[mythtv-users] myth front end on new mac mini core 2 duo?

[Wade Maxfield]

On 20/3/09 10:39 AM, Damian Haslam wrote:
> David Miller wrote:
>> Damian Haslam wrote on 3/17/09 11:44 PM:
>>> Does anyone have an direct experience (or know someone/URL) of
>>> getting one
>>> of the new Mac Mini (upper model - the one with the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M
>>> with 256MB of shared DDR3 SDRAM) working with the OS X mythfrontend ?
>> FWIW, I put 4GB of RAM into mine (after receiving it, since Apple
>> charges too much to have them do it), and after the RAM upgrade, the
>> nvidia config utility reports 512MB of VRAM.
>> It certainly seems nice and speedy.
>
> That's interesting - in .au our options for the mini are 2.0 GHz, with
> either 120Gb HDD or 320Gb HDD. They also differ on the video - the cheap
> one has NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 128MB of shared DDR3 SDRAM and the
> expensive one has 256MB. THe System memory likewise is 1Gb, and 2Gb.
>
> So, if I get the cheap one, and upgrade the RAM to 4Gb, I'll effectively
> have exactly the same as the expensive one, but cheaper? I'm no HW
> expert (clearly) but the VRAM thing seems related to the system memory?
>
> The "expensive" one is au$1400, the "cheap" one is $1049 - obviously
> quite a large difference, but is it really justified hardware-wise?

The official apple specs say that it uses 128MB of system RAM per 1GB 
installed, upto a maximum of 256MB. So if your machine has 1GB 
installed, then 128MB is reserved for the GPU, 2GB installed reserves 
256MB, 4GB installed should only be 256MB as well, but as David wrote he 
sees 512MB.

Buy the cheaper mini. Upgrade the RAM via your friendly RAM supplier 
(not Apple). If this is a frontend only machine, then leave the HD alone.

- Wade