If you guys didn't already know,
the Mac mini is actually the most powerful
currently available M1 Mac.
The reason for this is it has the exact same specs
as the MacBook Pro,
except it actually has a slightly bigger fan
and there's a little bit more area for heat dissipation.
So theoretically, we should see
a little bit better performance from this machine.
And in today's video, we're going to be gaming
on my brand new Dell 4K monitor,
and we're going to see how the Mac mini performs.
Now guys, my assistant is making fun of me.
She's calling me a stupid Mac fan boy and says,
"Why don't you just game on your PC
like every other person?"
So, I'm going to prove her wrong today.
Just you watch.
Now, if you've seen the other videos on my channel
you would see that I've done quite a bit of gaming
on my base model MacBook Air.
And I was able to get decent playable framerates
on 2K resolution, but mostly playing at 1080
was where I was able to get some really playable games.
Now, if you've seen on my channel,
I've done a lot of gaming on the base model MacBook Air,
the M1 version, and that works great
even at 1440p for some games
but it does struggle when you get to the triple A titles,
like Tomb Raider.
So in this video, it's going to be very very interesting to see
how the Mac mini, which again is very, very cheap,
it's about $700, stacks up with some 4K gaming.
Okay guys, so the first game
we're going to start with once again is Fortnite.
Now I played this on my MacBook Air
and it worked perfectly fine without any issues.
We were actually able to get around 90 to 100 FPS
playing it around 1080p.
So it's going to be interesting to see
how the Mac mini performs
not only on its own, but also on 4K.
Now, if you guys are interested in this 4K monitor from Dell
I'll have it linked in the description.
It's an awesome, awesome monitor, guys.
I've had it for probably just about four or five hours.
I've literally just set it up,
but it's absolutely incredible.
The 4K resolution is great.
The colors are super accurate
and I'm just very, very happy with it.
So I'll probably do a review or some kind of deep dive
into this monitor in the near future.
So stay tuned on the channel.
All right, so let's go back into Battle Royale.
So I'll show you guys the settings I have, first of all.
So if we come in here, I've got it set to full screen.
You can see that it's in full 4K resolution,
16:9 aspect ratio, unlimited frame limit.
And we have the quality presets to low,
3D resolution to 100%, that's full 4K resolution.
And then everything else is set to low
just so we can try to max out the FPS.
And I've also got the in game FPS marker
set to on as well.
So let's come back out of here,
and let's just try to find a solo game.
Okay guys, so we are in the Battle Bus now
and we're getting a very solid 30 frames per second.
Now, that's pretty cool
because generally at the start of these games,
when during the Battle Bus, there's a lot of players,
there's a lot of stuff to render and for the game to load.
So you're going to get some low FPS.
So let's drop down now, and let's try to go somewhere quiet
because if I go somewhere busy
I'm just going to get wrecked straight away.
So I'll see you guys down on the ground.
Okay guys, we're on the ground now.
So the FPS has stabilized a little bit.
Now you might not be able to see
up in the top right-hand corner the FPS.
I'll try to zoom in now so I can have a brief look,
but we are getting about 35 FPS.
Now, bear in mind, guys, this is at full 4K.
And if we get some motion in here,
you can see there's really no issues at all.
The frames aren't really dropping.
I can jump around, destroy stuff, absolutely no issues.
Let's destroy this house.
You can see there's a little bit of distortion.
There's some screen glitching
and some shape glitching as well.
I think that's just because this is obviously
a completely unoptimized version of the M1 chip.
So this is running off the Rosetta emulation, guys,
so just bear that in mind.
But we are having absolutely no issues here.
If we come out here and we try to build,
absolutely no issues at all.
We can shoot.
We're actually getting about 40 FPS now.
So this is very, very playable.
Especially considering since, especially on consoles,
30, 40 FPS is all you're going to get.
So, if you guys are okay with playing it 30, 40 FPS,
this is actually totally playable.
Again, it's completely at 4K resolution.
So what we'll do now is we'll change the resolution
and we'll just bump it down a little bit to say, 1440p.
So, 2560 by 1440. Let's apply that.
And now we're going to play.
And you can see now, wow,
we are immediately getting about 70 FPS.
So there's absolutely no issues there.
I can move around quickly.
There's no screen tearing, no dropped frames.
We're getting a very, very solid 60 to 70 FPS.
So there's absolutely no issues here at all.
Again, you can see some artifacting here and there.
That's probably just because of the Rosetta emulation, guys.
So that's probably going to go away
once that gets sorted out by the Fortnite developers.
Okay guys, next up we have Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Now, this is probably one of the most intensive games
you can play on the Mac right now.
As I said before,
there's not a whole lot of games that are optimized
for the Mac at this point, the M1 version.
And as you saw on my last video on the MacBook Air,
this game only just ran at 1440p.
So it definitely was struggling.
So let's see how the Mac mini performs.
Okay guys, so let's go into the options
and then we're going to go into display and graphics.
So you'll be able to see here again, it's at 4K.
I'm also going to turn V-sync on
and I'm going to leave anti-aliasing off.
So we'll save that.
And I'm going to come to the graphics.
Everything is set to as low as possible here,
because obviously, you know,
if we can just play this thing at all at 4K
that's all we want to see.
So let's save that
and we're going to continue on with the game.
Okay guys, we're into Tomb Raider now.
Now, unfortunately it's a little bit dark
so I'll try to make it as bright as I can.
But as you guys can see
we're getting a solid 15 FPS.
And, guys, just right now from what I'm seeing here,
this looks absolutely incredible.
Even though all of the details are set to low,
you can definitely tell this is in 4K.
Now, obviously, 13 FPS, that's really not playable.
So let's see if we can actually
just drop it down a little bit
and see if we can get it up to about 30, maybe 25 FPS.
Let's change this to 1440p,
we'll leave everything else the same.
So this is now technically half the resolution,
so it's no longer 4K.
And we just want to see what we can get.
'Cause obviously, guys, 4K on this game,
you're not going to be playing it.
I just thought I'd show you what it looks like.
But hopefully 1440p, it's going to be more playable.
Okay guys, as you can see here
we are now getting a very, very solid 30 FPS.
So it does dip down slightly to about 27 every now and then
but this is actually very, very playable.
And again, it looks absolutely great.
Not quite 4K.
But again, I don't think we're going to be able
to play this game on 4K.
But the fact that it was playing at 4K at 15 to 16 FPS
is already very impressive.
But now this is obviously 1440p
and we are actually getting a playable frame rate,
so that's very, very impressive.
Okay, guys, so now we have Dying Light playing in native 4K.
Now, Dying Light is a relatively older game.
It's about four years old,
but if you guys have played it before
it can actually be quite intensive on your graphics card
because there's quite a lot of things going on,
there's quite a lot of detail in the maps.
So as you guys can see here,
we're getting about 20 FPS at 4K
with all settings set to low.
Now, this isn't quite playable.
Another 10 to 15 FPS and it definitely would be.
If you can get up to about 30, 35 FPS,
it's definitely playable,
especially cause this is just a single player game.
So there's going to be absolutely no issues playing that
if you can squeeze out a little bit more.
Unfortunately though, again,
this is just running off Rosetta 2,
so you're going to lose at least 20 to 30% performance.
So, once these games start becoming optimized for the M1,
we might actually see this become 100% playable.
We may even be able to get like 40 to 50 FPS playing at 4K.
Now, if we go back to the menu and we come to the options,
we're going to cut down the resolution to 1440p or 2K.
So we're essentially reducing the resolution by 50%.
And this will again,
just give us a little bit more of a benchmark
as to how the 4K is performing.
So let's save this and then we're going to reload that game.
Okay, so this is at 1440p
and we are getting a pretty consistent 38 to 40 FPS.
And this is playable.
I'm not really getting any kind of dropped frames.
We're now up to about 45 FPS.
So there's really no issues.
And again, guys, this is just a single player game.
And for me personally, for single player games,
I can play them at 30 to 40 FPS, no issue.
If this was a multiplayer game,
like a Twitch shooter game,
or like a Call of Duty or something like that,
you obviously wouldn't want to play at 30 FPS.
But because this is obviously just a really chill
single player game, you don't really need the higher FPS.
So this is very, very impressive.
Again, just a $700 Mac mini, no upgrades, nothing like that.
Just running off completely unoptimized software
on Rosetta 2.
Now, guys, what we'll also do now
is we'll do a thermal test on the Mac mini,
just a quick one.
Now this has been gaming for about an hour now all up
and you can see on the exterior, it is barely warm.
You can see right where the processor is
which is the hottest part,
we're barely getting 30 degrees Celsius.
And if I actually touch this,
it doesn't even feel warm.
So guys, honestly,
I don't actually think you're going to suffer
from much thermal throttling at all
on this particular system.
Because the games are going to run,
they're not super, super intensive on the Mac mini.
And as I said before,
the Mac mini does have a slightly bigger fan
and better thermals than the MacBook Pro.
Obvious reasons, guys, I mean, look at the size of this
compared to the Mac pro, it's much thicker.
So I actually think
this will be a great little machine for gaming on the Mac.
So there we have it, guys.
That was 4K gaming on the base model Mac mini.
Now I know, guys, this video isn't supposed to prove
that, you know, you can game on a Mac mini.
Should you buy a Mac mini for gaming?
Of course not, by a windows PC.
But if you just want to do some light casual gaming
every now and then, so some Fortnite,
or maybe some Dying Light, or some Sims,
it's going to work perfectly fine.
And if you do play a really well optimized game,
such as Fortnite or CS:GO, when CS:GO is updated,
it's actually going to be a great little machine
because you'll be able to play it at decent FPS at 4K.
And if you guys aren't keen to play at 4K,
which is 95% of people, if you just want to play at 1080p,
you're going to get very, very good frame rates
on pretty much any game you can play.
I'll be doing a 1080p gaming test very soon.
But for now, guys, hope you enjoyed the video.
And if there are any questions or anything,
you guys know what to do, comment below.
Apart from that, I'll catch you in the next one.