Boot Camp or Paralells for Gaming?

[Kael]

Hi, I am totally new to using Mac's and a little dazed by the cross over. I have read the newbie users guide about installing XP on a Mac, which seems simple enough.

Which solution would you recommend for gaming, to be honest I am missing Medieval War badly and need a fix . Boot Camp seems the stronger longterm option, I am a bit concerned paralells will eat into system performance for gaming using both OS's at once.

Any advice greatfully recieved, thanks in advance.

 

[samh004]

For best performance, use BootCamp, no doubt about it, as it's only running one OS. However if you want seamless switching from your game to your e-mail, virtualization would be your only option, however it wouldn't be as good "performance-wise" as both OS's are using the system resources.

 

[Kael]

For best performance, use BootCamp, no doubt about it, as it's only running one OS. However if you want seamless switching from your game to your e-mail, virtualization would be your only option, however it wouldn't be as good "performance-wise" as both OS's are using the system resources.

Thanks, I'll go with Boot Camp .

 

[samh004]

Thanks, I'll go with Boot Camp .

I believe you can install with BootCamp and later try virtualization with the existing partition, if the virtualization is up to the standard you want, then that'll help too...

 

[Nicolasdec]

I believe you can install with BootCamp and later try virtualization with the existing partition, if the virtualization is up to the standard you want, then that'll help too...

Yup, you can do that i would go with bootcamp.

 

[kuebby]

At this time your only option is boot camp because unless it has changed in the last couple days Parallels does not support 3D graphics.

 

[chicagdan]

At this time your only option is boot camp because unless it has changed in the last couple days Parallels does not support 3D graphics.

It has changed ... Parallels 3.0 will be out by the end of the month and will include 3D support:

parallels web site

 

[Dynamyk]

Bootcamp 100%.

Tried both with a few games and Bootcamp is a lot smoother.

 

[chicagdan]

Bootcamp 100%.

Tried both with a few games and Bootcamp is a lot smoother.

Personally, I think you make the Bootcamp partition, then if you want to try to migrate that partition over into Parallels 3.0 when it's out, you get the best of both worlds. For games, yes, Bootcamp is better ... but I play some non-3d sports games (Action PC Football, Diamond Mind Baseball) and they are much more convenient in Parallels, same goes with Microsoft Office (much faster than Mac Office via Rosetta.) Not having to reboot is a huge convenience advantage.

Plus I suspect Apple is up to SOMETHING with Leopard that either takes Boot Camp in a new direction or adds in some kind of non-OS virtualization ... so stay tuned. This market niche is getting very interesting.

 

[quigleybc]

i am 100% hoping that Parallels 3 will work with games.

If it does, it is bye bye Bootcamp partition forever!!