I'm trying to save money and build an openemu mac mini setup and don't want to pay any more than I have to but specs and stuff kind of confuse me.
What is the cheapest Mac Mini that will run Dolphin without any FPS drops at Native GC resolutions?
Does it
have to be a Mac Mini? The cheapest ones I'd feel comfortable with, the Haswell-based models (Intel 4th gen), go for over $100 USD on Ebay. And the lowest-end Intel 4th gen model has concerningly-low clock speeds.
At that point you could get a used Wii or Wii U and soft-mod it paired with a large SD card or a known-working USB drive/USB adapter (I personally use
this Vantec one which is
only $8 at Microcenter which pairs well with their
free 256GB SSD coupon for new customers) since you said you're just trying to run at native GC resolutions. Remember, both Devolution and Nintendont allow you to not only use the official GameCube USB adapter (or
Mayflash's equivalent adapter that's compatible with Smash Bros Ultimate) but also various other controllers like PS3, PS4, Wii classic controllers, and even wired Xbox 360 controllers (though on Nintendont that requires using
a 3rd party fork that requires you to
load games from an SD card instead of a USB drive).
Heck, even a LGA1150 ITX motherboard plus a Pentium G3258 isn't
that far removed from the price of a Mac Mini, even when factoring in the (inexpensive) cost of 2x4GB DDR3 and a cheap SATA-based SSD.