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Running Windows

G

ggoerl

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 18, 2007
211
2
Hey everyone, I just got my mac pro, and there are obvious reasons why I want to run windows just like everyone else for some apps and games and that you can't cant on os x. But I don't know what to run between the three boot camp, parallels and vmware fusion. Help me out
thanks
 
ggoerl said:
Hey everyone, I just got my mac pro, and there are obvious reasons why I want to run windows just like everyone else for some apps and games and that you can't cant on os x. But I don't know what to run between the three boot camp, parallels and vmware fusion. Help me out
thanks
Click to expand...

I use vmware and bootcamp. however there is some special deal where you can get parallels and a slew of other apps for cheap. there is some mention of this on the front page of macrumors.
 
http://www.mupromo.com/

This is what you want if you want to run Parallels. A lot of users on this forum tend to use VMWare Fusion though but I have yet to find well grounded reasons for and against the two.

Can I suggest you try Boot Camp first for a week or so (it's free with Leopard) and then if you find it annoying, download a trial of Parallels and a trial of VMWare and spend a couple of days with each, making up your own mind?
 
if you want to run apps at native speed and play the latest games then use Boot Camp.

but if you dont mind sacrificing a little speed and running Windows in a virtual machine alongside OS X then use Fusion or Parallels.

you can also use both by using Fusion or Parallels to access your Boot Camp partition. i recommend using Fusion for this as it was seamless for me and Parallels gave me a few problems. i dont know what the latest version of Parallels is like maybe theyve made it easier now.

take a look at the Booting Windows on the Mac guide for more info.
 
This is a second vote for bootcamp if any of the games or programs you would like to run use the video card.

I don't use parallels too much but it does do annoying things such as adding windows programs to the list of available applications to open a file on the OS X side of things. It also added all of my mac programs to my bootcamp start menu. There are probably ways around this but I haven't looked into it.
 
Help! said:
This is a second vote for bootcamp if any of the games or programs you would like to run use the video card.

I don't use parallels too much but it does do annoying things such as adding windows programs to the list of available applications to open a file on the OS X side of things. It also added all of my mac programs to my bootcamp start menu. There are probably ways around this but I haven't looked into it.
Click to expand...

these can be changed in Parallels' virtual machine preferences. have a look around as i cant remember where the options are.
 
thanks everyone for the info.
what gets me is I have seen people run games like half-life 2 at native speeds using parallels I believe at native speed. Another question I have is if you have a virtual machine like vm or parallel can you still get viruses as opposed to boot camp. Last but not least what is the advantage of having both boot camp and fusion?
I mainly plan on getting windows for games, like I heard the new command and conquer if anyone plays that is better for windows than the mac port so Im kind of confused wether to keep buying windows games and run them or just stick to mac ported games even though the list of games does not even compare to windows based.
 
ggoerl said:
thanks everyone for the info.
what gets me is I have seen people run games like half-life 2 at native speeds using parallels I believe at native speed. Another question I have is if you have a virtual machine like vm or parallel can you still get viruses as opposed to boot camp. Last but not least what is the advantage of having both boot camp and fusion?
I mainly plan on getting windows for games, like I heard the new command and conquer if anyone plays that is better for windows than the mac port so Im kind of confused wether to keep buying windows games and run them or just stick to mac ported games even though the list of games does not even compare to windows based.
Click to expand...

Parallels supports some DX9 games like Half Life 2 and Quake 4 but im not sure how many other games are supported. also newer DX10 games designed to play in Vista wont play. also Aero isnt even supported in Parallels yet. you could play games in Parallels if you want but i wouldnt call it a replacement for Boot Camp yet.

Windows in Parallels or Fusion is just like any other Windows install so your going to get viruses and spyware if your not careful. viruses could end up in your Mac's file system if you have shared folders enabled which allows read/write access to your home folder or any other folder that you want. so a virus could end up in your home folder but this is very unlikely. even if they do Windows viruses are dormant in OS X as they cant execute so you would be perfectly safe.

some game developers that develop for OS X use Cider which is just a Windows port to OS X. these games are average in quality to say the least but they do play. Developers also develop games natively (carbon or cocoa) for OS X and these play very well, some are even universal binary. a list of them can be found here and also here. so if Command and Conqueror is developed using carbon or cocoa and is universal binary or intel binary im sure it would play very well.

but the best gaming experience on a Mac is hands down in Boot Camp using. an even better experiance would be playing DX10 compatible games in Vista with a DX10 compatible graphics card.
 
alright so I am going to download boot camp, I have one last question does everyone here have it on a separate drive? or did they just install boot camp and windows on the the same drive as os x?
 
ggoerl said:
alright so I am going to download boot camp, I have one last question does everyone here have it on a separate drive? or did they just install boot camp and windows on the the same drive as os x?
Click to expand...

you can't download bootcamp.

If you are running leopard on an intel mac it should be in /Applications/Utilities.
 
ggoerl said:
alright so I am going to download boot camp, I have one last question does everyone here have it on a separate drive? or did they just install boot camp and windows on the the same drive as os x?
Click to expand...

if you have a Mac Pro with multiple drives theres no point in using Boot Camp Assistant as it all does it partition the main drive.

if you want to install Windows on another drive boot from the Windows install disc, select the drive and install Windows then install the Boot Camp drivers from the Leopard install disc.
 
well I only have one drive, but what I meant was would it be smart to install windows on another drive instead of just partition my only hd? Cause I am strongly thinking of purchasing another internal not just for the windows os but for other data I have too, so should I? I'm looking at 500gb drives so if anyone could recommend one that would be great. Thanks
 
I was looking at some seagate drives but don't know a whole lot about hd's.
I have narrowed it down between these three 500gb seagate drives but don't really understand the exact difference so if someone could help me out.
Long URL 1

Long URL 2

Long URL 3
 
ggoerl said:
I was looking at some seagate drives but don't know a whole lot about hd's.
I have narrowed it down between these three 500gb seagate drives but don't really understand the exact difference so if someone could help me out.
[snip x 3]
Click to expand...

the first and third hard drives have an Ultra ATA interface which is old technology and the Mac Pro doesnt support it. make sure you get a hard drive with the SATA interface and in particular SATA 3.0Gb/s (SATA II) which is the fastest. the second hard drive has this so get this one.
 
one last question

I have narrowed it down between these 2 sata drives but dont exactly understand the difference as one is perpendicular recording I believe and the other is a native command queing drive.
which one is better?
Drive One
Drive Two

and thanks to all who have been helpful especially you Rich.
 
edit: nevermind, but I have another question instead of posting a new topic.
I shut my mac down before work, and then I come home to find it in my hot room running and it really burns me. There is no reason for it to be doing that for there is no wake up or start up time set in system preferences. So can anyone help me?
 
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