Best virtualization Software for Gaming

[Xander562]

Title says it all, I've seen videos of people playing things like Team Fortress 2 and the like on virtual windows machines in OSX. I'm also fed up with having to restart into Windows just to play a game. What are the trade offs? Will I get good preformance? Which virtualization software is the best?

 

[Eidorian]

You really want to reboot into Windows for gaming.

 

[Neil321]

None as bootcamp is the way to go for gaming

 

[aki]

...no you wont get good performance

i think virtual win is ok for specific game which is old or where fps is not important but its tru for serious games reboot is the only way.......people said that vmware fusion was bit faster in vista and xp was better for parallels....but they are both updating v fast with directx and so on so maybe there is no rule

 

[kkat69]

Title says it all, I've seen videos of people playing things like Team Fortress 2 and the like on virtual windows machines in OSX. I'm also fed up with having to restart into Windows just to play a game. What are the trade offs? Will I get good preformance? Which virtualization software is the best?

TF2 does not play well in VMWare or Parallels if at all. Even Beta 2 of VMWare it's not that great.

It does play 'ok' in Crossover but best performance is Bootcamp.

 

[Siron]

I've found that games that require a good GPU will not run well (if at all) in a virtual machine because of the virtual video card drivers. Stick with BC.
Alan

 

[tersono]

Crossover Games (which isn't strictly virtualisation - it's a WINE implementation) is probably the fastest way to do it - all supposing your game is actually supported.

Otherwise, the gaming experience under VMWare or Parallels is pretty miserable unless the game is an elderly one (a lot won't run at all as DirectX support is limited - those that do are generally sloooooooow). Boot Camp is really the way to go here...

 

[jsgrabo]

^^^^ some games run great in crossover. Last night I played counter strike for a few hours with no problems. City of heroes runs pretty well too. but again, if your serious about gaming, go with bootcamp. crossover works but i want more. im backing up a few things and then im off to setup xp in bootcamp.