Best Windows version for gaming on a Macbook Pro?

[illjazz]

I'm running Snow Leopard and am wondering what Windows version you all would recommend I run in Bootcamp with the sole purpose of gaming. I have access to any relevant Windows version at pretty low prices through my university and I downloaded the Win7 RC and still have a valid key for that. As far as I'm aware, Bootcamp does not officially support Vista OR Win7, but that may have changed since I last checked. I'm also curious about the 64-bit vs. 32-bit question.

Despite my best efforts to search the forums, I couldn't find a topic on this. I can't be the first person to wonder about this..

TIA

[Stridder44]

Windows 7 64-bit. Hands down.

Whatever you do, stay away from the dinosaur known as XP.

[MasterDev]

Windows 7 runs good on my MacBook Pro, and I had XP running on my older MacBook.

I'd say Windows 7, as it works good and support for that in the gaming area is strong in the future.

[Bill Gates]

Windows 7 64-bit. Hands down.

Whatever you do, stay away from the dinosaur known as XP.
Seconded. For newer games Windows Vista & 7 show decent performance gains over XP too.

http://www.driverheaven.net/articles.php?articleid=137&pageid=3

[Winni]

Even Apple does now officially support Vista -- including the 64-Bit version.

I haven't yet tried Windows 7 on my Mac Pro, but 64-Bit Vista runs very well on it and even faster - and more stable - than Snow Leopard.

I have 64-Bit Windows 7 RC on my company Dell notebook, and it performs great and everything "just works". I presume it would also work well on my Mac, but I will wait until OEM/Systembuilder versions become available here in Germany. And frankly speaking, this could be the day when I fully switch back to Windows.

[illjazz]

What about Bootcamp drivers? The Snow Leopard disc doesn't contain Bootcamp drivers for 64-bit Win7, right?

[Bill Gates]

What about Bootcamp drivers? The Snow Leopard disc doesn't contain Bootcamp drivers for 64-bit Win7, right?
It depends on what model MacBook Pro you have. I installed Windows 7 x86_64 on my late 2008 MacBook Pro and used the drivers on the Snow Leopard disc. I don't remember whether or not I had to run the installer from the command prompt or not (to bypass the prompt about it being an unsupported configuration) but drivers for all my hardware were installed and everything worked perfectly.

[rgarjr]

What about Bootcamp drivers? The Snow Leopard disc doesn't contain Bootcamp drivers for 64-bit Win7, right?

It has the drivers. I'm running it on my MacBook right now.

[illjazz]

I have a January 2009 Unibody MBP. Thanks for your useful posts everyone!

[Stridder44]

Even Apple does now officially support Vista -- including the 64-Bit version.

I haven't yet tried Windows 7 on my Mac Pro, but 64-Bit Vista runs very well on it and even faster - and more stable - than Snow Leopard.

I have 64-Bit Windows 7 RC on my company Dell notebook, and it performs great and everything "just works". I presume it would also work well on my Mac, but I will wait until OEM/Systembuilder versions become available here in Germany. And frankly speaking, this could be the day when I fully switch back to Windows.

If you think Vista64 is great, you'll be amazed with Windows 7 64-bit. Let's just say it's good enough to convince a vast majority of the die-hard XP users (who hated Vista and didn't want to let go of XP yet) to convert to Windows 7. Hell, not only convert, but they actually enjoy using it.

And to think, Windows 7 isn't even officially released yet. Yes, it really is that good.

[MasterDev]

What about Bootcamp drivers? The Snow Leopard disc doesn't contain Bootcamp drivers for 64-bit Win7, right?

Even if SL doesn't have the drivers, just use your old Leopard disk. There is no difference since it's all hardware drivers for windows.

[e7e]

hows the startup boot with W7? Cuz with Vista x64 I experienced an annoying dos screen like log, then the vista logo, took quite awhile to boot up...:(

Thats one of the reason why I still use XP for gaming

[PCMacUser]

hows the startup boot with W7? Cuz with Vista x64 I experienced an annoying dos screen like log, then the vista logo, took quite awhile to boot up...:(

Thats one of the reason why I still use XP for gaming

It starts up on my MBP the same as it starts on my PC; with the nice twirling colours.

Having W7 on my Mac has been a real help, eg when Snow Leopard doesn't do what I want it to do!

[gugucom]

Google Jowie and apply the tweak from his blog!

Here I just copy the relevant bits:

With all that information in hand, I went about recreating the .iso file to burn back to disk to see if simply setting checking the option in imgburn to not use the versioning scheme worked.
First thing you will want to do is extract the boot image off of the DVD created from the .iso downloaded from the beta site, you can access this while in "Build" mode.

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/9875/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png (http://img183.imageshack.us/i/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png/)

While that DVD you burned is still in the drive, and after you've extracted the boot image somewhere to your hard drive, click the button to browse for a folder to add the files from the DVD to the image. Just add the root of the drive, you should then have something that looks like this.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/9875/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png (http://img132.imageshack.us/i/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png/)

On the Options tab, ensure the file system is selected as ISO9660 + UDF, and the UDF version is set to 1.02. These settings matched what the MS .iso file were set at, and is the only reason I chose them. Other settings may work, experiment if you like, rewritable DVDs are your friends.

http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/9875/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png (http://img188.imageshack.us/i/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png/)

Now we get to the part where we configure the ISO9660 settings, on the Advanced tab, Restrictions subtab, then ISO9660 subtab, I set the Folder/File Name Length to Level X, and checked all the options toward the bottom of that pane.

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/9875/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png/)

We're almost done, onward to the Bootable Disk tab. Check the option to make the image bootable, select None for emulation type, browse to the boot .ima file you extracted earlier, and set the sectors to load to 4(8 if you're building a Win7 DVD!).

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/9875/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png (http://img147.imageshack.us/i/bildschirmfoto20090920u.png/)

That should do it! Create the new .iso file and then burn it to disk.

[doctoree]

For a laptop (with limited resources compared to a desktop) XP is still the best OS for gaming. Vista and 7 suck up too much performance. The 32bit version of XP is also faster than the 64bit version. Most games are not handicapped by that. Another advantage of XP is the getter compatibillity.
You wont be able to run games in DX 10 mode on XP but laptops are too slow for high framerates in 10 anyway so thats no problem

[illjazz]

I ended up with Windows 7 64-bit. Thanks for the suggestions everyone! This works great. I'm REALLY impressed how well my MBP is holding up performance wise even with the latest games. I played and beat Resident Evil 5 and Batman: Arkham Asylum on the MBP and the graphics settings were set to the highest settings possible by default. What I do always leave off, of course, is AA, but the games look absolutely wonderful even with it turned off and I get great performance.

Also, at least using Windows 7 doesn't feel like poking myself in the eyes with glowing hot needles. Coupled with Vista Services Optimizer (which comes with a gaming mode, automatically turning off all non-essential services for optimum gaming performance and yes, it supports Win7 as well) this is a pretty sweet gaming setup.

The only game I was never able to run even close to decently is Crysis: Warhead. I doubt I'll get better results if I were to try now. Might be worth a try though :/

[Ashibaka]

I might as well ask it here. So, I installed Windows 7 (64bit) on my 17" Unibody Macbook Pro today. Everything went fine but then I noticed that I only had like 125MB of video memory available to use. My question is if anybody has run into this issue. Is there a method to use to be able to get the full 512MB from my Macbook Pro's video card?

Also, this is my first time really using Boot Camp. Is there a feature or option that I'm not aware of that inhibits the video card?

[synth3tik]

What about Bootcamp drivers? The Snow Leopard disc doesn't contain Bootcamp drivers for 64-bit Win7, right?


To save a headache I would not install windows 7 in bootcamp until drivers are available.

[Ashibaka]

I just tried installing Vista 64bit and I still get the same problems. I only get the most basic of video memory and I get no sound output. Any help would be much appreciated.



http://i33.tinypic.com/s1hily.jpg

[gugucom]

To install Bootcamp 3.0 drivers for win7-64 from the Snow Leopard disk you need to disable user account control, reboot and right click on the Bootcamp/drivers/Apple/bootcamp64.msi file. Use the compatibility feature to use drivers from an earlier version (Vista). Then you start the .msi file and all should work automatically. If there are still problems with missing drivers try first to install the chipset update in the NVIDIA folder. If there are only graphics missing just go to the Nvidia web site, let the site check your hardware and accept the driver it offers for your machine.

[Ashibaka]

You must forgive me since I am new to this all. Do I locate this file and folder (Bootcamp/drivers/Apple/bootcamp64.msi ) in Vista or OS X?

Also, I can't seem to connect to the internet in Vista.