What do you gain/lose from using Bootcamp in addition to virtualization?

You will gain performance and and better USB device support.

You also gain better graphics support. The Vista Aero interface only works in Boot Camp, although that may change in the future.

On the down side you have to create a separate disk partition for Boot Camp, and disk access may be slower using the physical Boot Camp partition than a virtual disk under Fusion. Increasing the size of a physical partition is more difficult than for a virtual disk, and you have more flexibility in where the virtual disk is placed.

BugsBunny said:

I primarily (only) want to run my Vista in virtualization...but I think maybe you gain some stability or something else from using a BootCamp partition?

Am I crazy? Do you lose more than you gain? Thanks!

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Think very, very hard before you install Vista. Windows XP is more stable, more compatible with all kinds of software, eats much less CPU time and has much less useless, annoying eye candy. So unless you have a specific reason why you need Vista, you should go with Windows XP.

Gain 0 - Lose 99

It could be personal, but I tried Bootcamp. If nothing else, the reboot makes it a pain. I have both Parallels and VMware. Parallels has it together and it runs smooth. It is not 64 bit as VMware, but there is no software available to see the gain with in Windows unless you run XP64. You can get a free download for Parallels. Highly suggest you give that a try.

I use Parallels in combo with Boot Camp. Parallels for daily work and usage of Windows, Boot Camp for gaming only. It deals with the issue of RAM allotment in VMs

gnasher729 said:

Think very, very hard before you install Vista. Windows XP is more stable, more compatible with all kinds of software, eats much less CPU time and has much less useless, annoying eye candy. So unless you have a specific reason why you need Vista, you should go with Windows XP.

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All true; I might say the same except for a certain provision in the Vista license... 🙂

OTOH, Microsoft is phasing out support for XP, so eventually you'll need Vista to run newer games and apps.

BugsBunny said:

Am I crazy? Do you lose more than you gain? Thanks!

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I doubt that one can ever lose anything from Parallels + Boot Camp combo... Only gain. VM + Boot Camp is a great solution (especially for graphics boost)

Bootcamp
Gain: better hardware support and performance (ideal for gaming)
Lose: Inconvenient rebooting, faffing about with drivers and disk partitioning

Parallels/VMWare
Gain: Ability to run MacOS alongside Windows (no rebooting). Great for working in anything that isn't hardware or performance critical. No need to worry about driver issues. No need to manage a physical partition.
Lose: Hardware support and performance not as good as bootcamp. Limited use for games or graphics intensive apps.


Windows XP: Overall better performance, but doesn't support DirectX10+
Vista: Looks better, supports DirectX10 but is a resource hog. For the sake of performance, I'm sure you could turn off a great deal of Vista services (Aero, themes, most network services etc.) in order to get the best performance. As long as there are good drivers for Vista, I'd probably use that.



So in short, it depends what you want to use Windows for. Personally I'd use a mixture of the two during my transitioning phase from Windows to Mac - eventually only requiring bootcamp for gaming only - having hopefully sucessfully changed my workflow to 100% Mac.