Struggling to use Blender at all on Mac Mini?

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#1

Hi, just joined here and first post…
I have a mac mini 2012 running High Sierra with Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 MB, 8gb memory and on an I5 processor. I know this isn’t a big spec machine (I got rid of my retina mac and MacPro some time ago and use this for work at home)
I’ve just downloaded Blender to try out as it looks perfect for me, I got 2.9 BTW. However I cannot do even the simplest of things with it without a huge beach ball time of maybe 5 minutes? Rest of the system works as in all other open programs so it’s not crashing out. The machine runs Sketchup pro absolutely fine along with all adobe software etc.
When I say simple things, I mean anything at all. I’ve only got to extruding the cube on few planes (Works fine) Configuring the 3d mouse (Works fine) but even clicking material properties or other options I get the beach ball, I tried to put brick texture to the cube and it took well over 6 minutes.
I only want to create simple models really for work, some only being 6-10 faces with a few radius curves. Is this mac simply not going to work or dies anyone have any tips/solutions?

Thank you,
Ben.

#2

With your configuration you are better off with a previous version: 2.79 as a maximum.

There were some big changes in the app after that that prevent your iGPU to work well with modern Blender at all.

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#3

Thank you for that! I did try a version 2.8 too but the same so that makes sense. Is the older version still downloadable to try? I liked a lot of features of the 2.8-2.9 but it really is completely unusable and currently not looking to upgrade systems (Really only simple stuff I want to do) If I don’t get on with it or older versions aren’t available I’ll just stick with Sketchup for now :slight_smile:

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#4

Old releases can be found here: https://download.blender.org/release/

I’d start at 2.79 and work my way backwards if that still gives you issues on the Mini. The 2.7 releases look different from modern Blender but are very similar feature-wise and quite the speed upgrade if I dare say so. :wink:

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#5

Thank you, I’ve just got that so will see how it goes!
What mac OS and spec would be acceptable for the latest version out of interest? I’m reluctant to move away from OSX because I’m so used to it and really don’t need a dedicated machine as it’s more a hobby/simple work needs.

#6

I have no idea how well it runs on the most recent releases to be honest. My most modern system is a Trashcan with Mojave but I don’t really use Blender on that. I did see viewport rendering differences when trying out demo scenes in 2.8 versions on that and my PC but did not explore further.

I’m sure the current Cheesegrate will be at least serviceable in Blender. :wink:

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#7

Just fired up 2.79 and all seems to work quickly as expected… It does however seem to be less intuitive so I’ll look into learning more. My 3D mouse does also seem to struggle but sure I can sort that with settings :wink: Looks like I’ll be getting a new machine soon if I can get on with blender on the whole lol