What Mac should I buy?

[Paigel2021]

We are wanting to start using OBS at our church for the live stream. Does anyone have a recommendation for a Mac computer I should purchase for this?
Thanks in advance for any help. We are new to using OBS so what to make sure we get the correct equipment.

 

[OBSkenobi]

We are wanting to start using OBS at our church for the live stream. Does anyone have a recommendation for a Mac computer I should purchase for this?
Thanks in advance for any help. We are new to using OBS so what to make sure we get the correct equipment.

OBS needs at least a High Sierra 10.13 operating system. And High Sierra needs at least a mid 2010 mac mini (in my case). So
you maybe want to look at what year Mac it is. If you're going to buy used I'd suggest probably a 2014 or 2015 model probably.
The new Mac with the M1 chip is insanely fast I've heard, but the thing you should think about with computers is they're like
avacados... if you get them too soon they can be too hard and difficult, and if you get them too late, they can be too soft and not
practical anymore. Also, I'd look to get 16 GB of Ram because OBS needs the extra memory. Otherwise you might experience
crashes.

 

[Paigel2021]

OBS needs at least a High Sierra 10.13 operating system. And High Sierra needs at least a mid 2010 mac mini (in my case). So
you maybe want to look at what year Mac it is. If you're going to buy used I'd suggest probably a 2014 or 2015 model probably.
The new Mac with the M1 chip is insanely fast I've heard, but the thing you should think about with computers is they're like
avacados... if you get them too soon they can be too hard and difficult, and if you get them too late, they can be too soft and not
practical anymore. Also, I'd look to get 16 GB of Ram because OBS needs the extra memory. Otherwise you might experience
crashes.

We are looking at purchasing new, just wasn’t sure about the new processors or the graphics card as not very familiar with them.

 

[OBSkenobi]

We are looking at purchasing new, just wasn’t sure about the new processors or the graphics card as not very familiar with them.

If you're going to buy new, then probably a Mac mini might be best. It doesn't come with a keyboard or mouse, but most
will do. Last I looked the M1 mini was selling for $668 on Amazon. This is a weird time for computers, because Apple is
gradually making the switch to M1 and probably will eventually drop Intel... but in the meantime, all Intel based software will
work with the M1, because of Rosetta 2 software working in the background to help with that transition.

 

[BrixtonRifles]

It may not affect you too badly, but do be aware that OBS does not perform brilliantly on M1-based Macs at the moment. I have an M1 Mac mini (admittedly the 8GB RAM version) and it struggles to stream at 1080p60. Lower resolutions and frame rates will work better though.

This appears to mostly be because OBS is an Intel app at the moment, so not optimised to run on M1 Macs. I'm currently using a version of OBS someone on the forum here ported over to M1 because it performs significantly better and I can stream at 1080p60 with no issues whatsoever. It's not perfect though - it often crashes on startup (though not once it's open and in use) and it's missing a few features. Browser sources are present but perform poorly. But it shows an official port of OBS to M1 could be amazing!

So... with all this in mind, I think I'd still get an M1-based Mac. They're relatively cheap for the performance you get and you're future proofing yourself. You'll get a lot more mileage from an M1-based Mac now than you would an Intel-based one. And surely OBS will get an official M1 port before too long?