OS X Any old Windows....

For bootcamp you'll want to buy Windows 7. Otherwise it's like buying a computer made for Windows Vista, and installing Windows XP. The hardware that'll be in that iMac will not have XP drivers and it'll just try to use default ones just to get a picture and video on your screen.

For Parallels, it's a lot easier to get away from these issues, but you really don't want to use that if you're playing games. Mountain Lion already eats up a lot of the RAM, and having to run OS X, then Windows, and then have a 1GB RAM eating game is not going to be a great experience. It's really more for when you need to use Visual Basic, Office, or a few other apps.

Additionally to the above, you might be better of looking at the Wineskin solution that has the best things from both worlds.

You didn't specify what games you want to run, but I'll provide a couple of firsthand experiences.

On an XP image running through VMWare, I had no issues playing old 2D games (more specifically Civilization II). I also tried playing a game called Zombies Must Die on my Windows 7 image at full screen and it was playable, but not at full specs.

My machine is the 2011 iMac 27" base model with 12GB RAM. I set the 7 VM to get 4GB of RAM, while the XP image got 1GB.

MightyWhite said:

I looked at wine skin and went a bit cross eyed.. Don't really get it lol

Will try and work it out though..

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Not really a gamer so no hard ore. Fancy the new need for speed and portal and a couple of COD type games maybe..

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Portal is already osx, so if you have it just download the mac version from steam for free.

Need for Speed Carbon has mac version, which works well even with gamepads.

Cod4 is currently on sale on MAS.

MightyWhite said:

I know and am gutted. Don't have a mac yet. Waiting for the 27" in December so have no way of buying it whilst its on offer... I saw portal on steam so will buy them as they are only a fiver.

I guess as I am not a gamer the odd game that comes available for Osx will be more than enough for me..

Just wish I could buy some games from MAS on my iPad.... Never mind...

On a different note is it easy enough to pair a ps3 controller to a mac or are there certain types of game pads that are specifically for a mac?

Cheers for all your help

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I have a unofficial Ps3 pad, and it works in many games, NFS:Carbon is one of them, however many mac games limits support to certain controllers like the xbox 360. There is also a app called GamePad Companion which enables me to use the pad in some unsupported games, with various success tho. It costs $7.99 on Apple store.

If you don't need a specific game you could always pick up games when they go on sale later on either MAS or steam, and the selection of games is just getting better and better! Be aware some games on MAS does not have multiplayer with PC, those are often called "Campain version" or similar. Steam games, except Black Ops, can all play multiplayer with PC.

As for portal 2, that game have so many custom maps available now, even multiplayer. Me and a friend is still playing portal 2 multiplay and have probably done so for a total of over 20 hours, it's great fun and it trims your brain too

For the simplest and best working solution, go with Windows 7 installed via bootcamp. This is the painless way to play Windows games with best performance consistently on your Mac.

Keep in mind too that two companies in particular bring many good Windows games to the Mac. These two are Feral Interactive and Aspyr. You can search on them in the Mac App store and find a good variety of excellent games that run natively on your Mac which I consider the nicest gaming experience of all. You might want to check out the choices you can have for Mac games before spending on Windows. It isn't like you cannot get Windows later on if some game you are dying to play requires it.

Lastly I will add that personally I consider Parallels a great way to play older Windows games running with Windows XP and not having to reboot the computer to play them. By older I mean games from 2006 and earlier. These tend to work fine with it as they are not very demanding. You cannot depend at all on newer games consistently running well with Parallels although some do fine. I got it and use it with XP because I already owned XP and own a lot of classic games so that works out nicely for me. You really shouldn't get it to play newer titles in my opinion. It isn't always going to work. I just wanted it to save me rebooting into Windows 7 when possible as it runs on the Mac desktop. With bootcamp, you have to reboot to use Windows 7 and the reboot again when done to get back to your Mac desktop. It's not a big deal and doesn't take long but it's nice to skip it for the old games I have.

Jessica Lares said:

For Parallels, it's a lot easier to get away from these issues, but you really don't want to use that if you're playing games. Mountain Lion already eats up a lot of the RAM, and having to run OS X, then Windows, and then have a 1GB RAM eating game is not going to be a great experience. It's really more for when you need to use Visual Basic, Office, or a few other apps.

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I'm considering getting a Mac Mini for my family, and I too need it to run Win XP - my mom is old and didn't adapt to Win 7. Do you think the new Mini - base model - can handle well a VM sharing 2GB RAM with Win XP? Or would it need a 8 GB upgrade?

BTW, this Win XP won't be doing anything taxing. At the very worse it may be used to play some HD videos from YouTube, but regular usage should be restricted to web browsing, Word typing and some music listening.

saotomefirst said:

I'm considering getting a Mac Mini for my family, and I too need it to run Win XP - my mom is old and didn't adapt to Win 7. Do you think the new Mini - base model - can handle well a VM sharing 2GB RAM with Win XP? Or would it need a 8 GB upgrade?

BTW, this Win XP won't be doing anything taxing. At the very worse it may be used to play some HD videos from YouTube, but regular usage should be restricted to web browsing, Word typing and some music listening.

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At that rate you should just teach her OS X to be honest. Apple has some basic guide videos:

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

I have never used a Mac Mini, but if you're going to emulate anything, 8GB is well worth it.

OP: Windows 7 is your best bet. Good performance, cheap, basically the best one for games.

cluthz said:

Need for Speed Carbon has mac version, which works well even with gamepads.

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The new Need for Speed isn't Carbon. Isn't that an extremely old game now?

Dagless said:

OP: Windows 7 is your best bet. Good performance, cheap, basically the best one for games.



The new Need for Speed isn't Carbon. Isn't that an extremely old game now?

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Yes it's not new, its from 2007 or something like that. It still works on ML tho.

Jessica Lares said:

At that rate you should just teach her OS X to be honest. Apple has some basic guide videos:

http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/

I have never used a Mac Mini, but if you're going to emulate anything, 8GB is well worth it.

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Thanks Jessica. I know about the videos - I watched them myself to learn how to use my Mac. Still, my mom is an old lady already, and she's got other more important things to worry about than to remember Windows Programs are called Apps in OS X. Believe me, I tried to make her understand Windows 7 wasn't such a monster. It simply didn't work out for her at all.

That's why I need to keep a Win XP running for her. If all goes well, all she'll ever have to learn from OS X is the 3 finger swipe to the left, so she'll always be able to find her computer.

I guess I'll just get the 8GB upgrade then. It's not that expensive and will save me from having a headache later on.