2.93 i7 imac running choppy?

I've always used windows since 98 and have had relatively few problems. I have ios devices and enjoy them and so I bought a new imac quad core i7 2.93ghz. It has 1tb, 1 gb 5750 gddr5 gpu, 27" screen. Its gorgeous. However, my wife likes to play Sims 3 with all the expansion packs, and use the architectural design aspects of it. My Dell xps 8100 handles the game like melted butter-smooth and easy. The imac which is a similar to the i7 860 dell, having a 2.93 i7 plays it not nearly as well. I have to run resolution down to 1080p from its higher native, and put most settings on medium without a.a. It still is a bit choppier than the Dell which cost half as much. This is not COD MW2 or CRYSIS, its Sims 3 with all 4 expansion packs. I have a few more days to take back my imac and wondering if ther is a setting I can adjust or just realize this is par for the course in apple land? Any suggestions. I shouldnt have to put Sims three on medium settings on a high end 2.93 i7 quad core. THat is sad.

Yes Im running it under OSX. I dont know how to run in windows? Iam not a cumputer whiz and dont want to mess up this expensive new imac. But if its not too complicated and it will work well I can do it. I have an install disc of windows 7 64bt home premium from my dell I could use but I dont know how to do it. The few forums I looked at were confusing to me.

TMRaven said:

OSX has a built-in dual boot utility that's under.. utilities. It's called bootcamp. Try it out!

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How do I access it? Sorry Ive owned an imac for a week.

My wife has already started playing sims 3 on osx. What do I do to get it to work in bootcamp?

Thanks for the help. THis will help as I was considering returning the imac because I really want to keep it. But the i7 2.93 quad should handle it. Hopefully a lot better in bootcamp?

Hankcah said:

I gave up when he said he's not a computer whiz. We don't do rocket science, maybe.

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Well at least you posted that you gave up. Thanks anyway.

Thanks.

Ive read a lot of folks who claim bootcamp slows down the mac. Is that true? Everything runs great on it except games. We prefer the OSX but just want improved sims 3 performance but not at the cost of the overall performace of the mac. How does it effect it?

jmpage2 said:

Boot Camp has nothing to do with the performance of the Mac. All Bootcamp does is create a new partition and assist you with the initial installation of Windows.

There's a step by step guide on installing Windows on OS X with Boot Camp here;

http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Boot_Camp_Install-Setup_10.6.pdf

It is very straight forward. You will need an installable copy of Windows and a valid serial number to complete the installation. It is true that Windows runs many games better than OS X so you will probably see a speed bump when playing games under Windows. You can always boot back up into OS X for doing pretty much everything else (and OS X is better than Windows at pretty much everything OTHER than gaming).

Make sure that when you make your boot camp partition for Windows you make it large enough for all the games and other crap you might want to install later.

Good luck. The iMac is a great machine, it's just not a great gaming machine.

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Thanks. Yeah if it wasnt for my wife and her sims fix, id skip the whole bootcamp. Im done with windows. The OSX is so much fun and interesting.

jmpage2 said:

Oh ya, to get the best performance, after you finish getting boot camp drivers installed you might want to uninstall the graphics drivers and then download the latest ones from ATI.

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Will I have to uninstall them. With the windows I just updated them without deleting?