I just have a macbook air m4 with 512gb storage/16gb.
I wanted a mini but the laptop was drool worthy.


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On 25 Jun 2025, Utopian Galt said the following...

I just have a macbook air m4 with 512gb storage/16gb.
I wanted a mini but the laptop was drool worthy.

I have an M2 MacBook Air with those same specs & it's still a powerhouse.

It does everything I need it to do & more. I use UTM to run a Windows 11 ARM virtual machine for anything I can't run on Mac (like Age of Empires or Age of Mythology on Steam).


Jay

... He who ploughs a straight furrow, is probably in a rut

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
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It does everything I need it to do & more. I use UTM to run a Windows
11 ARM virtual machine for anything I can't run on Mac (like Age of Empires or Age of Mythology on Steam).

How well does Win 11 arm work with x86 games? I've heard that the x86 compatibility in Win 11 arm isn't quite as reliable as rosetta 2 in MacOS, I'm interested in hearing about your experiences.

... Swap read error. You lose your core image.

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I just have a macbook air m4 with 512gb storage/16gb.
I wanted a mini but the laptop was drool worthy.

I don't think folks can go wrong with the M4 lineup... and its pretty easy to suggest hardware to people. But the base model - unless you NEED more RAM. Add Thunderbolt 4 (or 5 if PRO models) NVME SSDs for storage;

M4 Mac Mini
M4 Macbook Air
M4 Macbook Pro

And done... takes care of 85% of ppl.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

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On 26 Jun 2025, kirkspragg said the following...

How well does Win 11 arm work with x86 games? I've heard that the x86 compatibility in Win 11 arm isn't quite as reliable as rosetta 2 in
MacOS, I'm interested in hearing about your experiences.

I've really only tried three games on the Win 11 ARM VM: Age of Mythology, Age of Empires II & Plants vs Zombies. It works well enough for these, I'm not really into heavily graphic intensive games so I can't really say how well it works for something like Call of Duty or whatever the current popular title is.


Jay

... Don't kiss an elephant on the lips today

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Re: Re: the mac club
By: paulie420 to Utopian Galt on Thu Jun 26 2025 06:42 pm

I don't think folks can go wrong with the M4 lineup... and its pretty easy to suggest hardware to people. But the base model - unless you NEED more RAM.

I don't think they're upgradeable, are they? That's the thing I don't like about Apple's products these days.. If you want better specs, you can't upgrade it, you have to buy a whole new one.

Nightfox
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BY: paulie420 (21:2/150)

|11p|09> |10I don't think folks can go wrong with the M4 lineup... and its pretty|07
|11p|09> |10easy to suggest hardware to people. But the base model - unless you NEED|07
|11p|09> |10more RAM. Add Thunderbolt 4 (or 5 if PRO models) NVME SSDs for storage;|07
|11p|09> |07
|11p|09> |10M4 Mac Mini|07
|11p|09> |10M4 Macbook Air|07
|11p|09> |10M4 Macbook Pro|07
|11p|09> |07
|11p|09> |10And done... takes care of 85% of ppl.|07
My plan is to get a 32gb mac mini pro with 2tb storage so I can play final fantasy 14 on it :)


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I don't think folks can go wrong with the M4 lineup... and its pretty
easy to suggest hardware to people. But the base model - unless you NEED more RAM. Add Thunderbolt 4 (or 5 if PRO models) NVME SSDs for storage;

Agreed, I love my M4 Max to this degree that I purchased new xbox one game pads (x360 pads won't work with it) and started repackaging my current/modern windows games to wine or steam via wine if there is no native macos version and it all runs smooth like a silk!

I again can tell I have one computer that can pretend to be any computer and gaming console of today and past preferences and for a reasonable price!

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

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I don't think they're upgradeable, are they? That's the thing I don't like about Apple's products these days.. If you want better specs, you can't upgrade it, you have to buy a whole new one.

Yep but the baseline + extra ram is still affordable and comparable to similar performance on PC for a rig that you'd consider 5 years life cycle, so that's still ok.

-h1

... Xerox Alto was the thing. Anything after we use is just a mere copy.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2024/05/29 (Linux/64)
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Re: Re: the mac club
By: hollowone to Nightfox on Fri Jun 27 2025 12:04 pm

I don't think they're upgradeable, are they? That's the thing I don't
like about Apple's products these days.. If you want better specs, you
can't upgrade it, you have to buy a whole new one.

Yep but the baseline + extra ram is still affordable and comparable to similar performance on PC for a rig that you'd consider 5 years life cycle, so that's still ok.

In the past, I'd noticed Apple would charge a lot for RAM, and I could buy RAM for maybe half or 60% of Apple's cost elsewhere and upgrade it myself.. I imagine Apple probably charges a premium for RAM on their systems, and naturally, having them non-upgradeable means you need to pay Apple's prices for the RAM. I'm not totally convinced the decision to not make them upgradeable wasn't (at least partially) a decision by Apple to try to increase their profits by forcing you to buy their RAM upgrade rather than buy RAM elsewhere.

Nightfox
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