TRS19 on the M1 Mac Mini - first impressions

hkoster1

New member
TRS19 is certainly playable on the new (late 2020) M1 Mac Mini (16/512), but don't expect
the equivalent performance of a Radeon 5700XT in an eGPU.

The current Intel binary (build 109646) runs in Rosetta emulation.

Performance (especially draw distance) must be dialed down to get frame rates of 20-30 in
sessions like Fossil Fuels (Kickstarter Country). Even sessions in Roy's TRS19 CPR routes
get around 20 fps, not great but not bad either.

I just completed Dundee - Edinburgh session: frame rates around the stations are lowish,
but once the train gets going frame rates up to 50 fps.

The amazing thing is: the Mac Mini stays cool to the touch, didn't notice the fan blowing
warm air.

I wonder what TRS19 could be like when coded natively for ARM architecture and the
graphics entirely in Metal...

All the same, no match for my gaming PC with RTX2080.
 
TRS19 is certainly playable on the new (late 2020) M1 Mac Mini (16/512), but don't expect
the equivalent performance of a Radeon 5700XT in an eGPU.

The current Intel binary (build 109646) runs in Rosetta emulation.

Performance (especially draw distance) must be dialed down to get frame rates of 20-30 in
sessions like Fossil Fuels (Kickstarter Country). Even sessions in Roy's TRS19 CPR routes
get around 20 fps, not great but not bad either.

I just completed Dundee - Edinburgh session: frame rates around the stations are lowish,
but once the train gets going frame rates up to 50 fps.

The amazing thing is: the Mac Mini stays cool to the touch, didn't notice the fan blowing
warm air.

I wonder what TRS19 could be like when coded natively for ARM architecture and the
graphics entirely in Metal...

All the same, no match for my gaming PC with RTX2080.
The most frustrating aspect is that if they only would offer more gpu options , it would make these units much more useful. But then that would eat into iMac sales , I still think a mid range tower that is customisable would give apple a lot more sales, but that's not happened since the late 90s and I expect I won't live to see one.....
 
How much ram and storage did you choose? What is the memory and CPU usage? Also, did you try to run any of the Mobile versions of Trains on the M1? I’m not sure if they are available to download as it is up to the developer to allow the Mobile versions to download on the M1.

I expect performance will improve when coded for metal and the Apple silicon Macs. They said that is in the pipeline. Not bad for the first Apple silicon Macs, especially since these are the low end Macs.
 
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16/512 GB. When running a session in one of Roy's demanding TRS19 CPR routes: CPU usage about 220%, memory usage about 8 GB.
The Mac Mini is then still very responsive when doing other tasks, like answering your query.
 
Since you customized your Mini, do you mind saying what was the price?

William
He's in the Nederlands, prices are much higher in Europe and rest of world compared to USA. I just visited the us apple store and price for this unit is $1099.us . Same unit is $1700 in Australia.
 
Yes, I am aware of the differences in currency values around the world and other things like VAT do effect pricing. But if one is to compare Apples with apples rather than Apples with Intels, you need all the information possible.

William
 
I know I'll take heat for this from my fellow Mac people but all you need do when evaluating Mac/Gaming is to go to Steam and view the number of games available for Windows vs games available for Apple. I am a diehard Apple hardware and software fan. Used Apple's since early 1980's. When in corporate environment running a graphics team I was constantly fighting for my Mac dept against the big IT dept and Windows. I use Mac's for hours and hours every single day, seven days a week. I hate it when I am forced to Windows to use an app not available for Mac or when setting up special projects on the Win10 machine.

But I recently built a Win10 gaming machine and I have to admit that if you want to game, you must use Windows. I just recently started playing the new UBOAT and absolutely love it. Is it available for OSX? No.

This is not about whether you can build a good UNIVERSAL gaming machine with an Apple computer (ANY apple computer.. old, new, future) - It's about the games available to run on each platform. It's about games developers being devoted to Windows. It's about developers having given up on Apple/OSX (and somewhat Apple now being an iOS company and not an OSX company.) All one need do is compare the "new" Pages app to the "old" Pages app. They removed so much scripting capability from the old Pages the new one is not suited for automation or "power" use at all (scripting.) And why did they do this? They are more interested in converting desktops and laptops into iOS Macs.

The results of running TRS19 on the new Mini IS very interesting and IMPRESSIVE. It is interesting and much worthy of discussion and comment. But we cannot deny that when you want to take a break and play another fantastic game you'll likely find it available for Windows only. End of comparison.

I have my flak jacket on- :)
 
My only care is if some form of Trainz will run on the new Apple Silicon. I thought with my all readings it should, and there is effort to convert Trainz to Metal and some sort of ARM. I see a future with Trainz and I'm happy with that. I'm not a gamer. Steam is not my consideration. I see the future of gaming on the Mac is brighter because of Apple's efforts to simplify running one app across their platforms and with the Apple Silicon. I've said this before, I'm not saying it is easy to develop across all their platforms and I'm not saying all these games or other complex programs will be easy or quick to port over. With Apple Silicon Mac, you bring a lot more developers that have years of experience developing for the iPhone and iPd, now can use the same CPU and GPU family as they have been working on, in the Macs now. These iPhone and iPad apps can work natively on the Mac. If they wanted to, they could allow Trainz Driver to work on these Silicon Macs, without doing code changes. I'm not saying they shouldn't do code changes, however the Mobile versions are Metal compatible already. Further Apple has a gaming service, Apple Arcade. For me, I find some nice games. Other people, not so much.
 
I'm not a big gamer either, way too busy. I too thought I was happy running Trainz only but then, after reading some books, I wanted to investigate torpedo attack setups so I looked at Sub sims. Having the Windows machine allowed me to find several, with none of the better ones available for OSX of course. You never know where your interest is going to take you. I'm not a "gamer" but I do like to learn things. Of course, in my case it was just a matter of a little research to build a "gaming" friendly machine since I need a PC for limited work anyway.
 
I'm not a big gamer either, way too busy. I too thought I was happy running Trainz only but then, after reading some books, I wanted to investigate torpedo attack setups so I looked at Sub sims. Having the Windows machine allowed me to find several, with none of the better ones available for OSX of course. You never know where your interest is going to take you. I'm not a "gamer" but I do like to learn things. Of course, in my case it was just a matter of a little research to build a "gaming" friendly machine since I need a PC for limited work anyway.

Actually if you had installed boot camp you could run windows games on your intel Mac, my understand was performance was pretty good on Mac pros, the downside would have been the gpu on old minis , its only the Mac pros and some of the later iMacs that give a reasonable gaming experience , an egpu would allow a decent experience on the 2018 Mac mini, but for some reason apple nearly always handstrung most of their 21st cent second decade machines with some uninspiring gpus . Hopefully the new silicon units will remedy that and more games will easily work on the os. It could be revolutionary as long as apple actually installs the right gear . It's a distraction to talk about what was the old situation because Mac users have put up with this situation for decades, let's try and focus on whether there will be an explosion in games for Mac that don't need much in the way of coding changes to make them function on the new macs. That would be a win win situation.
 
I had a Virtual Machine on my Mac to run WIN10. VM Ware Fusion. Worked good but a VM is not a native PC.
Boot camp isn't perfect but is better than an emulator, I tried parallels so I could use PEV tools, could not find a way for the emulator to access the Mac trainz database, it was just as easy to make a copy on my pc and edit the items there as there wasn't room on the Mac hard drive to create another 200 gb partition to install trainz .
 
Technically a virtual machine is not an emulator. This ComputerWorld article is 10 years old but still somewhat valid.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2551154/emulation-or-virtualization-.html

I don't know about Parallels but usually folders you want to access but be defined in the VM setup. I had a single folder I defined and any file in it was available to OSX or the VM. VM Ware Fusion actually started MUCH quicker than actually booting up Windows on any PC I've every had or used.
 
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We got the M1 Mac Pro 8gb ram, 512gb storage. I'm not sure which setting were exactly used, so I can't exactly compare benchmarks. I ran quick drive on the kickstarter route and was getting over 30 FPS.

I was able to install iPad apps Trainz Driver Journeys, Trainz Simulator 2, and Trainz Driver 2. The iPad apps are old and not modified for use on the Mac. Glad to see them available on the M1 Macs. More the point of loading the iPad apps is they are now able to run on a bigger screen, though using AirPlay that was possible, but subject to problems of AirPlay. You cannot run the unmodified iPad/iPhone apps in full screen. Trainz Driver Journeys has glitchy sound. I’m not criticizing the games are they are now in an environment that they were not designed to run. It is just the iPad/iPhone apps are running on the same ML/CPU/GPU family they have been running on for a long time. I’m wondering how having ML being part of the Mac Silicon will enable for future games. I’m also wondering how this affects future Trainz on Apple devices. One app can be programmed to run on all of Apple’s devices.
 
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