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Windows on RMBP - What can I expect?

intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
Just got a brand new Late 2013 13" RMBP sitting in its box awaiting for me to play with it and I was curious if anyone could tell me what I could expect installing Win7 through Bootcamp on it. Will Windows be able to take full advantage of the Retina screen or will it look just as it does as if it were installed on a Macbook Air (for example purpose).
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
intz2nu said:
Just got a brand new Late 2013 13" RMBP sitting in its box awaiting for me to play with it and I was curious if anyone could tell me what I could expect installing Win7 through Bootcamp on it. Will Windows be able to take full advantage of the Retina screen or will it look just as it does as if it were installed on a Macbook Air (for example purpose).
Click to expand...

It would look tiny, until you apply scaling.

Windows 7 does not support full 200% scaling (it only supports 150%).

Apple's default resolution is a 200% scaled 1280x800.

Windows 8 is optimised quite well for retina though.
 
8

827538

Cancelled
Jul 3, 2013
2,322
2,833
intz2nu said:
Just got a brand new Late 2013 13" RMBP sitting in its box awaiting for me to play with it and I was curious if anyone could tell me what I could expect installing Win7 through Bootcamp on it. Will Windows be able to take full advantage of the Retina screen or will it look just as it does as if it were installed on a Macbook Air (for example purpose).
Click to expand...

Runs fine, had my Late 2013 Haswell rMBP since it came out in November (well October but Nov by the time it arrived) and run Windows 7 x64 Pro on it since day 1. Runs perfect. Set the scaling to 150% at 2880x1800, some programs don't scale properly but it's easily worked around or hardly noticed. The vast majority work just fine. I just Bootcamp Windows mainly for gaming and programming. Really is the ultimate machine, ironically its also the best Windows laptop I've ever owned.

One thing though, on my Mac it has the Nvidia GT 750M graphics card which it uses as default (no option to switch between the Iris Pro chip and the 750M), what this means is great gaming performance but the battery life under Windows is very noticeably shorter and it gets hotter when doing certain things like when watching Youtube on Firefox on Windows compared to Safari on OS X (Flash vs HTML5). But it's like saying the 2 - 3 hour battery life under Windows is shorter than the 8-10 hours under OS X... Most Windows laptops I've used are lucky to last 2 hours.

Also enjoy your rMBP, I love mine and its one of the best things I've ever bought. Let me know if there's any other questions you have and I'll try to answer.
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,438
43,346
Windows runs fine on my 15" rMBP, no issues with image size, i.e., no need for scaling. Battery life suffers, but then I have a dGPU that cannot be switched off in windows so that helps explain the poor battery life.
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
How do I scale if needed? What do I need and is it difficult to do?
 
T

The Mercurian

macrumors 68020
Mar 17, 2012
2,153
2,440
Runs fine but is a pain in the arse to install. Try as I might I could not get it to install of a USB3 memory key - it would only work off a USB2 one.
 
F

Freyqq

macrumors 601
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
It works pretty well, especially with an intel graphics card. At 150% scaling at native resolution, everything is very legible and sharp. At 125%, everything is legible and sharp too, but you have to squint sometimes to read the small text. I settled on 150%. You can also set custom percentages, like 135%, if you want. For my 15" rmbp, 150% scaling means that the display looks like a HIDPI 1920x1200, which is the same as the scaling option in OSX all the way to the right. A lot of PC vendors sell retina screens these days too, and Windows has support for high resolution displays.
 
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Freyqq

macrumors 601
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
gochi said:
do users experience a lot of fan noise?
Click to expand...

I used macsfancontrol, which works in OSX and windows. It runs a little hotter in windows, but the fans compensate. Battery life is also slightly worse in windows.
 
G

gochi

macrumors 6502
Mar 31, 2011
289
1
Freyqq said:
I used macsfancontrol, which works in OSX and windows. It runs a little hotter in windows, but the fans compensate. Battery life is also slightly worse in windows.
Click to expand...

what about GPU

can you use the 650m or 750m dedicated or are you stuck on intel?
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
Still haven't taken it out of the box to give things a look over (pending me finding my Mac USB drive so I can install Windows "got it somewhere in my storage and have to find it). Any-how other question is does video clips / movies look more vivid and nicer compared to a traditional monitor?
 
S

Samuelsan2001

macrumors 604
Oct 24, 2013
7,729
2,153
Just have a play with it

Well if you'll just fire it up and get going you will know yourself, you have 14 days to take it back no questions asked so get in there and get experiencing it.
 
F

Freyqq

macrumors 601
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
intz2nu said:
Still haven't taken it out of the box to give things a look over (pending me finding my Mac USB drive so I can install Windows "got it somewhere in my storage and have to find it). Any-how other question is does video clips / movies look more vivid and nicer compared to a traditional monitor?
Click to expand...

It's a really nice screen with IPS and a high resolution. Even higher resolution than 1080p.
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
Well heres an update I finally get things opened up all to find myself being so very disapointed. I have my Apple USB SuperDrive plugged in and my original Windows CD's ready to go and either there is problems with the computer recognizing the drive being plugged in or something else. I had also gave Apple Tech Support a call and for some odd reason they are stating I need a USB Thumb drive to proceed with installation. How is this the case when I have origina OEM Win7 Discs and NEVER needed a USB Thumb drive when I had installed Windows on a MacBook Air with OS Lion. I've NEVER ONCE EVER used a USB Thumb drive, is this Apple trying to deny that I have a faulty super drive? I can see the disc image on desktop but when I try to go through the bootcamp utility setup its saying I have no drive plugged in.
 
S

snaky69

macrumors 603
Mar 14, 2008
5,908
488
intz2nu said:
Well heres an update I finally get things opened up all to find myself being so very disapointed. I have my Apple USB SuperDrive plugged in and my original Windows CD's ready to go and either there is problems with the computer recognizing the drive being plugged in or something else. I had also gave Apple Tech Support a call and for some odd reason they are stating I need a USB Thumb drive to proceed with installation. How is this the case when I have origina OEM Win7 Discs and NEVER needed a USB Thumb drive when I had installed Windows on a MacBook Air with OS Lion. I've NEVER ONCE EVER used a USB Thumb drive, is this Apple trying to deny that I have a faulty super drive? I can see the disc image on desktop but when I try to go through the bootcamp utility setup its saying I have no drive plugged in.
Click to expand...

I believe only the MBA can actually boot windows from the external superdrive. You'll need to make yourself a windows USB thumb drive for the retinas AFAIK.
 
Artimus12

Artimus12

macrumors 6502a
Nov 13, 2011
539
114
YooKay
Alternative to Boot Camp...

I think you'd be much better off with Parallels anyway! Boot Camp is a fail, setting up a fixed size Partition is limiting! what if you decide later to install other apps\games and run low on space?

No such issues with Parallels.
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
Well I guess I will pickup a thumb drive and then try and give things a shot given how this first time was unsuccessfull.

BTW - Artimus12: I really prefer to have Win running natively.
 
F

Freyqq

macrumors 601
Dec 13, 2004
4,038
181
intz2nu said:
Well heres an update I finally get things opened up all to find myself being so very disapointed. I have my Apple USB SuperDrive plugged in and my original Windows CD's ready to go and either there is problems with the computer recognizing the drive being plugged in or something else. I had also gave Apple Tech Support a call and for some odd reason they are stating I need a USB Thumb drive to proceed with installation. How is this the case when I have origina OEM Win7 Discs and NEVER needed a USB Thumb drive when I had installed Windows on a MacBook Air with OS Lion. I've NEVER ONCE EVER used a USB Thumb drive, is this Apple trying to deny that I have a faulty super drive? I can see the disc image on desktop but when I try to go through the bootcamp utility setup its saying I have no drive plugged in.
Click to expand...

The USB drive is for the boot camp drivers. Having the USB drive set up beforehand has windows install those drivers while installing windows.

All the boot camp utility in osx does is format part of the HD to fat32 so windows installer can read it and put drivers on a USB drive.
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,438
43,346
Artimus12 said:
I've had no issues with Boot Camp and I think things runs much smoother natively then in a virtualized environment. To each his own, but my $.02 is that boot camp can be a better solution if you don't need OS X running at the same time.
Click to expand...
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
So did you need a thumb drive when you installed windows? or only the superdrive?
 
Y

yjchua95

macrumors 604
Apr 23, 2011
6,725
233
GVA, KUL, MEL (current), ZQN
intz2nu said:
So did you need a thumb drive when you installed windows? or only the superdrive?
Click to expand...

I used a USB drive to install Windows. Can't comment about the SuperDrive because I don't have one.

All I did was to download the Windows ISO from MSDN, put it on the desktop, and let Boot Camp Assistant do its job in making my USB disk bootable by having BCA restore the Windows ISO to the USB (note: you can't do this yourself using Disk Utility).
 
intz2nu

intz2nu

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 28, 2012
398
40
I'm not understaind why Apple has stated I need a USB thumb drive in order for bootcamp to properly install Windows. I never EVER once needed this with my Macbook Airs. Last MBA I installed on was a mid or late 2012 model I believe if memory serves me right with OSX Lion. I can't understand what would be the difference with a RMBP.
 
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