Buying a Macbook

[mopeds]

Hey thinking of buying a Macbook
Would anyone mind answering 2 questions for me

1. What is the best way to play PC games on a Macbook and how much does it cost

2. Does Macbook support dialup internet

Thanks for your help

 

[whawhat]

"dial-up" - yes it does, you just need to purchase the correct adapter (if you check out the apple store and add a macbook to your cart, it will offer you the option to buy one)

not sure about games

 

[vi2867]

If your going to play games. You might want to get more memory, probably 2 GB, because games need a lot of memory.

 

[vi2867]

Parallels desktop is the software you might want to get. It let you use PC Software virtually on the Mac.

 

[xfiftyfour]

Parallels desktop is the software you might want to get. It let you use PC Software virtually on the Mac.

Bootcamp with give you better performance, though. I find parallels to kind of.. well.. suck, on my MB, even with 2gbs of RAM.

 

[sulhaq]

You will have to buy the external USB modem from Apple for your macbook to run dial-up. It costs $49.

For games you have two choices. Either only play games that are released for both mac and windows like world of warcraft etc, or if you really want to play the windows only games you pretty much only have the option of using bootcamp and installing windows on your mac. It doesn't cost much. Bootcamp is free so it will cost you 1 Windows XP CD, The Game CD + Installation Time.

Finally Parallels is NOT a software that can virtualize PC Software!!!!! Parallels is strictly for virtualizing third party OPERATING SYSTEMS on your mac. Since Parallels uses the minimum possible specs for any virtual machine (well almost minimum) you pretty much have absolutely no chance of running any game on a windows xp os simulated by parallels.

 

[eXan]

Parallels desktop is the software you might want to get. It let you use PC Software virtually on the Mac.

Not true. Parallels Desktop does not have support for 3D games.

If your going to play games. You might want to get more memory, probably 2 GB, because games need a lot of memory.

Not true. The maximum RAM usage by a game I've seen was around 300 MB (Doom 3 @ high settings)

MacBook will not run games well, for example it runs Unreal Tournament 2004 at 11 FPS, while MacBook Pro runs this game at 40+ FPS. MacBook's video card is not for games, its for casual "e-mail/web-surfing" stuff.

 

[extraextra]

You need to buy a MBP or iMac if you want to play games at higher FPS.