT results in tearing/shearing and less than impressive playback.

Caged · 4 Dec 2013 at 21:53

Have you tried Mavericks?

bloodiedathame · 4 Dec 2013 at 22:39

I personally always felt Lion was a bit crap, as previously said, give Mavericks a go and report back (after-all it's free!). Just backup first.

Ben Cole · 5 Dec 2013 at 04:59

I'm not sure it'll run on this but I'll check it out.

theheyes · 5 Dec 2013 at 17:58

I found Lion to be a stinker of an OS on the 'older' Mac hardware. It wouldn't surprise me one jot if those problems disappeared with an upgrade.

Skyboat · 5 Dec 2013 at 20:00

I don't think the GMA950 is supported on ML and MV. Not without a lot of hacking.

I'm also going to have to agree with the rest about Lion, too.

Ben Cole · 5 Dec 2013 at 22:40

Recommend rolling back to SL?

bloodiedathame · 6 Dec 2013 at 12:17

Or obtaining ML, that's been pretty good for me on older machines.

theheyes · 6 Dec 2013 at 12:19

Not ideal as SL is not properly supported by Apple anymore, but if it's just being used as a media player I suppose it's an option.

Ben Cole · 6 Dec 2013 at 13:14

bloodiedathame said:
Or obtaining ML, that's been pretty good for me on older machines.

As questioned above, is it supported on this machine though.

Skyboat · 6 Dec 2013 at 13:25

Mac minis from 2007 or earlier only support OS X up to Lion.

Vanhishikha · 9 Dec 2013 at 09:58

Ben Cole said:
Wonder if anyone can help here.

I have an old Mac Mini, 2.0Ghz C2D but only GMA950 gfx and 2.5Gb RAM.

On W7 Netflix works fine and all my videos play well too. On Lion videos suffer tearing and jitteryness, Netflix struggles a bit and the general GUI seems choppy and jittery when asked to manipulate anything remotely detailed.

Now I realise this is old stuff but is there anything I can do to bring OSX Lion's performance up to Windows 7 levels? Long time PC tweaker but know little about Mac.

Thanks in advance.

Personally, increase your RAM to at-least 4GB, it's so cheap, like $30 for 4GB on ebay.

Alternatively, you may want to revert back to Snow Leopard, as that may suit your specifications better.

Ben Cole · 9 Dec 2013 at 12:10

The only thing putting me off that is that I've read they're not particularly easy to take apart.

I may have a look at trying some more RAM in there.

Skyboat · 9 Dec 2013 at 13:26

Ben Cole said:
The only thing putting me off that is that I've read they're not particularly easy to take apart.

I may have a look at trying some more RAM in there.

If it's a Mid-2007 model, the maximum RAM it can support is 3GB.
If it is an Early or Late 2006 model, it can only support up to 2GB.

Ben Cole · 6 Jan 2014 at 10:29

Well I rolled back to Snow Leopard and it's like a new machine. Netflix is now watchable.

Also tried putting 4Gb RAM, don't think that'll make much/any difference for my usage pattern.

Seems like Lion is Apple's Vista so to speak!