Topic: New M1 Mac Mini as HTPC? (Read 15413 times)

hulkss · « **on:** November 12, 2020, 12:02:56 am »

Thinking about a new M1 Mac Mini. Can I expect it to work well as compared to a Windows 10 HTPC with Media Center?

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #1 on:** November 12, 2020, 03:32:24 am »

Nope. I really doubt it.

On Windows there's things for video like madVR, which isn't available outside of Windows. Then there's the Apple Silicon Macs themselves which JRiver Media Center for Mac may not work that well for awhile, if at all from day one. There's a chance the app may not function at all on Apple Silicon Macs. Intel x86_64 apps can run on the new Apple Silicon Macs using Rosetta 2 (though nobody yet knows how slow x86_86 apps will run though), but there's always a chance an app like MC won't work as well or may not work at all. In addition, video playback functioning all depends on if Apple completely removes OpenGL support, which MC for Mac still uses for video, specifically all OpenGL in Big Sur for Apple Silicon Macs (which I suspect to be the case). If they do (and require Metal for this) it may be a good while before MC works with it for video, assuming it runs as-is in the first place. Finally I'd wait for third-party reviews, since Apple's hype never shows what's really happening. There's no way the M1 chip is as fast as an Intel CPU, and I suspect once reviews are out it's going to reflect that (which is something that could/will affect video performance). And it'll be several years before they even catch up to that kind of performance.

So no, I wouldn't recommend it.

JimH · « **Reply #2 on:** November 12, 2020, 07:31:45 am »

As Awesome Donkey says, it could be a while, if ever, before we support them.

glynor · « **Reply #3 on:** November 12, 2020, 07:47:47 am »

Quote from: Awesome Donkey on November 12, 2020, 03:32:24 am

There's no way the M1 chip is as fast as an Intel CPU, and I suspect once reviews are out it's going to reflect that (which is something that could/will affect video performance). And it'll be several years before they even catch up to that kind of performance.

I would NOT be so confident on that particular portion there. Apple has built the best SOC team in the industry, by a wide margin, and Intel has been seriously struggling for years now. This particular chip is their "thin & light" version of the M-series chip, and it is wiping the floor with everything but the highest-end AMD and Intel CPUs.

Next year when a M1X (or whatever they call it) comes out designed for desktop machines? I don't see how anything will keep up.

Reports are that Rosetta 2 is quite good, and with the overhead available in the M1, often runs x86 code faster-than native on a comparable Intel CPU. It is going to be an interesting few years in CPUs, for the first time in a long time.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #4 on:** November 12, 2020, 07:50:54 am »

The good news is it looks like OpenGL is still supported in Big Sur (even on Apple Silicon Macs) but it'll likely be removed from the next major macOS version. MC uses ANGLE (with OpenGL ES), which it looks like there's progress on getting it working on Apple's Metal on macOS. So there's hope there that in the future it'll just work without needing to directly port MC to Metal just by updating ANGLE.

So there's indeed a chance MC27 will work on a Apple Silicon Mac because of the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer. However if you manage to get MC27 running on an Apple Silicon Mac, if I had to guess it'll probably run very slowly because of this and features may not work. So keep that in mind and also keep in mind that running MC on an Apple Silicon Mac is very likely going to be considered unsupported by JRiver so you'd be on your own if any issues arise when doing so.

Again, I wouldn't recommend an Apple Silicon Mac, e.g. a Mac Mini, for a HTPC if you're wanting to run MC on it. Not only can you not install Windows via Boot Camp anymore the performance with the first generation Apple Silicon Macs is probably going to be terrible.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #5 on:** November 12, 2020, 07:52:44 am »

Quote from: glynor on November 12, 2020, 07:47:47 am

I would NOT be so confident on that particular portion there. Apple has built the best SOC team in the industry, by a wide margin, and Intel has been seriously struggling for years now. This particular chip is their "thin & light" version of the M-series chip, and it is wiping the floor with everything but the highest-end AMD and Intel CPUs.

We'll see how long it'll take Apple to release a Mac Pro with a MX chip with on-par performance with the highest end Intel and AMD CPUs. I think it could be 5 years, who knows, maybe I'm wrong and it'll be much sooner.

Nonetheless, I have zero interest in these new Macs, and once Hackintoshes die with the end of support for the last released Intel Mac (in about 7 or so years) I'm hopping off the Apple train for good.

glynor · « **Reply #6 on:** November 12, 2020, 07:56:54 am »

Quote from: Awesome Donkey on November 12, 2020, 07:52:44 am

We'll see how long it'll take Apple to release a Mac Pro with a MX chip with on-par performance with the highest end Intel and AMD CPUs. I think it could be 5 years, who knows, maybe I'm wrong and it'll be much sooner.

They've already stated that they're transitioning the entire line to Apple Silicon over the next two years, so... Unlikely. Based on the fact that their thin & light CPU seems to be beating 8-core i9s, I wouldn't recommend placing bets that involve money there.

We'll see more in a few days when the first Mac Minis start showing up, but...

The main limit to the current chips seems to be that the RAM is on-package, which is why they're limited to 16GB (hence the "consumer" releases initially). But, if an iMac or even Mac/iMac Pro is coming next year, that limit isn't going to last long...

hulkss · « **Reply #7 on:** November 12, 2020, 10:36:39 am »

Thanks for the comments. It will be interesting to see what the future brings for Apple home theater.

In the meantime, I'll try a new AMD Ryzen build and keep JRiver on Windows 10.

bhampster · « **Reply #8 on:** November 12, 2020, 11:00:12 am »

I have the new M1 Mac mini ordered and can’t wait to experiment with it.

(It’s a gift so no need to dissuade me with benchmarks)

At the moment I have three source components UHD BDP, ATV4K and 2010 Mac mini running JRiver.

I was very hopeful JRiver would load and run on the new Mac mini. Now, I guess I’ll find out.
It runs iOS apps so JRemote will work even if for some reason JRiver does not.

It’s going to be used as an HTPC unless it’s very bad for that purpose but on the contrary I think it will do HTPC well. My ten year old Mac mini does perfect but I just assume this will be better.

glynor · « **Reply #9 on:** November 12, 2020, 01:50:41 pm »

Quote from: bhampster on November 12, 2020, 11:00:12 am

It’s going to be used as an HTPC unless it’s very bad for that purpose but on the contrary I think it will do HTPC well. My ten year old Mac mini does perfect but I just assume this will be better.

I suspect Rosetta is going to work just fine. We'll see. Keep us informed!

I have a family member who just ordered one as well, and I'm sure we'll get some at work before too long (though I bet there will be a lot of heel dragging because change).

I, personally, really want a new Mini. But I want 32GB of RAM (and I was going to get the better CPU too)... I'm hoping that when they ship the iMac Pro/Mac Pro variants, they'll replace the "high-end" Intel Mini that remains with a new M1X based one. And then I can see if I can get a "discount" Intel box, or get one of those.

JimH · « **Reply #10 on:** November 13, 2020, 07:14:52 am »

Quote from: glynor on November 12, 2020, 01:50:41 pm

I suspect Rosetta is going to work just fine. We'll see.

Maybe there's hope.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/13/21563242/apple-m1-silicon-chip-arm-macbook-rosetta-confidence

bhampster · « **Reply #11 on:** November 13, 2020, 07:44:22 am »

I should have one this month unless shipping slips.

hulkss · « **Reply #12 on:** November 13, 2020, 04:46:15 pm »

You guys see any problems here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_silicon/about_the_rosetta_translation_environment

glynor · « **Reply #13 on:** November 15, 2020, 04:40:25 pm »

Quote from: JimH on November 13, 2020, 07:14:52 am

Maybe there's hope.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/13/21563242/apple-m1-silicon-chip-arm-macbook-rosetta-confidence

This guy works for Apple:

Quote

fun fact: retaining and releasing an NSObject takes ~30 nanoseconds on current gen Intel, and ~6.5 nanoseconds on an M1

…and ~14 nanoseconds on an M1 emulating an Intel 😇

https://twitter.com/Catfish_Man/status/1326238785181376512?s=20

Though, there is a caution:

Quote

(The price we pay for this is that certain kinds of multithreading bugs can remain dormant on Intel but become symptomatic on M1. Use Thread Sanitizer to test your apps!)

blgentry · « **Reply #14 on:** November 18, 2020, 08:41:09 am »

Quote from: Awesome Donkey on November 12, 2020, 07:52:44 am

Nonetheless, I have zero interest in these new Macs, and once Hackintoshes die with the end of support for the last released Intel Mac (in about 7 or so years) I'm hopping off the Apple train for good.

I'm confused as to why you run one in the first place. To be very nice about it, you seem to be very dissatisfied with Apple. You also do not use their hardware, so you don't get the benefits of the whole platform.

In this particular thread, you don't seem to have anything good to say about their products. That's totally fine. I just wonder why you use them at all since you seem so down on their whole stack. Turn off your hackintosh. It's stealing anyway. You're not authorized to run their code on your own hardware.

To end this on a positive note, I *DO* agree with you that a Mac based installation of MC (on any hardware) is a poor home theater PC choice. I have tried it and it's no fun.

Brian.

bhampster · « **Reply #15 on:** November 19, 2020, 06:50:51 am »

Quote To end this on a positive note, I *DO* agree with you that a Mac based installation of MC (on any hardware) is a poor home theater PC choice. I have tried it and it's no fun.

That’s positive?

Hmmm. This Brian thinks different.

My Mac mini is in house and I can’t use it till this weekend. It WILL be a HTPC replacing the 2010 version used for JRiver. My guess is it’s better than my already awesome setup.

I like Mac and I like JRiver on Mac.

bob · « **Reply #16 on:** November 19, 2020, 09:34:29 am »

Quote from: glynor on November 15, 2020, 04:40:25 pm

This guy works for Apple:https://twitter.com/Catfish_Man/status/1326238785181376512?s=20

Though, there is a caution:
(The price we pay for this is that certain kinds of multithreading bugs can remain dormant on Intel but become symptomatic on M1. Use Thread Sanitizer to test your apps!)

The more recent XCode compilers have exposed issues in MC via thread sanitizer that we've fixed and I've spent a lot of time with thread sanitizer fixing potential issues.

blgentry · « **Reply #17 on:** November 19, 2020, 09:58:51 am »

Quote

My Mac mini is in house and I can’t use it till this weekend. It WILL be a HTPC replacing the 2010 version used for JRiver. My guess is it’s better than my already awesome setup.

I like Mac and I like JRiver on Mac.

I wish you success. The solution did not suit me, but it might be great for you. Good luck!

Brian.

David593 · « **Reply #18 on:** November 19, 2020, 02:40:58 pm »

I use my 2013 15” MacBook Pro for home theatre. Top of the line at the time but still flawless and silent with any well encoded files. Even runs Star Wars 4k77 with no problem , no drops just a little fan noise! As good as my 17” i7750 gaming laptop that is only 2yrs old.

glynor · « **Reply #19 on:** November 19, 2020, 11:22:54 pm »

Quote from: bob on November 19, 2020, 09:34:29 am

The more recent XCode compilers have exposed issues in MC via thread sanitizer that we've fixed and I've spent a lot of time with thread sanitizer fixing potential issues.

I'd be willing to bet you're going to be in pretty good shape, then. We'll see soon!

Dennis in FL · « **Reply #20 on:** November 20, 2020, 04:03:33 am »

Quote from: JimH on November 12, 2020, 07:31:45 am

As Awesome Donkey says, it could be a while, if ever, before we support them.

I just bought a 2020 Intel Desktop iMac but they are being phased out by Apple. I run Parallel on the Mac with Windows 10 on the same machine. I have two minor programs which don't run on a Mac and sometimes I wonder why I bother.

However, looks like those of us in the Mac camp have a cloudy future with MC judging by the comments here.

I have to now look at phasing out MC as well. Sad, all the manhours I've invested.

Maybe I'll just stream Amazon Hi Res, Tidal, or Qobus for music? My personal collection can go on my Sony HAP. Or Rune?

I think in the past the limitations of bandwidth kept hi res music off the streaming services, but my internet provider just upped our speed from 20 to 250 mps for free (fiber optics) and I now have headroom galore. So I'll give the free trials a look.

Might be an idea for a future JRiver to go streaming like Amazon, etc. and that way you don't have to worry about the different chips.

JimH · « **Reply #21 on:** November 20, 2020, 05:57:43 am »

We have an m1 Mac on order. Let's be patient.

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #22 on:** November 20, 2020, 06:34:11 am »

Even with a 2020 Intel Mac, you're looking at more-or-less 7 years of support from Apple, unless they decide to pull the plug early.

What I said above was a worse case scenario type of thing, and I could be (and likely will be) completely wrong with my predictions about MC not even working at all on M1 Apple Silicon-based Macs with Rosetta 2. Honestly looking at what others have said about Rosetta 2 it's been running most x86_64 apps just fine, so I'll revise my prediction by saying more than likely Media Center will run fine on the Apple Silicon-based Macs. In fact, Bob has said because Media Center already runs on ARM (with MC for Linux) it's possible Media Center can be compiled for ARM for macOS/Apple Silicon (with perhaps some additional changes needed + Xcode stuff).

However...

There's still several unknowns at the moment; 1) what the performance is running on M1 versus the lowest-end to mid-range to even higher-end Intel-based Macs? Will there be any performance issues when running Media Center on M1-based Macs? Or will what Apple says be true and will actually run a little faster? Will MC27's recent Mac improvements with the native screen rendering going to help greatly here? 2) How well video playback is going to work under M1-based Macs? Media Center uses ANGLE which relies on OpenGL ES, which OpenGL has been deprecated in macOS but not yet removed even on M1-based Macs running Big Sur. OpenGL ES 2.0 in ANGLE has a Metal renderer so it's possible that Media Center's ANGLE implementation could be updated (if it's not already updated, of course) to use Metal on macOS. If it is, what's the performance going to like here? What's the performance going to be like using just OpenGL? Would love to see a comparison between OpenGL and Metal using ANGLE, to see if there's any gains. 3) What changes, if any, are needed to get Xcode to compile a working version of Media Center for Mac running on ARM/Apple Silicon? This might be the most tricky part of all, since recent Xcode updates haven't been too kind of Media Center in the last year, causing all sort of issues.

Personally if I was interested in buying one of these new Apple Silicon-based Macs, I'd wait for the second generation (M2) so Apple has time to make improvements and hopefully increase the maximum amount of RAM beyond 16GB (and maybe add 10G networking back to the Mac Mini). There's some tech reviewers who feel like Apple is going to replace these M1-based Macs sooner (like 6 months from now) than later. They've done this before with the first Apple Watch (aka series 0). But we'll see what happens.

So, what Jim said is the best idea and let's be patient and see what happens.

bhampster · « **Reply #23 on:** November 20, 2020, 04:57:29 pm »

I’ll test my M1 Mac Mini this Sunday the 22nd.

From what I read in the plex forum I believe it will work as well emulated as it was currently working natively.

In the plex forum (and apparently on social media) people have used the M1 to transcode 6 streams at one time and 2 additional 4K go 1080p streams.

I won’t know till Sunday and I can’t wait , ... but I expect good results.

CPW0802 · « **Reply #24 on:** November 21, 2020, 05:04:09 am »

I am very interested in how the M1 will go.
Initial reviews indicate these machines are super quick and great value for money.
Keen to see if MC will end up being universal ARM/Intel, its a great product.

bob · « **Reply #25 on:** November 21, 2020, 10:03:38 pm »

Just in general, it's easier for a risc machine to emulate a cisc machine then visa-versa so I'd expect Rosetta2 to be more efficient than Rosetta was.

bhampster · « **Reply #26 on:** November 23, 2020, 04:40:08 am »

Hi,

I have the 8GB version of the M1 Mac Mini and had a few moments to test it yesterday.

I should have a lot more tinker time today but my initial discovery is it isn’t simply plug and play.

As soon as I booted it, I loaded JRiver 27 Mac current beta and it asked to to download Rosetta to translate the app, it opened fine and looked normal,

My first frustration came with the MIDI setup as only 48Khz options were available. There were 176Khz options grayed out and nothing about 96Khz to be found.I’m not sure if this is an issue with my equipment. Will have to look more into it.

If I can’t play my 24/96 audio then that’s huge for me as that’s the only thing I used my Previous Mac Mini to do. So far I’ve only found support for high res from optical which is not useful to me because it’s limited to stereo.

Dennis in FL · « **Reply #27 on:** November 23, 2020, 06:07:10 am »

Quote from: bhampster on November 23, 2020, 04:40:08 am

Hi,

I have the 8GB version of the M1 Mac Mini and had a few moments to test it yesterday.

I should have a lot more tinker time today but my initial discovery is it isn’t simply plug and play.

As soon as I booted it, I loaded JRiver 27 Mac current beta and it asked to to download Rosetta to translate the app, it opened fine and looked normal,

My first frustration came with the MIDI setup as only 48Khz options were available. There were 176Khz options grayed out and nothing about 96Khz to be found.I’m not sure if this is an issue with my equipment. Will have to look more into it.

If I can’t play my 24/96 audio then that’s huge for me as that’s the only thing I used my Previous Mac Mini to do. So far I’ve only found support for high res from optical which is not useful to me because it’s limited to stereo.

Can you share what your audio path is?

Fred1 · « **Reply #28 on:** November 24, 2020, 01:28:12 pm »

My first impression about MC on my new M1 Mini with 8GB and 250GB SSD:

Installs without problems and runs fine as i can see it in the short time i own the Mini.

But analyzing audio is very disappointing and as lame as before with only 3 tasks at a time.

Edit:
I made a mistake. I analyzed the files over WiFi.
After copying these files to the internal SSD, i analyzed again with 16 concurrent tasks in an amazing speed.
The machine is indeed as fast as reported in the tests.
And this is the smallest possible Mac Mini in Rosetta2 emulation mode.

bhampster · « **Reply #29 on:** November 24, 2020, 02:41:01 pm »

The audio path is

M1 Mac mini -hdmi- Denton 730h - speakers

bhampster · « **Reply #30 on:** November 25, 2020, 02:40:27 pm »

Every since Sunday Ive been experimenting with various players using this new Mac mini.

So, I started over and so far the latest update seems to be working swell ... even over wifi.

I will keep testing.

Dennis in FL · « **Reply #31 on:** November 26, 2020, 07:05:19 am »

Just for fun....can you run a MC Help/benchmark with rosetta?

My intel iMac gets

JRMark (version 27.0.22 64 bit): 5195

Fred1 · « **Reply #32 on:** November 26, 2020, 11:50:41 am »

Benchmark for M1-Mac Mini (8GB/250GB): 5506

Fred1 · « **Reply #33 on:** November 27, 2020, 09:03:13 am »

Disk Speed on 256 GB SSD:

dejanm · « **Reply #34 on:** December 01, 2020, 01:05:48 pm »

Just ordered M1 Mac Mini. Therefore I am very much interested whether JRiver works on this plattform ...

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #35 on:** December 01, 2020, 01:07:39 pm »

It does work, thanks to Rosetta 2.

JimH · « **Reply #36 on:** December 01, 2020, 02:53:15 pm »

Quote from: dejanm on December 01, 2020, 01:05:48 pm

Just ordered M1 Mac Mini. Therefore I am very much interested whether JRiver works on this plattform ...

It does.

dejanm · « **Reply #37 on:** December 01, 2020, 04:24:51 pm »

Are you planing to recompile JRiver for M1 ? Emulation is fine, native is better ...

JimH · « **Reply #38 on:** December 01, 2020, 04:39:56 pm »

Probably.

dejanm · « **Reply #39 on:** December 01, 2020, 04:58:34 pm »

Soon ?

JimH · « **Reply #40 on:** December 01, 2020, 06:41:07 pm »

Possibly. We just got a machine.

hulkss · « **Reply #41 on:** December 05, 2020, 11:44:22 pm »

I have a new Mac Mini on the way.

I'm trying to find limitations of JRiver MC for Mac that will need solutions. Is there any way to play online content or measurement apps through JRiver DSP in similar fashion to using to the WDM driver in the Windows version?

Is it possible to upgrade my recent 26-27 Windows upgrade to a Master License? I know, I should have done it then but I was not tempted by the new Macs at the time.

bhampster · « **Reply #42 on:** December 07, 2020, 04:38:35 am »

My M1 would not output anything other than 48Khz to my system.

I suppose patience is in order but for now I put the Mac mini to use as my new personal computer and I"m about to put my 2010 Mac mini back in use as a music only server. I don't have another machine that outputs 96Hz 5.1.

(I guess my BDP would but I would have to turn on the projector to navigate Blu Ray menus that are all different then turn it off again to avoid the fan noise.)

I'm loving the Mac mini but until I can get Hi Res audio from it, it's just going to be my daily computer. I was very wrong about it's capabilities for now.

-Brian

Awesome Donkey · « **Reply #43 on:** December 07, 2020, 04:57:41 am »

Is that with the onboard audio? I'd be interested to know if the same limitation applies when using a USB DAC, for example.

LilyAarseth · « **Reply #44 on:** December 07, 2020, 08:45:56 am »

I have the base model m1 Mac mini and I can confirm 192/24 works just fine over usb, however can't get DSD 64 to work but from what I found on a quick search that's an Apple limitation which needs DOP support on the DAC

Fred1 · « **Reply #45 on:** December 07, 2020, 12:11:52 pm »

No problems with bitrates with my basic M1-Mac mini using the USB-output connected to my Devialet 220 amp.

The M1-Mac is very fast (even with Rosetta2) and cool.

bhampster · « **Reply #46 on:** December 08, 2020, 04:22:31 am »

I figured the 48Hz problem I was having was linked to using the HDMI output.

Do USB DACs support 5.1? The only USB DAC I have is a Dragonfly which is stereo, but I don't know much about USB DACs.

I guess when a lot of people think High Res Audio they think Stereo and that's fine but I can get stereo 24/96 from most things including my phone and my AVR USB and the network and so on. The reason my thoughts of 24/96 are linked to 5.1 is ALL of my high res stuff is Pink Floyd content and mostly sourced from Blu Rays.

There's also Display port ... something else I know nothing about but it could solve my current problem.

Patience is in order.

-Brian

Dennis in FL · « **Reply #47 on:** December 08, 2020, 07:04:52 am »

Apple hardly ever discounts their computers, yet Costco has the mini at 30% off.

JimH · « **Reply #48 on:** December 08, 2020, 07:47:19 am »

Quote from: bhampster on December 08, 2020, 04:22:31 am

There's also Display port ... something else I know nothing about but it could solve my current problem.

~~DisplayPort is only video.~~
https://www.displayport.org/faq/#:~:text=Yes%2C%20DisplayPort%20supports%20multi%2Dchannel,ability%20to%20support%20HDMI%20audio

Manfred · « **Reply #49 on:** December 08, 2020, 08:01:43 am »

Quote

Do USB DACs support 5.1?

For Multichannel DAC's see:
https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/HW/MultiChannel.htm

Exasound User Report on:
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/38876-multichannel-dac-exasound-e38/

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Author Topic: New M1 Mac Mini as HTPC? (Read 15413 times)