Boot an Intel Mac to Windows

[jlindborg]

man... sounds like I may have to be the hero here, lean into the pitch and take one for the team.

Actually, does any of the Mini literature actually say anything about fan(s)? I looked at all their specs and product stuff and nowhere do I see a specific mention of fans or noise levels other than that it's "quiet". That can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. Maybe I'll truck it across town to the Mac store and see one for myself instead of going on line...

[jlindborg]

Hmmmm... spent my lunch hour cruising the MAC forums - I'm a little concerned about the talk of heat problems with the dual core and the number of folks complaining about bugs with the fan control and such. I'd rather go with a single core for reduced heat and cost but I'm not convinced the video chipset will be enough to handle HD without a CPU capable of handling overlay.

I'm inclined to believe it'll be fine but not quite so inclined that I'm willing to go drop $600 to find out for sure.

[gplasky]

Originally Posted by jlindborg

Hmmmm... spent my lunch hour cruising the MAC forums - I'm a little concerned about the talk of heat problems with the dual core and the number of folks complaining about bugs with the fan control and such. I'd rather go with a single core for reduced heat and cost but I'm not convinced the video chipset will be enough to handle HD without a CPU capable of handling overlay.

I'm inclined to believe it'll be fine but not quite so inclined that I'm willing to go drop $600 to find out for sure.

Here are the Intel specs for that video chipset and they're not too shabby:
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Core 256-bit graphics core running at 400MHz

Up to 10.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth with DDR2 667 system memory

1.6 GPixels/sec and 1.6 GTexels/sec fill rate

Up to 224 MB maximum video memory

2048x1536 at 75 Hz maximum resolution

Dynamic Display Modes for flat-panel, wide-screen and Digital TV support

Operating systems supported: Microsoft Windows* XP, Windows* XP 64bit, Media Center Edition 2004/2005, Windows 2000; Linux-compatible (Xfree86 source available)


High Performance 3D Up to 4 pixels per clock rendering

Microsoft* DirectX* 9 Hardware Acceleration Features:
Pixel Shader 2.0

Volumetric Textures

Shadow Maps

Slope Scale Depth Bias

Two-Sided Stencil


Microsoft* DirectX* 9 Vertex Shader 3.0 and Transform and Lighting supported in software through highly optimized Processor Specific Geometry Pipeline (PSGP)

Texture Decompression for DirectX* and OpenGL*

OpenGL* 1.4 support plus ARB_vertex_buffer and EXT_shadow_funcs extensions and TexEnv shader caching


Advanced Display Capability Up to 2048x1536 resolution for both analog and digital displays

Consumer Electronic display (Digital TV) support

Display hot plug support to automatically detect new display connection while system is operating (CRT and DVI)

Two Serial Digital Video Out (SDVO) ports for flat-panel monitors and/or TV-out support via Advanced Digital Display 2 (ADD2) cards or Media Expansion Cards

Intel Media Expansion Cards available providing TV-out and PVR capability

Multiple display types (LVDS, DVI-I, DVI-D, HDTV, TV-out, CRT)

Dual screen support through ADD2 digital video devices

HDTV 480i/p, 576i/p, 720i/p and 1080i/p display resolution support

Interlaced Display output support

16x9 and 16x10 Aspect Ratio for widescreen displays

2x2 Panel Scaler


Stunning Video Playback High Definition Hardware Motion Compensation to support high definition hi-bitrate MPEG2 media playback

Up and Down Scaling of Video Content

High Definition Content Decode - up to two stream support

5x3 Overlay Filtering.

Gerry

[Naylia]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

The Mac Mini also has built in IR. I did not see that on AOPEN's specs. I just installed XP on my MBP last night, not sure if the IR is supported. It would need a different remote for sure. Not too much time. I am excited to finally be able to kick the tires on placeshifting when I am on travel for work.

B

Are there any Macintosh features that I should not expect to work when running Windows XP on an Intel-based Macintosh computer?

Even after installling the Macintosh Drivers CD, the Apple Remote Control (IR), Apple Wireless (Bluetooth) keyboard or mouse, Apple USB Modem, MacBook Pro's sudden motion sensor, MacBook Pro's ambient light sensor, and built-in iSight camera will not function correctly when running Windows.

[phenixdragon]

I would give it time for drivers and such for like the built in IR and other features. Like I love the Powerbooks because of the features it has that no one else has or they only have part of the features. But Apple may not be saying they don't support it but they will have to for awhile up to a point. I mean this gives them more sales and they already have supported this thus far.

BTW, lets talk about Apple being a Monopoly on their own hardware. If MSFT is a Monopoly the same thing applies to Apple not opening up their hardware to other OSes. w/o getting into the details but technically they are a monopoly if MSFT is. but like with me, neither of them are.

[jlindborg]

Hey Gerry - thanks for the details specs.

Yeah, I believe it'll rock, too. But you never know till you fire it up with XP and Sage and try pushing HD to your plasma how it's going to fly. My favorite quote applies - "In theory, practice and theory are the same. In practice, they're not"

My wife gave me a raised eyebrow when I pitched the mini - so this may all be moot anyway... I have some PR work to do on the home front it seems.

[mayamaniac]

I just read a review of the intel mac mini in Mac World magazine, pertaining to the Intel integrated GMA950 Graphics Chip:

on Core Colo 1.5ghz, 512M RAM: Integrated Graphics reduces availaible RAM. Unable to play HD (1440 x 1080, Quicktime H.264) without dropping frames. RAM is difficault to upgrade. Little improvement over mac mini G4.

on Core Duo 1.66ghz, 1Gig RAM: HD (1440 x 1080, Quicktime H.264) movie playback is smooth.

Both intel mac minis showed disappointing frame rates (12.2fps) in Unreal Tournament, worse than the G4 mac mini (14.5fps). Overall, Dashboard works better, Quicktime and DVD resizing is smoother than previous G4 mini.

Basically, the Core Solo mini is not powerful enough for HD playback, especially with 512M of RAM. For HDTV playback in SageTV, you most likely have to buy the Core Duo mini with at least 1 Gig of RAM.

[mikejaner]

Both intel mac minis showed disappointing frame rates (12.2fps) in Unreal Tournament, worse than the G4 mac mini (14.5fps)

That's probably cause they were running Unreal Tournament which was made for the PowerPC in emulation mode to play it in the Intel Mac Mini. I would bet money that the Core Solo with 512 megs of ram would be enough to decode HD in SageTV with the Nvidia, or Sonic decoders. The Core Solo hovers around the performance of a P4 3.0ghz, if I recall correctly, and the Graphics system Intel put in there is probably enough to handle the rest.

[jlindborg]

That's a little close but I'll bet you're right. I'm awfully tempted to snag a single core machine with 1 gig of RAM and take it for a spin. My wife's MP3 player is on its last legs and I may be able to bribe her with an iPod in exchange for letting me off the leash with the Mini. If I can get one in the configuration I want this weekend, I'll be sure to fill folks in on how it works...

[stevech]

will we soon read of viruses getting into XP on MAC hardware and corrupting both XP and the OSX partitions?

[Menehune]

Unfortunately my older mac mini is PowerPC based so I can't dual boot it, but with 1GB of ram, the onboard video has been able to play all videos on my 20" dell widescreen display with no noticable problems.

As for noise-it's silent doing desktop applications and light loads. The DVD drive spinning is louder than the cpu fan at idle. When I was running boinc on the mini, the fan almost immediately kicked into high speed and made almost as much noise as a stock intel HSF unit. If I recall correctly, the cpu fan is a 60mm blower-type mounted on top a relatively small thin heatsink, so the fan needs to move a lot of air to cool the processor down.

[Joseph S]

I have not installed SageTV on my mini because neither my firewire EyeTVs nor Miglia USB2 HDTV tuner appear supported in Meedio and I assumed the same in Sage. The same hardware is available in China and other places under different names, but I'm not sure what they go under. I can try firewire cable, but I've primarily used my Macs and D-VHS for that. My HTPC uses a PCI Hauppauge SD tuner for SD stuff and I have no listed compatible tuner.

The CoreDuo mini can play .ts (Zoom with nVidia/Theatertek), 1080p H.264 (CoreAVC), and DVDs with FFDSHOW/Nvidia postprocessing and it barely uses 40-45% of the CPU. It shouldn't be an issue at all. If I have the time I'll try Sage on the Mini with firewire cable this week. I'd really prefer a Mac version of SageTV as I'm anticipating getting the Nexcomm wireless setup this summer for DISH, however for OTA I think even Sage would be second to EyeTV unless it can support more than the six HD tuners supported by EyeTV. EyeTV makes recording huge chunks and splitting it off into separate shows a piece of cake making up for rotten network exec scheduling. The Nexcom/SageTV box will definitely run on another mini as the mini has solid firewire/gigabit hardware and driver support unlike my Asus P5AD2 Premium.

Don't worry about heat/fans. You won't ever hear anything but the DVD-R/RW ramping up. People have already successfully dropped in the prototypes of the 64bit Intel chips too without issues.

[mattsm]

Originally Posted by Joseph S

I have not installed SageTV on my mini because neither my firewire EyeTVs nor Miglia USB2 HDTV tuner appear supported in Meedio and I assumed the same in Sage. The same hardware is available in China and other places under different names, but I'm not sure what they go under. I can try firewire cable, but I've primarily used my Macs and D-VHS for that. My HTPC uses a PCI Hauppauge SD tuner for SD stuff and I have no listed compatible tuner.

The CoreDuo mini can play .ts (Zoom with nVidia/Theatertek), 1080p H.264 (CoreAVC), and DVDs with FFDSHOW/Nvidia postprocessing and it barely uses 40-45% of the CPU. It shouldn't be an issue at all. If I have the time I'll try Sage on the Mini with firewire cable this week. I'd really prefer a Mac version of SageTV as I'm anticipating getting the Nexcomm wireless setup this summer for DISH, however for OTA I think even Sage would be second to EyeTV unless it can support more than the six HD tuners supported by EyeTV. EyeTV makes recording huge chunks and splitting it off into separate shows a piece of cake making up for rotten network exec scheduling. The Nexcom/SageTV box will definitely run on another mini as the mini has solid firewire/gigabit hardware and driver support unlike my Asus P5AD2 Premium.

Don't worry about heat/fans. You won't ever hear anything but the DVD-R/RW ramping up. People have already successfully dropped in the prototypes of the 64bit Intel chips too without issues.

What resolutions are you running at? I have a 1900x1080 display and I want to be able to tun 1080P MPEG-4 video. Do you think the video card can handle it?

-Matthew

[jlindborg]

sweet - I'd pull the trigger on it but I just dropped the cash for the same Nextcomm modification you're planning on... have to wait for the funds to build up in the TV-rig fund again before I can snag a mini. Everyone tells me to go with the dual core and don't sweat the heat - so that's what I'll do. In a month or two.

[Joseph S]

Sage runs. Doesn't recognize the Miglia or EyeTV tuners. Tried drivers for all of the USB tuners available from Copperbox to no avail. Firewire Cable/D-VHS recording is definitely a major PITA in Windows after looking at few of the pdfs compared to V-DVHS in OS X. Where do I get sgraphrecorder? The site is down.

[mattsm]

Have you tried any 1080p content?

-Matthew

[Joseph S]

1080p with CoreAVC is fine. CPU at 40%.

[mayamaniac]

Originally Posted by Joseph S

Sage runs. Doesn't recognize the Miglia or EyeTV tuners. Tried drivers for all of the USB tuners available from Copperbox to no avail. Firewire Cable/D-VHS recording is definitely a major PITA in Windows after looking at few of the pdfs compared to V-DVHS in OS X. Where do I get sgraphrecorder? The site is down.

I bet the external USB2 tuner from Hauppauge would work with your Mac mini. Maybe email EyeTV and ask them if they plan to release Windows drivers now that XP runs on Macs. But overall, I think the mini is more suited as a Client than a SageTV server due to it's small size. But since you most likely need a Core duo, it is a bit costly, especially if you buy more than one. I guess you can go with the solo, but then it just might be or feel underpowered.

[jlindborg]

Just a note that I now have a dual proc Mini in my hot little hands and I'm in the process of installing XP using Boot camp - I'll have it setup as a client pushing HD content to my plasma before the night is out I hope - I'll report back with results...

[Joseph S]

Don't forget to upgrade the firmware to 1.0.1 and burn a copy of the Firmware Restore CD in case you have a failure.