digitalcarbon Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 graphics card is Intel Iris Graphics is the mini still viewed as not the best for vw2015 its all i buy any comments jimw? Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 If you use RenderWorks - no. There is no more 4-core CPU available so it will render much slower than the 2012 model. Also RAM is soldered so you can't upgrade later. I you are just drawing and modeling in VW, the new Mac Mini is ok. Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 from Macrumors this morning - "here's a winner let's hobble it": Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 20, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 20, 2014 For rendering an 3D visualization, no. Skip it and go for an iMac, Macbook Pro or Mac Pro. The Intel series graphics are "acceptable" but significantly worse than the Nvidia and AMD GPUs. If you were JUST doing simple 2D designs, maybe, but not as a main work machine. Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 What the hell. So we've been waiting all this time keeping an old Power Mac hobbling along as our server, only to find we should have bought back in 2012! Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 20, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 20, 2014 They even soldered the RAM on the new Mini to prevent user upgrades, so you have to shell out hundreds of dollars for what will be $59 worth of extra RAM in 6 months. That coupled with the un-upgradeable graphics cards in the Mac Pro... their line is getting increasingly restraining on the user that likes to keep a machine for longer than 3 years. Quote Link to comment
bcd Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 What the hell. So we've been waiting all this time keeping an old Power Mac hobbling along as our server, only to find we should have bought back in 2012! Very disappointed here too - but I am feeling a little satisfaction with my 2012 Quad i7 2.6GHz 16GB ram & 1TB Fusion = best mini ever! Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 Wonder whats going on there? Sounds like the bean counters have take over at Apple. Or maybe a stopgap before releasing a newly designed machine with broadwell processors? Notice the short shrift Schiller gave it when announcing too? Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 20, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 20, 2014 I will say that the 5K iMac at $2500 is extremely good value for money, especially considering it has a near bleeding-edge GPU with its AMD R9 series M290X. You could easily pay $1500 for JUST a 4K display of that size or more. However that appears to be the only shining star in their regular range for now. The Mac Pro is still excellent spec-wise, but its significantly less bang for the buck compared to the new iMac. Quote Link to comment
bc Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 I SO hope it's the latter, Christiaan. But I fear it's the former. Witness the abolition of the 17" MacBook Pro... And I am due for an upgrade. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted October 20, 2014 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted October 20, 2014 (edited) VW on Linux Jim? I tried! I failed... but I got much closer than before. I am fairly confident it can be done by someone with greater LinuxFu than I. Since after 2015, Vectorworks no longer needs QuickTime, you no longer have to wrestle with that aspect when trying to run Vectorworks on Linux via WINE or something similar. However even after I ironed out all the older issues I had trying to get 2014 running to run under WINE, I hit new issues with it being unable to detect certain DLLs within the program folder upon launch. There are ways of running Mac applications on Linux as well that I haven't looked into, I have only had time to try the Windows versions on Linux thus far. I am going to be messing with it again when I have time. EDIT- MORE INFO: I had tried using Darling to run the Mac version, but its still in its infancy as a project and isn't really up to handling a highly complex application like Vectorworks that has hooks in the OS all over the place. Edited October 20, 2014 by JimW Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted October 20, 2014 Share Posted October 20, 2014 No, VW on Apple Watch ! A real disappointment with the new Mini's. nMac Pro being a video editing station and iMac having a display and potential heat problems in heavy use, there's now a real gap in desktops from Apple. Many used the 2012 Minis as render slaves. Quote Link to comment
Kizza Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Bought my mac mini (2012) 4 weeks ago. Don't know if I should be happy or disappointed.... Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted October 21, 2014 Author Share Posted October 21, 2014 bought mine 2 months ago and it works fine see it in action http://youtu.be/BpM51HIlPpQ check your stats with mine below Quote Link to comment
zoomer Posted October 21, 2014 Share Posted October 21, 2014 Bought my mac mini (2012) 4 weeks ago. Don't know if I should be happy or disappointed.... You should be happy ! (If you chose the 4 core model) Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted October 22, 2014 Author Share Posted October 22, 2014 just found out that hidden line rendering (which is all i use for section view ports) is only cared for by one processor and not graphics card. so a Mac anything with many cores and a zillion graphics cards are not going to help me. i fly around & use clipped cube in openGL then: 6-8 sheets are top/plan 24+- sheets are section viewports (sections, interior/exterior elevations, details) 1 sheet is a white model (custom render works). so... the setup i have (see below) is the most bang for the buck.. anyone care to challenge this? im a little miffed because i was about to buy the base line MacPro Quote Link to comment
Kizza Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 check your stats with mine below Mine is the 2.3ghz quad core i7 with 8gb ram. I've also added an SSD which will be used as the primary drive. I bought it 4 weeks ago but haven't had time yet to migrate everything over!! I don't really want to go back to an all-in-one - I've got 2 dell monitors ready to go. Quote Link to comment
digitalcarbon Posted October 22, 2014 Author Share Posted October 22, 2014 my mini is called "Late 2012" so i think we have the same machine for the most part Quote Link to comment
Christiaan Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 Macminicolo on new Mac Mini: http://blog.macminicolo.net/post/100240431773/a-look-at-the-2014-mac-mini Quote Link to comment
Gilbert Osmond Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 (edited) Running a 2012 Mini here (see specs in my signature,) not liking the laggy performance when doing renders of fairly simple scenes. Has anyone explored or tested using a PCIe graphics card connected through an external Lightning --> PCIe enclosure? --- Separate question: are there any major performance benefits using Yosemite 10.10 vs Mavericks 10.9? Edited February 25, 2015 by Gilbert Osmond Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted February 25, 2015 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted February 25, 2015 We haven't tested it mainly because there are so few Thunderbolt2 > PCIe adapters available, but I will definitely be pushing for testing them internally here. Plug-in graphics power would be a significant upgrade and would let users continue buying the Macs that are saddled with the weak Intel integrated GPUs. Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted April 9, 2015 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted April 9, 2015 (edited) Got my hands on a Mac Mini 6,2 for realworld testing, which is the one released in late 2012. (We don't have a lot of Mac Minis to test here.) Intel i7 3720QM 2.6GHz CPU Intel HD 4000 Graphics 16GB DDR3 RAM Cinebench CPU (Processor) Score: 589 - This is a VERY good score for today's tech. Cinebench GPU Score: 17.35 - This is an awful score for today's tech. [img:center]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=12080&filename=MacMini-6_2-cb.PNG[/img] The machine's CPU scored very well in benchmarking, however the Intel HD 4000 graphics pretty much put it out of the running for moderate-to-heavy 3D modeling. I loaded a few of our medium and heavy test files and it immediately started choking in OpenGL, even on a low res 1600x1200 display. If you were to try to push a 2K or 4K display, the experience would be 3-5 times worse. If your models are lightweight/simple or you don't need to leave top/plan very often, the Intel HD 4000 is an ACCEPTABLE graphics choice, but still below the speed I would recommend for daily use in 3D. Especially considering we have gotten reports of crashing from users with even moderately complex 3D files on this graphics card that don't crash when on a more capable one. Trying to get a hold of the 2015 models where they've bumped up the graphics to Intel HD 5000 and 5100s, but it looks like (as mentioned previously in this thread) Apple has kneecapped the previously excellent CPU on them in the process for some reason. Will report back when I have test results any of the 2015 models. Edited April 9, 2015 by JimW Quote Link to comment
Vectorworks, Inc Employee PVA - Admin Posted April 9, 2015 Vectorworks, Inc Employee Share Posted April 9, 2015 Was able to track down a 2015 Mac Mini 7,2! IT was nice enough to loan it to me for testing. Be nice to your IT guys. It turned out to be the higher end model: Intel i7 4578U 3.0GHz CPU Intel Iris Graphics So basically an Intel HD 5000 or 5100 16GB DDR3 RAM Cinebench CPU (Processor) Score: 313 - This is an average score for today's tech. Cinebench GPU (Graphics) Score: 21.9 - This is an awful score for today's tech. [img:center]https://techboard.vectorworks.net/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=12081&filename=MacMini-7_2-cb.png[/img] Looks like kneecapped was right. The CPU in this model, even though its the best one you can select is HALF the speed of its predecessor when it comes to rendering, mainly because its 2 core with 4 threads as opposed to the previous models 4 cores and 8 threads. The GPU is slightly improved, but in real world tests the difference was negligible, its still nearly unusable with a moderately complex model, especially with shadows of any kind turned on in OpenGL. I even got some graphics artifacts when I tried to move around rapidly, but a quick search suggests artifacts may be a result of 10.10 more than the hardware itself. This newer Mac Mini is actually even less recommended due to its much poorer CPU performance and pretty much equally poor performance on the GPU side. Not sure why Apple chose to send out such a lame duck as their entry level offering when past versions were far superior (I had a Mac Mini with an Nvidia 9400 GPU from around 2009 that would likely have performed better in GPU testing than this.) and when on the PC side you can get MUCH better hardware for the price. As equipped, this Mac Mini was $1,200. That puts you well within the realm of the mid grade iMacs, which have better CPUs, GPUs, and even come with a display. Yikes. No clue what Apple is doing here, but its not a good experience for the end user. Quote Link to comment
Gilbert Osmond Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 Greatly appreciate your research and reporting on this. Relieved that I can stick with my 2012 MacMini6,2 and preserve *better* performance than upgrading to a 2015 Mini. No doubt Apple is kneecapping the Mini so they can sell more iMacs and of course Mac Pros. So far my models are relatively simple and I am finding OpenGL rendering for day-to-day work is very fast. If/when need be I will step up to faster hardware. Cheers, S Quote Link to comment
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