I remember RE8 has a Metal version, would be awesome to see the true horse power of the M2 Pro compared to Windows gaming PCs when something is really optimized to MacOS.
Definitely consider installing Asahi Linux, since there is now GPU support (albeit a bit limited currently). With Asahi Linux and box64, you could run all your games under Proton!
Please add “Pro” to the video title. I came here with my hopes up for a $600 emulation machine I could use for work and was disappointed it was the more expensive Pro version. I feel like most people looking for this use case would want a review on the more affordable base model.
while i agree, i can say from experience that i tested at least half of what's playable up to PS3 (i tried like ten playable games, including Red Dead Redemption, just expect to not find any game-specific PS3 crash patches for Mac) on my base M1 Mac Mini and it's all been playable so i'm sure you could be fine as long as you don't mind not doing upscaling on PS3 and not going 4k in demanding PS2 games and GameCube games (i could only do 1080p on Burnout 3 in AetherSX2). you can also do Switch emulators now since they got ported to Mac. M1 is fairly capable!
@@HotelMarioFan878 @Andrew Felix is correct though. The title says m2 but it’s a m2 Pro. There is a performance difference and quite a price difference too. I also have a M1 and it’s amazing for what it is but the m2 (pro and non-pro) does have a significantly better GPU. The title needs to say Pro.
@@badrsaaidi8108 unplug it from the wall and run the same on both computers and see who wins. Hint: the high power laptop that run windows are CRIPPLED when not plugged into a wall. The Macs don't even break a sweat.
A RISC architecture _(AArch64),_ emulating a CISC architecture _(x86/x64_ _via_ _Rosetta),_ emulating some RISC architectures _(game_ _platform_ _emulator_ _for_ _MIPS64_ _or_ _PowerPC_ _for_ _example)._ And still performance is amazing. These Apple ARM chips are incredible.
FWIW, x86 effectively emulates RISC through the use of Microcode instructions. i.e. The CISC instructions are decoded into smaller pipeline instructions for the CPU cores to process. The more compact CISC instructions help with cache but are otherwise somewhat irrelevant. Differences in the process design like write order are more important to performance. Apple implemented modes to make their processor behave like the x86 so that they can bypass trying to emulate these performance killers. That’s why Rosetta 2 is so bloody fast.
There isn't any CISC emulation in it. Even Apple doesn't call Rosetta an Emulator. It's also technically wrong since it doesn't emulate a system it just translates instructions. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a good performance.
The terms CISC/RISC are almost deprecated as CPU manufacturers have borrowed concepts from both these approaches. Intel for example has adopted many such RSIC concepts into their CPUs. If you want to think of a pure CISC CPU, think the Motorola 680x00 series that was used by Amiga/Atari/Sega and many others 40-30 years ago.
Man, my M2 Mac Mini is going to be delivered tomorrow, talk about perfect timing. So hyped. Edit: Just realized you tested the Pro version. Might be worth mentioning in the title. Hyped nevertheless, hopefully the 10c GPU on the base model is still good enough.
@@UltraJamZHD On the m1 running dolphin was a breeze now with my base m2 it runs anything on 2k. I have not tested 4k since macs dont come with 4k displays
I know the pro has a better GPU but I really wish you had tested the base version of the M2 Mac Mini 8G 256G. I think it would be a great match compared to the SFF computers you test on your channel.
By the way Demon souls has a 60 fps patch on rpcs3 and its really easy to install and use. And also Demon souls by default uses Frame duplication which can show in the fps counter as a constant 30fps but choppy gameplay (the 60 fps patch disables that and the frame limit)
that shared, super high speed memory of these apple chips really help with these emulators. i think one of the biggest bottlenecks of the emulators are moving data fast enough between ram/cpu/gpu and the m2 chips have a big advantage on this front compared to normal chips.
very powerful but also very expensive. i would have liked to have seen an emulation test of the cheaper m2 mac mini ($499/$599) to see what that can do.
What a beast of a machine and its not even cracking a sweat, its dedfinantly a new benchamark for price performance and form factor, this is the new king
At the price point of the M2 Mac Mini, I would certainly expect it to perform emulation well !!! Great video as always. Please keep up the fantastic work.
Honestly with these chip sets I feel like Apple could make a killer handheld similar to the steam deck if they really wanted to. I doubt they would because it would eat into iPad sales and isn’t really a focus of theirs
You mean, like an iPad Mini with built-in physical buttons and grips? I’d be fine with an iPad if only Apple gave it the same app freedom as macOS! And frankly, Apple products would be considered attractive gaming platforms today IF Apple hadn’t gone pretty hardcore into intentionally ruining their gaming reputation in the late 90’s, trying to control developers and magazine publications to set the narrative that businesses could trust employees to get work done on Mac.
This is the beauty of macOS compared to iOS or tvOS, installing whatever you want is actually possible and easy to do, on iOS you need to deal with the whole having to sign apps every 7 days thing which is a pain, and why the iPad will never replace a Mac for me.
I follow your reviews regularly and I agree that Star Wars Rogue Leader is perfect for testing the Dolphin performance but from what I've seen on my machines (Intel PCs and Macs) the X-Wing raid on Death Star surface is not the most difficult part to emulate, the battle on Hoth with Snow Speeders is more demanding, if you let the demo running for a couple of minutes you will see that the whole scene on the frozen planet is struggling both on music and animation (it is the second cutscene after the approaching of X-Wing storm to the Death Star) so it would be interesting to see if the M2Pro is able to running it smoothly. I am seriously considering it as my next emulation station replacing the Hades Canyon NUC i have in the living room 🙂
I think it may still be a little early, but I'd love to see how well emulation works on Asahi Linux now that they have the M2 graphics drivers up and running!
(I tend to buy 'old computers') been keeping an eye on Asahi.... I'm sure others will join the "oh my god, these SoCs are amazing!" linux "repurposing" distros...
M2 Pro is a hell of an expensive NUC. Currently 1300$ ! In contrast, the "regular" M2 is "only" 600$. But is it still a good powerhouse for emulation ?
It's expensive, sure. But a NUC is actually less value for money. You have to put in nearly as much money, to get something larger, hotter, louder, and slower. But the point about the Mac Mini is not that.... it's for macOS. Which is a pretty good entry way for most people.
I wish the rest of the industry would take PC on ARM seriously. Mobile chip manufacturers won't step up their product line, and the x86 group won't develop an ARM chip that isn't meant for enterprise servers. Apple has a literal monopoly here, they're the only ones filling the desktop/laptop space. Sure, ARM probably won't be workstation-grade for quite some time, and there needs to be a massive shift from x86 to ARM (though most legacy software can run fine through a transcription layer like Rosetta 2), but it'd be nice for everyone else to catch up. I have a feeling the Apple situation is the typical, overpriced hardware for the performance offered, so if the rest of the industry would actually catch up, since they're already a few generations behind at the earliest, I have a feeling we could have some pretty powerful ARM PCs. Plus ARM is just overall beneficial for any mobile device, laptops, tablets, and handhelds, due to better performance efficiency. If there's not decently competent competition in a couple years, I'll probably end up buying into Apple's platform due to lack of competition. Letting Apple get so far ahead of the curve was a mistake on the industry's part, given all the issues around Apple as a company, and it's especially disapointing that Qualcomm and Samsung outright refuse to step up their offerings to desktop-level chips, that Nvidia is uninterested in anything outside of ARM systems for AI/ML workloads, and that Intel and AMD are sitting on their asses with x86. Maybe RISC-V or another potential successor will finally be the point that the industry as a whole moves away from x86, considering ARM PCs have been talked about for over a decade now and Microsoft is the only party outside of Apple that has tried getting that ball rolling multiple times.
While Macs are not upgradable they do last and are supported for a looong time. I got a high end MacBook Pro 5 years ago and it’s still so smooth I don’t think I will be upgrading anytime soon (2.9Ghz i9, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD).
Actually is kinda easy to port a native Apple ARM macOS software to iPadOS and IOS, but the problem is that Apple don’t allow emulation software at they storefront.
Apple Silicon is one of the greatest things that came in IT the last years. When you pay 50 cents per KWh power, a super efficient PC is worth gold. I love my MacMini, even though it's M1, but it's great enough.
"AetherSX2 development is indefinitely suspended. Due to neverending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats, I'm done." WTF? AetherSX2 seems so promising, I wonder what was going on. I love the M1 and M2 Chips, they are so powerful even though they aren't the most expensive ones and I simply like MacOS more than Windows, even though I don't have a Mac right now. It's way smoother in the overall usage, but seeing gaming being more and more possible is making me happy and looking forward for a new Mac!
My pc was down for repair and i decided to install rpcs3 on my little m1 macbook. I couldn't believe how smooth it ran games it has trouble running on my pc.
I would like see the Mac Mini booted into Windows. A dual boot would be absolutely awesome. If it could dual boot, I would buy one. Hopefully also get a discount through your RUclips channel.
@@DJAYPAZ The ball is in Microsoft's court... Windows on ARM doesn't have standalone licensing at the moment, presumably because of a deal with Qualcomm for Snapdragon exclusivity. Hopefully that will change down the road, and Craig Federighi has been on record saying that their silicon will run Windows if Microsoft decides to license it. I would love to see a return to Bootcamp using these processors. My M1 Max has incredible performance in Parallels with Windows 11 (better than Microsoft's own SQ chipsets) so running that on bare metal will be a game changer.
I do agree. Native boot / bootcamp would be nice to see. Until then, parallels runs windows 11 incredibly with video acceleration but dx12 support isn't there yet. Using hypervisors like UTM works extremely well, too at no cost but without video acceleration.
This is an amazing video!! Thank you. As a die hard sports video game fan. Have you tried any Madden, FIFA, or NHL games for the PS2/PS3 emulators? Say between 2006-now?
What over kill. You're better off emulating everything on a used Wii for $50. Then just buy an a used PS3 for $100. You can emulate everything he just did on an external hard drive for $200 perfectly. No bugs.
@@dannyt1705 ... You're a liar too. Breath of the wild is the most graphically demanding game on the WiiU. You shouldn't get jealous of others because you can only afford a $150 walmart PC.
I'm still waiting for DosDude1 to get his hands on one of the newer Mac Mini or Macbooks to give the final verdict on whether or not any of the parts are upgradeable or not. Unfortunately, the newest stuff doesn't seem to be his particular area of interest, so unless someone just buys one and chucks it at him to tinker with, it's unlikely that he'll get around to it any time soon. We all thought the original Macbook Air wasn't upgradeable and he swapped the processor and RAM on one.
I have my problems with Apple as a company, but there is no denying they are an industry innovator. Their decision to move from x86 to a RISC architecture like ARM is the right one. As computing becomes more and more portable, x86 just isn't going to get it done. On a performance per watt basis, x86 simply cannot compete.
It's so frustrating that I have the 12.9 iPad Pro with M2 and it has the same chip and it's capable of everything in this video but it's locked down with iPadOS
I think the performance it's showing here in rpcs3 is impressive. It's not only going through emulation but also a compatibility layer. That itself should reduce a lot of performance. Also very weird for Apple to reduce prices. But it's a good deal.
@@rrsharizam that ssd doesn’t matter at all, it’s base model for base users, yet still packing huge amount of power. Regular users are not moving gigabytes of large files here and there. I’m web dev and have no such needs too. More important is IOPS anyway. RUclipsrs are making huge deal out of it while there is no problem at all.
@@rrsharizam… but you need the motherboard, PSU, SSD, RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Case, etc etc to go with it, and add to that price. Plus your personal time in a DIY build and DIY support vs a prebuilt Mini with the most comprehensive tech support in the commercial sector. But yes, buying an off the shelf chip is cheaper than buying a whole computer.
About 36w at full load on the M2 pro. The temps will be high bcs Apple allow the system to reach about 90°C but don’t kick the fan, on full load normally the fans spins about 40% of the maximum speed. But you can manually change this by software and allow the system to run the fans at 100% speed.
@@JeanSamyr and by full load we are talking about 100 % utilization of both CPU and GPU. These chips are incredible. Notebooks are absolutely silent, even passively cooled (macbook air, look ma, no fans!) while running on battery for full day and then some.
Whilst it does show where ARM may go in the future, this emulation performance does come at a premium price. But it is Apple, so overpricing is the norm.
Hey man, now that it is clear that PSP and PS2 emulation is smooth as butter on the Mac... why not spend a bit of time on Switch emulation with Ryujinx? That would be awesome with your upcoming macOS reviews.
Pc gaming video coming up, what else do you want to see running on the new Mac mini M2 Pro?
Apex Legends and Rocket league - if their cheat systems aren't making issues! THPS1+2 if possible as well.
I remember RE8 has a Metal version, would be awesome to see the true horse power of the M2 Pro compared to Windows gaming PCs when something is really optimized to MacOS.
why you do not use ryjuinx on m2 ? I Am Asking because it released on arm m1 macbooks
Fighting Games. MK11, Tekken 7, Injustice 2 and etc.
Definitely consider installing Asahi Linux, since there is now GPU support (albeit a bit limited currently). With Asahi Linux and box64, you could run all your games under Proton!
Please add “Pro” to the video title. I came here with my hopes up for a $600 emulation machine I could use for work and was disappointed it was the more expensive Pro version. I feel like most people looking for this use case would want a review on the more affordable base model.
while i agree, i can say from experience that i tested at least half of what's playable up to PS3 (i tried like ten playable games, including Red Dead Redemption, just expect to not find any game-specific PS3 crash patches for Mac) on my base M1 Mac Mini and it's all been playable so i'm sure you could be fine as long as you don't mind not doing upscaling on PS3 and not going 4k in demanding PS2 games and GameCube games (i could only do 1080p on Burnout 3 in AetherSX2). you can also do Switch emulators now since they got ported to Mac. M1 is fairly capable!
@@HotelMarioFan878 @Andrew Felix is correct though. The title says m2 but it’s a m2 Pro. There is a performance difference and quite a price difference too. I also have a M1 and it’s amazing for what it is but the m2 (pro and non-pro) does have a significantly better GPU. The title needs to say Pro.
Eta prime likes to leave out details to sucker in viewers. He does this all the time.
*_Base M2 will work just fine._*
@@Emuland69 and we got sucked in, Back Here Again 😅
I got the M2 Pro and damn is it impressive! Been SO happy with it. First Mac in over a decade.
Same! My first mac was MB Pro 2020 Intel.. piece of crap for 3000€ and biggest mistake in my life😅 now I’m so happy with M2 Pro!
@@dmitrijs7642 u can get better performance with i9 13900hx at half the price 😋
@@badrsaaidi8108 About the same performance but battery life will be atrocious and it will be a literal heating pad on your lap 😂
@@badrsaaidi8108 don’t get a Intel Mac anymore they are worthless in a few years
@@badrsaaidi8108 unplug it from the wall and run the same on both computers and see who wins. Hint: the high power laptop that run windows are CRIPPLED when not plugged into a wall. The Macs don't even break a sweat.
You should really do a separate review on the non-pro model since there is a huge price point difference and most likely performance difference.
Agreed!
agreed - most wont have this
Agreed. I'm always confused when creators will only feature the high-end models that a much smaller percent of Mini owners will have.
Agree
A RISC architecture _(AArch64),_ emulating a CISC architecture _(x86/x64_ _via_ _Rosetta),_ emulating some RISC architectures _(game_ _platform_ _emulator_ _for_ _MIPS64_ _or_ _PowerPC_ _for_ _example)._ And still performance is amazing.
These Apple ARM chips are incredible.
FWIW, x86 effectively emulates RISC through the use of Microcode instructions. i.e. The CISC instructions are decoded into smaller pipeline instructions for the CPU cores to process. The more compact CISC instructions help with cache but are otherwise somewhat irrelevant. Differences in the process design like write order are more important to performance. Apple implemented modes to make their processor behave like the x86 so that they can bypass trying to emulate these performance killers. That’s why Rosetta 2 is so bloody fast.
There isn't any CISC emulation in it. Even Apple doesn't call Rosetta an Emulator. It's also technically wrong since it doesn't emulate a system it just translates instructions. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a good performance.
The terms CISC/RISC are almost deprecated as CPU manufacturers have borrowed concepts from both these approaches. Intel for example has adopted many such RSIC concepts into their CPUs. If you want to think of a pure CISC CPU, think the Motorola 680x00 series that was used by Amiga/Atari/Sega and many others 40-30 years ago.
Modern x86 cpu contain RISC cores that emulate CISC architecture
Wow... people still think x86 is CISC in 2023?!
Man, my M2 Mac Mini is going to be delivered tomorrow, talk about perfect timing. So hyped.
Edit: Just realized you tested the Pro version. Might be worth mentioning in the title. Hyped nevertheless, hopefully the 10c GPU on the base model is still good enough.
Update us bro ?
@@UltraJamZHD On the m1 running dolphin was a breeze now with my base m2 it runs anything on 2k. I have not tested 4k since macs dont come with 4k displays
@@turbojobo do you have the base M2?
@@UltraJamZHD Yes I do. Macbook Air M2 :) I used to have the M1 pro 14'' But prefer the air honestly.
I really like the OpenEmu controller section. That's a real nice feature. That M2 chip is looking really good.
To get CEMU working again, just go and manually delete shader cache in your user’s Application Support folder
Do you plan on testing the base model? M2 (not M2 Pro) - 8gb ram. Students can pick these up for only $500 on the Apple site
This is the only one I have access to right now, it’s actually my wife’s new work pc. I could pick up the base this weekend and do some testing
Someone already tested this. Poor performance when emulating ps3, everything else is fine
I advise everyone to take 24 gb ram appel to tend to make their new bone very quickly greedy since big sur
@@ETAPRIME please try switch emulation like botw and mario Odyssee on Standard M2
It's still nutty to me how much detail they crammed into Chains of Olympus. That game looks superb when it's upscaled.
I know the pro has a better GPU but I really wish you had tested the base version of the M2 Mac Mini 8G 256G. I think it would be a great match compared to the SFF computers you test on your channel.
+1 = 100% agree that it's a missed opportunity for many (non) Apple users. A 2nd video would be much appreciated by many. Thanks in advance! Cheers
Idk why he didn't put "Pro" in the title...
@@VinnytotheK To bait more users. Pro would have put off those who know the cost.
Ryujinx (Switch emulator) runs natively on Apple Silicon and e.g. Metroid Dread runs perfect even on the base M1 chip. ;-)
By the way Demon souls has a 60 fps patch on rpcs3 and its really easy to install and use. And also Demon souls by default uses Frame duplication which can show in the fps counter as a constant 30fps but choppy gameplay (the 60 fps patch disables that and the frame limit)
I just checked the price on this M2 Pro. 1569€. That better be an emulation machine for that price.
yeah this video is entirely stupid, its a Arm but lets ignore the price and the fact that its magnitudes higher than an X86
M2 base model performs very simmilar and is 599
Would have loved to see the performance of Ryujinx on that Mac, specially since they released a version a few months ago!
that shared, super high speed memory of these apple chips really help with these emulators. i think one of the biggest bottlenecks of the emulators are moving data fast enough between ram/cpu/gpu and the m2 chips have a big advantage on this front compared to normal chips.
8x resolution on PS2 is an absolute game changer, holy wow.
very powerful but also very expensive. i would have liked to have seen an emulation test of the cheaper m2 mac mini ($499/$599) to see what that can do.
Almost exactly the same.
@Garrus Vakarian what
@Garrus Vakarian $2000 in Australian dollerydoos
@@garrusvakarian8709 they didn’t had a mini M1Pro.
@@JeanSamyr they had, on Macbook Pro but not on the mini :)
Honestly, this is the M2 review material that I’ve been waiting for.
M2 Pro here though, just keep that in mind.
“I’m usin’ the Vulcan backend”
We need T-shirt’s 😂
What a beast of a machine and its not even cracking a sweat, its dedfinantly a new benchamark for price performance and form factor, this is the new king
Raspberry pi on steroids
😂
costs about as much too
Ooh i been waiting for this!! I'm not an apple fan by any means but the new mini got my interest! Wanted to see your review on it.
Your video here is fantastic! I had no idea that these emu's existed for the Mac! Such great memories of these games as a kid!
Would definitely be curious to see the performance of the base model Mac Mini as well!
At the price point of the M2 Mac Mini, I would certainly expect it to perform emulation well !!! Great video as always. Please keep up the fantastic work.
Honestly with these chip sets I feel like Apple could make a killer handheld similar to the steam deck if they really wanted to. I doubt they would because it would eat into iPad sales and isn’t really a focus of theirs
You mean, like an iPad Mini with built-in physical buttons and grips?
I’d be fine with an iPad if only Apple gave it the same app freedom as macOS! And frankly, Apple products would be considered attractive gaming platforms today IF Apple hadn’t gone pretty hardcore into intentionally ruining their gaming reputation in the late 90’s, trying to control developers and magazine publications to set the narrative that businesses could trust employees to get work done on Mac.
congrats on 1M subscribers! Been watching your work for a while, and loving it!
This is the beauty of macOS compared to iOS or tvOS, installing whatever you want is actually possible and easy to do, on iOS you need to deal with the whole having to sign apps every 7 days thing which is a pain, and why the iPad will never replace a Mac for me.
I follow your reviews regularly and I agree that Star Wars Rogue Leader is perfect for testing the Dolphin performance but from what I've seen on my machines (Intel PCs and Macs) the X-Wing raid on Death Star surface is not the most difficult part to emulate, the battle on Hoth with Snow Speeders is more demanding, if you let the demo running for a couple of minutes you will see that the whole scene on the frozen planet is struggling both on music and animation (it is the second cutscene after the approaching of X-Wing storm to the Death Star) so it would be interesting to see if the M2Pro is able to running it smoothly. I am seriously considering it as my next emulation station replacing the Hades Canyon NUC i have in the living room 🙂
crazy how good some of these old games look on higher resolutions
That’s epic!
I’m excited to start playing games again.
How long have you been emulating?
Pretty to see Windows alternatives getting better game support Linux/Mac
I think it may still be a little early, but I'd love to see how well emulation works on Asahi Linux now that they have the M2 graphics drivers up and running!
Pretty sure they dont have for the m2 pro and Max yet, bit i am pretty sure Lina is about to get that
Also it’s only the early versions of OpenGL so it won’t really run anything that well. Can’t remember if I saw somebody trying to test a ps1 emulator
I really doubt its gonna be better than mac os.
(I tend to buy 'old computers') been keeping an eye on Asahi.... I'm sure others will join the "oh my god, these SoCs are amazing!" linux "repurposing" distros...
Awesome! I remember when you had around 30K Subs, glad to see your channel is doing so well. You provide excellent content.
M2 Pro is a hell of an expensive NUC. Currently 1300$ !
In contrast, the "regular" M2 is "only" 600$.
But is it still a good powerhouse for emulation ?
It's expensive, sure. But a NUC is actually less value for money. You have to put in nearly as much money, to get something larger, hotter, louder, and slower.
But the point about the Mac Mini is not that.... it's for macOS. Which is a pretty good entry way for most people.
Awesome video, that's impressive. But it is a M2 Pro, wished you did the baseline M2. Can you do that too? Looking forward to the other videos!
Ryujinx runs great on my M1 Mac mini!
I’m excited for more emulators taking advantage of ARM and Metal on the platform.
I wish the rest of the industry would take PC on ARM seriously. Mobile chip manufacturers won't step up their product line, and the x86 group won't develop an ARM chip that isn't meant for enterprise servers. Apple has a literal monopoly here, they're the only ones filling the desktop/laptop space. Sure, ARM probably won't be workstation-grade for quite some time, and there needs to be a massive shift from x86 to ARM (though most legacy software can run fine through a transcription layer like Rosetta 2), but it'd be nice for everyone else to catch up. I have a feeling the Apple situation is the typical, overpriced hardware for the performance offered, so if the rest of the industry would actually catch up, since they're already a few generations behind at the earliest, I have a feeling we could have some pretty powerful ARM PCs. Plus ARM is just overall beneficial for any mobile device, laptops, tablets, and handhelds, due to better performance efficiency.
If there's not decently competent competition in a couple years, I'll probably end up buying into Apple's platform due to lack of competition. Letting Apple get so far ahead of the curve was a mistake on the industry's part, given all the issues around Apple as a company, and it's especially disapointing that Qualcomm and Samsung outright refuse to step up their offerings to desktop-level chips, that Nvidia is uninterested in anything outside of ARM systems for AI/ML workloads, and that Intel and AMD are sitting on their asses with x86. Maybe RISC-V or another potential successor will finally be the point that the industry as a whole moves away from x86, considering ARM PCs have been talked about for over a decade now and Microsoft is the only party outside of Apple that has tried getting that ball rolling multiple times.
This is a really cool overview on the emus for the Mac. Thanks for sharing.
What about switch emulation ? Botw and Mario Oddysey
I think you should have put in the subject line that you're referring to the Pro - there's a big price difference between it and the base M2.
Double the price, double the gpu performance and cpu as well.
Congrats on 1 million subs! Keep up the good work!
Maybe pick up a used one of these some day. Pretty cool to see how decent the performance is here.
While Macs are not upgradable they do last and are supported for a looong time. I got a high end MacBook Pro 5 years ago and it’s still so smooth I don’t think I will be upgrading anytime soon (2.9Ghz i9, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD).
in 5 years when these mac minis hit the second hand market they'll be great for emulation.
They're great for emulation now! :P
@@RamonGJ their too expensive for emulation, an old office PC with an Intel core i7 plus a low end GPU offers the same experience for a lot cheaper.
Asahi Linux should be more robust by then too !!
I was interested until looking at the Price of This thing on Amazon, since i live on Brazil This cost like 3 year job payment tô get
Gratz on 1m subs. Its been a long ride.
Surprised he didn’t include Ryujinx for Switch emulation. It runs fantastic on Apple silicon Macs.
This is what I wanted to see!
You wanted Nintendo to kill him?
Looks like I’ll be good to go when I get the m2 Mac Studio. Thank you for this.
Bro i'm wearing airpod and i swear that i hear your voice but the game audio it feels like its comign from my computer. it's Awesome
GT4 is a masterpiece, even better in emulation and upscaled resolution and oh boy it holds up even today imo.
It is! I just started replaying on my new laptop with AMD 6600H and even at 1080 I’m blown away how good GT4 looks.
Guys don’t worry. I have the M2 base model and breath of the wild is incredible! I can still run the game at 1080p 45 frames a second.
Congratulations on 1 million subscribers
With m1 getting tons of new emulation support outta nowhere, i am curious if there’ll ever be support on the m1 iPad Pro and eventually iPhone.
Actually is kinda easy to port a native Apple ARM macOS software to iPadOS and IOS, but the problem is that Apple don’t allow emulation software at they storefront.
Apple Silicon is one of the greatest things that came in IT the last years. When you pay 50 cents per KWh power, a super efficient PC is worth gold. I love my MacMini, even though it's M1, but it's great enough.
Running an emulator on an emulator and still delivering great performance. Incredible chips.
"AetherSX2 development is indefinitely suspended.
Due to neverending impersonating, complaints, demands, and now death threats, I'm done."
WTF? AetherSX2 seems so promising, I wonder what was going on. I love the M1 and M2 Chips, they are so powerful even though they aren't the most expensive ones and I simply like MacOS more than Windows, even though I don't have a Mac right now. It's way smoother in the overall usage, but seeing gaming being more and more possible is making me happy and looking forward for a new Mac!
My pc was down for repair and i decided to install rpcs3 on my little m1 macbook. I couldn't believe how smooth it ran games it has trouble running on my pc.
Grats on 1 million subs bro!
Ryujinx runs amazingly well for SWITCH emu on the mac. I ended up selling my switch and have been enjoying all the latest games on my 4k monitor.
I'm really curious how well the standard M2 would run things... It's the one I'm seriously considering
Wow!! Looking forward to future updates 👍🏻🙏🏻
it would be great if they could test Metal gear solid 4, as it is a pretty demanding game
Seeing ppsspp emulator and the god of war 2 game brings back so many memories.
That's just awesome. Thank you for making this video.
been waiting for this!!! ARM FTW
I would like see the Mac Mini booted into Windows. A dual boot would be absolutely awesome. If it could dual boot, I would buy one. Hopefully also get a discount through your RUclips channel.
@Garrus Vakarian Thanks for replying. It was easy when Apple was using Intel CPUs. But now it sounds like it’s MACOS for a while.
@@DJAYPAZ The ball is in Microsoft's court... Windows on ARM doesn't have standalone licensing at the moment, presumably because of a deal with Qualcomm for Snapdragon exclusivity. Hopefully that will change down the road, and Craig Federighi has been on record saying that their silicon will run Windows if Microsoft decides to license it. I would love to see a return to Bootcamp using these processors. My M1 Max has incredible performance in Parallels with Windows 11 (better than Microsoft's own SQ chipsets) so running that on bare metal will be a game changer.
I do agree. Native boot / bootcamp would be nice to see. Until then, parallels runs windows 11 incredibly with video acceleration but dx12 support isn't there yet. Using hypervisors like UTM works extremely well, too at no cost but without video acceleration.
This is an amazing video!! Thank you.
As a die hard sports video game fan. Have you tried any Madden, FIFA, or NHL games for the PS2/PS3 emulators? Say between 2006-now?
What over kill. You're better off emulating everything on a used Wii for $50. Then just buy an a used PS3 for $100. You can emulate everything he just did on an external hard drive for $200 perfectly. No bugs.
I just bought the M2 Pro. The exact same model you got and I can run breath of the wild at 1080P 60 frames per second.
so can my i5 9500 mini hp i got from ebay for 150 bucks LMAO
@@dannyt1705… well aren’t you just special. There’s always one in the comments.
@@digitaldazzle5836 Back at you : there is always one special kind of dummy that spends 1500 to do something that 150 can just as well ... smh
@@dannyt1705 ... You're a liar too. Breath of the wild is the most graphically demanding game on the WiiU. You shouldn't get jealous of others because you can only afford a $150 walmart PC.
@@dannyt1705 …. Excuse me, a used hand me down PC from eBay.
I'm still waiting for DosDude1 to get his hands on one of the newer Mac Mini or Macbooks to give the final verdict on whether or not any of the parts are upgradeable or not. Unfortunately, the newest stuff doesn't seem to be his particular area of interest, so unless someone just buys one and chucks it at him to tinker with, it's unlikely that he'll get around to it any time soon. We all thought the original Macbook Air wasn't upgradeable and he swapped the processor and RAM on one.
Loved the video! Thanks!
Ryujinx is Apple silicone native and awesome performance for switch emulations
This is the first Time i 've found the Emulators. OMG Thank you ;) i'm 40 Years younger in Seconds:))
Awesome video. Can you please test out some mmorpg games like World of Warcraft Dragonflight, Guild Wars 2 on your next video?
I have my problems with Apple as a company, but there is no denying they are an industry innovator. Their decision to move from x86 to a RISC architecture like ARM is the right one. As computing becomes more and more portable, x86 just isn't going to get it done. On a performance per watt basis, x86 simply cannot compete.
You said it has 16GB LPDDR4-6400 and not LPDDR5. Thanks for this review!
What is the green spinning grassy blob thing in the top left on your screen during some of your demos, btw? Is that to visualise frame count somehow?
Yay, ps2 @8x, and can play ps3 is my dream. thank you so much. now I need to save up for an os I have never try.
Love that 16gb of ddr4 6400!
Funny thing is that there is a version of Going Commando for the PS3, however it only runs at 720p
Mini PCs WAR on Market Has Begun!
It's so frustrating that I have the 12.9 iPad Pro with M2 and it has the same chip and it's capable of everything in this video but it's locked down with iPadOS
I think the performance it's showing here in rpcs3 is impressive. It's not only going through emulation but also a compatibility layer. That itself should reduce a lot of performance.
Also very weird for Apple to reduce prices. But it's a good deal.
Modern x86 cpu contain RISC cores that emulate CISC architecture
If anything, it's the x86 cpu that runs on emulation
Also, the reduced price is the base model with 8GB RAM 10-core GPU and slower SSD. As soon as you upgrade, you're back into paying Apple taxes
@@rrsharizam that ssd doesn’t matter at all, it’s base model for base users, yet still packing huge amount of power. Regular users are not moving gigabytes of large files here and there. I’m web dev and have no such needs too. More important is IOPS anyway. RUclipsrs are making huge deal out of it while there is no problem at all.
@@ZhuJo99 You can get similar or better performance from a Ryzen 5 5600 for $130
@@rrsharizam… but you need the motherboard, PSU, SSD, RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Case, etc etc to go with it, and add to that price. Plus your personal time in a DIY build and DIY support vs a prebuilt Mini with the most comprehensive tech support in the commercial sector. But yes, buying an off the shelf chip is cheaper than buying a whole computer.
Great video! Have you tested some VR emulators?
I was curious about Ryujinx performance as well, perhaps a future vid?
I’m interested in CPU and GPU load as well as temperatures and power draw while gaming.
About 36w at full load on the M2 pro. The temps will be high bcs Apple allow the system to reach about 90°C but don’t kick the fan, on full load normally the fans spins about 40% of the maximum speed. But you can manually change this by software and allow the system to run the fans at 100% speed.
@@JeanSamyr and by full load we are talking about 100 % utilization of both CPU and GPU.
These chips are incredible. Notebooks are absolutely silent, even passively cooled (macbook air, look ma, no fans!) while running on battery for full day and then some.
Nice review! Would you consider looking into a Microsoft Project Volterra PC?
The Gigabit connector is pretty disappointing for an expensive piece of hardware
Whilst it does show where ARM may go in the future, this emulation performance does come at a premium price. But it is Apple, so overpricing is the norm.
I have a gaming pc but i still think about buying one of these m2 pro minis just because they drink almost no power, and they are just so fast.
BUT !! BUT ETA prime everyone kept saying you can’t game in a MAC….jokes on then 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Thanks for the content, much appreciated.
Is it LPDDR4 or LPDDR5?
I've been working on using Emulation Station as a front end but my gosh! It been a massive pain. There has got to be a better way
Hey man, now that it is clear that PSP and PS2 emulation is smooth as butter on the Mac... why not spend a bit of time on Switch emulation with Ryujinx? That would be awesome with your upcoming macOS reviews.
make this video again but use the base mac mini instead.....
Can I step down to regular M2 chip on Mac mini and get same results ?
For $1200 it better emulate my job for me to pay for itself. I can do full speed PS3 emulation on a $350 PC rig.
With that price tag you can buy each and every one of those consoles with all the games tho