Bootcamp advice

ajumbaje · Sep 2, 2009

I'm wanting to see what some of you would suggest as far as a windows os goes for a bootcamp partition.
Here are my specs:
it's a MacBook pro from early march 08
2.5 ghz core duo(may be core 2 duo)
4 gb ram
80 or so gb free space
nvidia geforce 8600m gt 512 mb
snow leopard if that matters

I'm looking to play left 4 dead and maybe some other stuff, but that's the first game that comes to mind.

WizardHunt · Sep 3, 2009

Just install Windows XP on your BootCamp partition and it would work fine for you. In your case I would go half and half meaning half for SL and half for Windows XP

Huntn · Sep 4, 2009

Also those portable external drives are pretty hefty but slim on price. If budget is not a problem, if starting from scratch, I'd save about 2/3 hard drive for your Mac, 1/3 for Windows. Otherwise, you should set aside about 70GB for Windows and I guarantee you that you'll need extra storage space. Get one of those drives, I don't know maybe like this and format it in FAT32. Then you can use it for both your Mac and Windows. If you are Windows gaming, you can put most (all?) games on your external drive without any complications.

Rodus · Sep 4, 2009

Yes get an external drive, format it as NTFS (FAT32 can't do bigger then 4 GB files) and install NTFS-3G on OS X so you can write to it on the Mac side. I run all my Windows games from an external drive with no issues.

Bill Gates · Sep 4, 2009

If you don't yet have a copy of Windows then my advice is to wait for general availability of Windows 7. Windows XP is an outdated, insecure operating system, and that's being quite generous. The only reason it's lasted this long is due to the marketing failure of Windows Vista. Windows 7 seems to be an all-around good OS, and even with your intention of only gaming with Windows, I would recommend waiting for Windows 7. You'll also benefit from DirectX 10 support in Windows 7, which is not present in Windows XP.

0098386 · Sep 4, 2009

Bill Gates said:
If you don't yet have a copy of Windows then my advice is to wait for general availability of Windows 7. Windows XP is an outdated, insecure operating system, and that's being quite generous. The only reason it's lasted this long is due to the marketing failure of Windows Vista. Windows 7 seems to be an all-around good OS, and even with your intention of only gaming with Windows, I would recommend waiting for Windows 7. You'll also benefit from DirectX 10 support in Windows 7, which is not present in Windows XP.

Really? I'm using Windows XP for work and I haven't hit any problems at all. It crashes much less than my Vista PC. I have AVG installed and never had any threat to my iMac at all.

XP is still the better performing OS. On my test/gaming rig (XP/Vista/Win7), with the same (hacked) settings applied to all 3 I get the best performance from Crysis, Left4Dead etc under XP.
And might I add Left4Dead will run beautifully on your setup. Get it and have many fun hours (just don't end up playing 311 hours worth in 9 months,

).

ajumbaje · Sep 4, 2009

raggedjimmi said:
Really? I'm using Windows XP for work and I haven't hit any problems at all. It crashes much less than my Vista PC. I have AVG installed and never had any threat to my iMac at all.

XP is still the better performing OS. On my test/gaming rig (XP/Vista/Win7), with the same (hacked) settings applied to all 3 I get the best performance from Crysis, Left4Dead etc under XP.
And might I add Left4Dead will run beautifully on your setup. Get it and have many fun hours (just don't end up playing 311 hours worth in 9 months, ).

Im actually trying out L4D via a crossover trial. I was thinking of getting a bigger laptop hard drive, something like 500 gb 7200 rpm and dual booting with windows 7 later in the year. Thought id have both os, doesnt really hurt

So there's a way to play windows games via an external hard drive? Ive got a 160 gb right next to me, how would that work? Not sure of the rpm, but Im not sure if that would matter. That definitely would save me money! Id have to get windows 7, but still...haha

btw, so allotting the minimum amount of space for windows 7 would be fine, Ive got around 110 gb free, but i dont want to use too much unless I get a new hard drive

Huntn · Sep 5, 2009

Bill Gates said:
If you don't yet have a copy of Windows then my advice is to wait for general availability of Windows 7. Windows XP is an outdated, insecure operating system, and that's being quite generous. The only reason it's lasted this long is due to the marketing failure of Windows Vista. Windows 7 seems to be an all-around good OS, and even with your intention of only gaming with Windows, I would recommend waiting for Windows 7. You'll also benefit from DirectX 10 support in Windows 7, which is not present in Windows XP.

Hey, Bill, I heard you use a MBP when no one is around? That could not be true is it?

raggedjimmi said:
Really? I'm using Windows XP for work and I haven't hit any problems at all. It crashes much less than my Vista PC. I have AVG installed and never had any threat to my iMac at all.

XP is still the better performing OS. On my test/gaming rig (XP/Vista/Win7), with the same (hacked) settings applied to all 3 I get the best performance from Crysis, Left4Dead etc under XP.
And might I add Left4Dead will run beautifully on your setup. Get it and have many fun hours (just don't end up playing 311 hours worth in 9 months, ).

Vista actually does pretty good on my MBP. I remember reading somewhere that you need a minimum of 2GB RAM just to overcome it's overhead. I've got 4GB on mine and it runs Windows games pretty good as far as laptops go.

jfyrfytr25 · Sep 8, 2009

Bill Gates said:
If you don't yet have a copy of Windows then my advice is to wait for general availability of Windows 7. Windows XP is an outdated, insecure operating system,

when you say insecure, do you mean like it has low self esteem, thinks no one likes it, and spends hours in the mirror everyday wishing it could change its looks? that kind of insecure? or did you mean "unsecure"?

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