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prophetizer · 2011-07-25, 00:44

i just picked up the new mac mini from best buy today as my basement flooded saturday and my HTPC was shot. so far i've had no issues, but until i fully configure everything i won't know for sure. i have 45 days to return it though, as i originally wanted to order the core i7 from apple, as best buy only sells the 2 base models, i did get the $799 one though with the ati radeon card and core i5

ix400 · 2011-07-25, 06:56

Dimmuxx Wrote:Hmm, I've read a little more about the acceleration in os x and is it still slow as it was back when this was posted http://xbmc.org/davilla/2010/05/03/osx-g...leration/? I'm thinking about buying a new mini(intel) and use as an htpc but this makes me reconsider it.

But as far as I have understood hardware decoding is not supported on the 2011 Mac Minis.

Or am I wrong?

Chris

user888 · 2011-07-25, 07:37

I'm following this thread with great interest. As @ix400 asks, does anyone know if hardware accelerated decoding is supported on the new mid-2011 Mac Mini's? In other words, does the VDADecoder fully make use of the Intel HD 3000 GPU (the one in the Mac Mini 2.3GHz base model) _OR_ the AMD Radeon HD 6630M GPU (the 2.5GHz Mac Mini)?

I want to buy a Mac Mini solely for setting up XBMC and I want to know if I have to go for the Intel or AMD graphics. Or would the former model Mac Mini with Nvidia GPU a better bet?

user888 · 2011-07-25, 07:58

user888 Wrote:I'm following this thread with great interest. As @ix400 asks, does anyone know if hardware accelerated decoding is supported on the new mid-2011 Mac Mini's? In other words, does the VDADecoder fully make use of the Intel HD 3000 GPU (the one in the Mac Mini 2.3GHz base model) _OR_ the AMD Radeon HD 6630M GPU (the 2.5GHz Mac Mini)?

I want to buy a Mac Mini solely for setting up XBMC and I want to know if I have to go for the Intel or AMD graphics. Or would the former model Mac Mini with Nvidia GPU a better bet?

To answer my own question partly: VDADecoder supports these GPU's:

NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
GeForce 320M
GeForce GT 330M,
AMD HD Radeon GFX
Intel HD Graphics

That's all info I have, together with the fact that it's not available on all platforms or OSX versions.

~~Ned Scott~~ · 2011-07-25, 13:48

ix400 Wrote:But as far as I have understood hardware decoding is not supported on the 2011 Mac Minis.

Or am I wrong?

Chris

Sounds wrong to me unless they changed the hardware decoding APIs (either the private ones or the public ones).

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 15:01

Tested yet another clip on both the macmini 2010 with nvidia and the macmini 2011 with intel. The clip was a bluray remux of U2's Rose Bowl concert. On the macmini 2010 it ran at 49% CPU / 30fps (with 0 dropped frames) and on the macmini 2011 it was 111% CPU / 15fps and constant dropped frames.

Again these are my own tests and observations but something must be off between the new models and xbmc.

dlmh · 2011-07-25, 16:45

Open6l Wrote:Tested yet another clip on both the macmini 2010 with nvidia and the macmini 2011 with intel. The clip was a bluray remux of U2's Rose Bowl concert. On the macmini 2010 it ran at 49% CPU / 30fps (with 0 dropped frames) and on the macmini 2011 it was 111% CPU / 15fps and constant dropped frames.

Again these are my own tests and observations but something must be off between the new models and xbmc.

I have noticed similar results with the integrated Intel HD Graphics on a i3 530, this is usually the result of the (out-of-spec) encoding profile. The Intel HD 2000 integrated graphics hold a poor HQV score (about 130), compared to 191 for the HD 3000 series graphics, but somehow, the Intel graphics still have some issues with certain encoding.

The 9400m graphics found in previous Mac Mini's do not show these kind of issues, this explains the results.

The Mac Mini 2011 with AMD HD 6630M graphics will NOT show the same results.

Thewolf · 2011-07-25, 17:20

I have the Mac Mini 2011 with AMD HD 6630M. I have a few 1080p movies with hardware decoding turn on they display weird graphical glitches all over the place like a fried graphics card. This only happens on 1080p anything 720p plays fine. If i turn off the hardware decoder all 1080p plays fine.

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 18:27

Thewolf Wrote:I have the Mac Mini 2011 with AMD HD 6630M. I have a few 1080p movies with hardware decoding turn on they display weird graphical glitches all over the place like a fried graphics card. This only happens on 1080p anything 720p plays fine. If i turn off the hardware decoder all 1080p plays fine.

Yeah - I also had all sorts of these gfx glitches with my 2011-Intel3000HD - most seemed to go away with the latest nightly but the poor performance is still there.

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 18:31

dlmh Wrote:I have noticed similar results with the integrated Intel HD Graphics on a i3 530, this is usually the result of the (out-of-spec) encoding profile. The Intel HD 2000 integrated graphics hold a poor HQV score (about 130), compared to 191 for the HD 3000 series graphics, but somehow, the Intel graphics still have some issues with certain encoding.

The 9400m graphics found in previous Mac Mini's do not show these kind of issues, this explains the results.

The Mac Mini 2011 with AMD HD 6630M graphics will NOT show the same results.

unfortunately the AMD version is $799 which is considerably more than the $549 for the macmini 2010 which also doesn't experience these problems Smile

dlmh · 2011-07-25, 18:33

Open6l Wrote:unfortunately the AMD version is $799 which is considerably more than the $549 for the macmini 2010 which also doesn't experience these problems

But the 2010 model won't allow for bit streaming HD audio formats Wink

**Korey** · 2011-07-25, 18:38

Open6l Wrote:Yeah - I also had all sorts of these gfx glitches with my 2011-Intel3000HD - most seemed to go away with the latest nightly but the poor performance is still there.

Can OSX 10.6 be installed on these new Mini's?

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 18:38

dlmh Wrote:But the 2010 model won't allow for bit streaming HD audio formats

well - I have 2 weeks before I have to return either the 2010 or 2011... I'm hoping within that timeframe whatever the issue is with the 2011 Intel version will be resolved (fingers crossed).

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 18:39

Korey Wrote:Can OSX 10.6 be installed on these new Mini's?

you would need the drivers which are not avail for 10.6. Natively I would say no - might require some tweaking/hacking to get that to work.

Open6l · 2011-07-25, 20:22

Yet another observation - take a 1080i transport clip and turn on deinterlace. CPU shoots up to 123% constant on the Mac mini 2011. Take the exact same clips (tried 3 different HD Getaways clips and the Last Shuttle Our Journey clip) and the Mac mini 2010 barely cracks 65% CPU and no dropped frames.