Mac Mini for building/testing - which one?

Hello! I'm a complete Mac novice, but I want to get one so I can build games for OSX and be able to test them, and maybe do iOS development in the future.

The kind of games I make aren't super expensive high-detail games, they're smallish indie games with sprites and low poly models.

Having said that, I'm concerned that older Mac Minis will limit me. I tried a 2006 model running OSX 10.5.8 Leopard and found that that's simply too old to even run Unity games. So my first though was... just get the first one that IS supported (10.9) but then... is that going to be unsupported at some point?

I've also heard that Apple can just block older versions of OSX from building apps for iOS App Store. What's the threat level there?

Budget is an issue, but I've got wriggle room if it means I can save in the long term.

Any help is appreciated!

 

The latest version of Unity requires a very recent version of iOS — and I certainly wouldn't recommend you use an older version of Unity.

It's totally awesome that you want to support the Mac, and I want to support you in that. But I can't recommend any Mac Mini for it (they haven't been updated since 2009 or so). Get a MacBook Pro or an iMac; it'll cost you more for sure, but last a lot longer before you can no longer use it for development.

 

The Mac mini was updated in 2012 or so, and that's actually the best model (I have one and it's nice). All the ones since are much slower (7/12ths the speed of the 2012 quad-cores, integrated graphics which aren't fast enough to make up for it in any way). But it's better to get a low-end 21.5" iMac (the first one has Iris Plus, the middle one has dedicated graphics), or a used laptop from about 2015 or newer if you think they're too expensive.

 

For the kind of games you say you're doing, a 2010 or later mini is fine (2012 would be better for longevity though). Make sure it's running High Sierra (10.13).

--Eric

 

Thanks for the help, everyone! And sorry for the slow response, it's been a busy couple of weeks for me.

Where did you read this? Looking at the system requirements, Unity doesn't mention anything about 10.9 for Unity 2018.1. https://unity3d.com/unity/system-requirements

From the research I've done, it seems that upgrading OSX is free... Am I right? It seems to just be limited by the hardware age, and at a certain point Apple can just say "this device won't install the latest OSX"?

And so if that's true, can I get a device with any OSX and then upgrade to High Sierra for free?

I think a Mac Mini suits me better, as it's easier to take to expos and show my game off. (I have a game with a custom desktop arcade cabinet, so a Mac Mini would tuck into the back quite nicely.)

 

Yes, if it supports High Sierra. (And even if it doesn't, sometimes; there are hacks for getting old hardware to work with it, if you were really dead set on doing that.) Most used Macs would already be upgraded to the latest though. Note that High Sierra is only necessary for iOS development...if you never do that, then older versions of macOS are fine for running Unity games, as long as you do Metal+OpenGL and not Metal-only.

--Eric

 

The best used entry level Mac Mini for development is 2012 Late i5 with HD4000 graphics card. You ´ll have a good boost using OSX Metal with Unity because the baseline GPU - Intel HD4000 supports CUDA . Previous models doesn´t.

 

CUDA has nothing to do with Metal, and I've never seen any indication that the HD4000 supports CUDA, which is a nVidia thing. HD4000 isn't a "graphics card", it's Intel integrated graphics that's part of the CPU. The newest Mac mini from 2018 is (finally) a significant improvement over the 2012 model, however they jacked the price quite a bit.

--Eric