Mac Mini Intel GMA 950 Grraphics

Question

I have read a lot of reviews that the Mac mini is not a 'Gamer's Mac' because of the Intel graphics card. If I wanted to run the upcoming Age Of Empires III on my mac, would it still work and would the quality be diminished? What do you think?
Dean

Answer 1

Dean, it has to be said that the graphics sub-system in the mini is really the only weakness, and even then it's far less of a limiting factor than many people would have you believe. It's a cheap way to implement video, but that doesn't mean it's an ineffective one!
In a real sense, the faster of the two mini models is not far behind a dual processor G5 system in terms of ram processing power - and those systems were (and still are) extensively used in such environments as professional video production, publishing, web design, music production, photo editing and the like. The mini is good for all those sort of tasks too, with the only real concerns being the fact that as yet a lot of software is not yet 'universal', meaning it'll still run but require Rosetta, which slows things down a bit, and the speed of the hard drive, which is relatively slow in comparison to the other Mac models.
To overcome the performance issues concerning Rosetta, more RAM is always a good thing and of course making sure that where you can, you always use Intel-native (or universal) applications, such as the ones that actually come with the system. And to keep the hard drive speed in sensible perspective, it's the same speed as the drives used in laptops, and there are plenty of those being used for video, music, photo work etc. Certainly more than 'basic tasks'!!