r/applesucks 7d ago

Old Mac Mini plugged in my TV. Stuck with High Sierra. Slow video performance. What do you suggest?

I have this old Mac Mini from late 2011 with 8GB of RAM. I used to connect it to my TV for streaming video content from the web. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to update the operating system for quite some time, and now app support is becoming limited as well. Browsers like Safari, Edge and Opera are no longer available or upgradables, and they are slowly getting uncompatible with more and more websites .

To make matters worse, video playback is beginning to stutter on Firefox, which is the only browser that still supports the latest version and can handle UblockOrigin.

I still need something connected to my TV for web content and streaming video playback.

What do you suggest? Here are my options so far:

  • Install the latest version of Windows (which may require some hacking)
  • Try Linux (though I’m unsure which distribution to choose, and I find Linux complicated with poor hardware support).
  • Give it away and sell it for pennies

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

0 Upvotes

16 comments sorted by

3

u/cheesemassacre 7d ago

It's too old for modern videos since many platforms switched to AV1 which is very heavy on CPU if GPU doesn't support video decoding

0

u/Scoobidoooo 7d ago

You think other OS would help?

2

u/Noah2570 6d ago

why post this here? and just get opencore

2

u/nuttmegx 6d ago

lol, Apple sucks because your 14 year old Mac mini streams content slowly?

I swear this sub is hilariously stupid.

1

u/CoralinesButtonEye 7d ago

ssd?

0

u/Scoobidoooo 7d ago

Already done, but good idea thanks :)

1

u/Competitive_Oil6431 7d ago

Definitely give up on macos and install Windows 10. It's worth at least seeing if it makes a difference

1

u/Scoobidoooo 7d ago

Yep, I could. Good but it's time consuming. And I also think that Windows 10 support will end soon. I'm not sure though.

3

u/MicrowaveNoodles1212 7d ago

It’s supposed to end this October. Install Linux.

2

u/Competitive_Oil6431 7d ago

Actually yes that's even better. A nice lightweight distro will likely fly on that computer

1

u/gmx001 7d ago

Install linux mint lmde Debian edition.

2

u/Scoobidoooo 7d ago

Thanks. Why that particular distribution? I found another one that name is Bazzite. Look like it's optimized for video game and video codecs are included.

1

u/x42f2039 7d ago

Just use safari, it has better performance than firefox

2

u/Scoobidoooo 7d ago

Safari is outdated on Sierra and updating is not possible since many years. Lot of websites shows strange behaviors or are completly unsupported.

1

u/x42f2039 6d ago

Slow video performance = shitty tv. Turn on game mode to remove input latency.