Apple M1

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rinaldo00

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I am playing Baldur's Gate 3 with my Mac friend and his iMac is having issues with the game. I am trying to get him to buy a new Mac but he is extremely cheap and I mean EXTREMELY. What is the cheapest Mac that he can buy with the following minimum specs (desktop preferred)

Thanks !

  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: macOS 12 or newer
    • Processor: Apple M1
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Apple M1
    • Storage: 150 GB available space
 
AppleInsider maintains price lists of major retailers of all Mac models in all configurations. Obviously the Mini is going to be cheapest:
https://prices.appleinsider.com/mac-mini-late-2020
https://prices.appleinsider.com/mac-mini-2023
(The M1 Mini via Amazon looks to be 3rd-party sellers only)

There's also refurbs direct from Apple, but right now only the M2 Pro is available:
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/mac-mini

FWIW, recent rumors have mentioned that M3 Minis may be coming around March.
 
a used m1 mini with a 256gb drive meets those mins but he still isnt going to have a good time on it. they are now recommending at min a m1 pro..
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
AppleInsider maintains price lists of major retailers of all Mac models in all configurations. Obviously the Mini is going to be cheapest:
https://prices.appleinsider.com/mac-mini-late-2020
https://prices.appleinsider.com/mac-mini-2023
(The M1 Mini via Amazon looks to be 3rd-party sellers only)

There's also refurbs direct from Apple, but right now only the M2 Pro is available:
https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/mac-mini

FWIW, recent rumors have mentioned that M3 Minis may be coming around March.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the suggestions. I looked at the Minis but for a guy with a PhD in chemical engineering he is very computer illiterate. I thought another iMac would suit him best. I found this what do you think?

https://www.microcenter.com/product...-(mid-2021)-all-in-one-desktop-computer-green
 
pendragon1 said:
a used m1 mini with a 256gb drive meets those mins but he still isnt going to have a good time on it. they are now recommending at min a m1 pro..
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Really? That sucks. But anything would be an improvement. When we play multiplayer I have to wait for the save file to load and then I have to wait another 15-20 minutes for the scene to render. I sit there waiting while I listen to him say "I see a head, still bald. Now the hair is coming in. Here comes the bodies. Oh, floors are there but no walls yet." And on and on.
 
Does it have to be a Mac? Seriously "cheap" "gaming" and "Mac" don't go together.
 
I doubt his friend would be open to getting a PC. Cheap PC would sour the guys idea of PC also since they are generally junk.
 
It's got 8 full-power cores, 16 threads, boosts way higher an M1 or M2 even, and RDNA3 graphics. Now Strix will stomp that and it's just around the corner, so maybe it's not the best time to buy, but those AMD APUs are closing in on 50 percent of the mobile market for a lot of good reasons.
 
Axman said:
It's got 8 full-power cores, 16 threads, boosts way higher an M1 or M2 even, and RDNA3 graphics. Now Strix will stomp that and it's just around the corner, so maybe it's not the best time to buy, but those AMD APUs are closing in on 50 percent of the mobile market for a lot of good reasons.
Click to expand...
It's faster, but in BG3 saying it will stomp an m2.... eeeeh. Even in some non native games it's close, and those are essentially emulated. Stomp probably isn't the right word for a 7840.
 
vegeta535 said:
They are still generally bloated junk. I hate being asked for cheap laptop recommendations because people are generally not happy with them and they get mad at me.
Click to expand...
Apple level price would not necessarily be that cheap, if we are talking laptop (not sure we do, the op does not mention that it need to be a laptop) and you can start to have nice quality at those $500 and up price point no ?

And the link you quote does not come with ram or harddrive I would assume it does not have an OS to be bloated to start with.
 
vegeta535 said:
They are still generally bloated junk. I hate being asked for cheap laptop recommendations because people are generally not happy with them and they get mad at me.
Click to expand...

Doesn't come with a hard drive, you install the OS you want.
 
uOpt said:
What kind of iMac and what kind of issues?
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Here are his specs
iMac from 2019
27" 5K retina display
3 GHz 6-core i5 processor
Radeon Pro 570X 4GB graphics
8GB 2667MHz DDR4 memory
running Sonoma 14.2.1

When we play multiplayer he will crash to desktop and when he plays solo the game will lock up and he cannot move or do anything not even save so he must shut down the game.

He also has terrible internet service (AT&T the only provider in his area) so that doesn't help.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
It would take less time and be cheaper for your friend to do a cheap PC.
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He refuses to buy a PC.

UnknownSouljer said:
Being cheap and also a Mac user, just doesn't work.
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I know and I told him that. I asked him why he has a Mac, I thought he got sucked in with the Apple student discount but he said his entire family has always used Apple products. His father's first computer was from Apple.
 
rinaldo00 said:
He refuses to buy a PC.
Click to expand...

Well I can't say that an M1 would really outclass that from a hardware perspective, maybe trade blows, but I'll bet it has better software support. I still have an Intel-based Mac Mini and I can confirm that stuff that is supposedly supported just isn't. Won't run or crashes.
 
Axman said:
Well I can't say that an M1 would really outclass that from a hardware perspective, maybe trade blows, but I'll bet it has better software support. I still have an Intel-based Mac Mini and I can confirm that stuff that is supposedly supported just isn't. Won't run or crashes.
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Well does his machine meet the minimum requirements that I posted above? I don't want to have to compare his i5 processor to an M1 in my head.
 
rinaldo00 said:
Well does his machine meet the minimum requirements that I posted above? I don't want to have to compare his i5 processor to an M1 in my head.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it could if Apple wanted it to, but Apple doesn't want to support legacy hardware/x86 so the software support just isn't there. No, technically it doesn't meet the minimum requirements even though the hardware is probably more than enough. You might have better luck porting the Windows version and using something like Proton or Wine.
 
rinaldo00 said:
He refuses to buy a PC.
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I'm going to give a piece of personal advice that you can disregard and then I'm moving on (in order to take my own advice).

When dealing with computer hardware (or a lot of subjects actually), I ask the prerequisite questions on what they want and performance requirements. Then I give a recommendation. If there are different budget levels I'll tell the advantages of spending more money or not.

However if people refuse to spend the money necessary to do what they say they're trying to do, I wipe my hands of it. I tell them that that is what they're doing and if they continue on their merry way, let them. Because every time I "helped" someone dig their own hole, once they were in it, there is always some level of blame shifting. A person that "can't be reasoned with" is already telling you that "they're unreasonable". And while I can be that person's "friend" or "acquaintance", I just won't spend any energy with them on these kinds of topics because they've made their choice to refuse to learn.

I would say the same things about car maintenance, food, working out, lots of things. Advice/wisdom can only be given to people that want to receive it. Or another way: why ask for my advice at all if you don't even want to take it? To me it's literally the definition of wasted breath.

So to me he kind of either needs to spend $1.5k+/- on a Mac or $1k on a PC at the minimum and I ideally $2k/$1.5k or I would just tell him what I said above and walk away.

Axman said:
I'm sure it could if Apple wanted it to, but Apple doesn't want to support legacy hardware/x86 so the software support just isn't there. No, technically it doesn't meet the minimum requirements even though the hardware is probably more than enough. You might have better luck porting the Windows version and using something like Proton or Wine.
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Apple doesn't twist any devs arms on what they want to support hardware wise. But if you're a dev and you have a brain in your head, do you want to invest your programming hours in legacy hardware or the future? We're 3 gens into 100% Apple Arm at this point. In computer terms, Intel machines are only marching further into obsolescence.

However all Intel machines still could dual boot into Windows, so that's technically an option. However I think it's totally stupid to buy any Intel Apple machine at this point, for the reasons I just talked about. Apple putting the line in the sand more or less has put everyone on notice to either use Arm or get off the pot.

You're literally just buying a worse machine at this point if you're buying an older Intel machine, just due to hardware age difference and the fact that M series of processors are so much more optimized for daily tasks. There's a night and day difference between both perception of speed and actual speed on Apple Arm for everything general users want to do with a computer.
 
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UnknownSouljer said:
Apple doesn't twist any devs arms on what they want to support hardware wise. But if you're a dev and you have a brain in your head, do you want to invest your programming hours in legacy hardware or the future? We're 3 gens into 100% Apple Arm at this point. In computer terms, Intel machines are only marching further into obsolescence.
Click to expand...

It's not just dev support. There's a gap between Apple's current software and their own legacy hardware.
 
Axman said:
It's not just dev support. There's a gap between Apple's current software and their own legacy hardware.
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Not as far as I can tell. Apple has a decent amount of professional users that will continue to use their machines for a very long time.

The 2019 Mac Pro will have support until 2030. The 2017 iMac Pro until 2029. And tons of users will continue churning out films, music, etc, on those machines. Similar also happened with the transition from PowerPC to Intel in the late 00's.

I was using an Intel Mac up until about 1.5 months ago. I have Apple's entire pro software suite like Logic and FCPX. There isn't any part of their software stack that isn't supported, including new OS', other than new features that come due to new hardware.

But perhaps you could be a bit more specific with what you think isn't supported.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
But perhaps you could be a bit more specific with what you think isn't supported.
Click to expand...

OK, two examples, System Shock 2 and Fallout. They used to play, now they don't. There is no way those titles are hardware-limited, even on a Mac Mini, so something changed in the software, and I highly doubt the games have changed.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
So to me he kind of either needs to spend $1.5k+/- on a Mac or $1k on a PC at the minimum and I ideally $2k/$1.5k or I would just tell him what I said above and walk away.
Click to expand...
He has already ignored the reasonable sub $1K iMac that I found here.
https://www.microcenter.com/product...-(mid-2021)-all-in-one-desktop-computer-green

I am sure that he is cheap and stubborn enough to endure the problems and frustration and continue to play on his current machine.

Here is the last thing that he said to me after he made some changes in FSR settings for the game:

"Might be loading faster, but game still quits too much fr my liking.
Good night and Merry CHristmas!"

So, sucks to be him, right? Unfortunately when we play multiplayer then his problems affect me. We have been friends since high school but my patience is wearing thin.
 
Axman said:
It's not just dev support. There's a gap between Apple's current software and their own legacy hardware.
Click to expand...
You're asking for DOS games that are running under two forms of emulations that are stacked to work properly. The devs are also not bothering to update their code. I would say it's a stretch to blame Apple for devs not keeping old software up to date. As I'm sure you're aware, they don't have an interest in trying to support legacy code forever. If that's what you want, then that's what Windows is for and one of the major reasons to be on Windows vs macOS.

If you "must" play either on your ARM Mac, that's what Crossover or Parallels are for. And with games that old, either will run fairly well. I'll also note that FO1/2 also didn't even run on my Intel machine. I own both on GoG and its been fairly well known (search GoG's forums) for at least 5+ years that they both crash at launch. GoG could help there if they wanted to spend the time to do the Wine repack work. The resources are there, but it's obviously not a priority for them.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
As I'm sure you're aware, they don't have an interest in trying to support legacy code forever. If that's what you want, then that's what Windows is for and one of the major reasons to be on Windows vs macOS.
Click to expand...

I'm saying the same thing. Apple doesn't want to support this any more than Nvidia wants to support Tegra or AMD wants to support Vega. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this is on Intel. It's not the hardware, it's the software, and there are better alternatives than trying to force a game to work natively when literally no one cares about this hardware anymore. It's fine for what it is, but don't expect miracles.

This is the equivalent of saying BG3 doesn't run on Vista, even though the machine is relatively new. And TBH, I bet it's probably actually easier to get BG3 to run in that situation, too, but I wouldn't expect it to.
 
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