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Fresh install of Windows 7 for gaming

AppleWoW

AppleWoW

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2007
125
0
SLC, Utah
Hello MacRumors community!

I have been looking around on the forums and such and I have been looking to play Modern Warfare 2 on my mac. I am going to bootcamp my machine but was wondering how to set it up to play. I've heard that there are no windows 7 drivers yet but the vista drivers work. Could anyone help me through this process? Thanks!
 
AppleWoW

AppleWoW

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2007
125
0
SLC, Utah
So I should be able to throw windows 7 on and be able to jump right into gaming? (Any leftover drivers install from snow leopard?)
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
flopticalcube said:
meh. It's certainly been a bit more stable although I have noticed its necessary to reboot between some games (like WoW and Aion).
Click to expand...

That's odd, I have never had any problems like this. Also remember that it depends on what version of windows 7 he installs, either 32 bit or 64 bit. There is little real reason to go to 64 bit at this time (although I did). If you go 32 bit, just use the drivers from Snow Leopard and you'll be all set, no need to install anything else. In 64 bit you have to fudge around a bit to get them to work and you'll be using the Vista 64 bit drivers but you can't use the normal installer you have to run the vista 64 installer by hand.

No matter what you do, after you've installed the drivers, go to nVidia or ATI and install the latest video drivers for your OS, that will fix some issues.

As for crashing between games, I have not seen any of this. But I do know that you can copy WoW around without any issues, there is nothing that it requires outside of it's own directory. As for other games, many, or should I say, most require reinstalling. :(
 
AppleWoW

AppleWoW

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2007
125
0
SLC, Utah
CylonGlitch said:
There is little real reason to go to 64 bit at this time (although I did). If you go 32 bit, just use the drivers from Snow Leopard and you'll be all set, no need to install anything else.
Click to expand...

I see a lot of people using 64 bit windows. Why have it then if its no benefit?
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
AppleWoW said:
Right so I guess that one extra gig of ram will go pretty far right?
Click to expand...

Not really, if you are only playing games, it really won't make much difference, AT THIS TIME. Down the road, 64 bits is the wave of the future. BUT at this time, to install Win7x64 required some additional knowledge and skill. Thus for someone who may run into issues, I don't recommend it.
 
J

JollyRogers

macrumors regular
Mar 12, 2008
247
0
Virginia
I had to disable the hfs driver that was installed from the SL bootcamp x64 install. I was getting BSOD with this specific driver being called out. This is w/ Win7 x64 ultimate and my HFS+ partition is unreadable from windows anyways since it is software raid 0.

If I did it again, I would have only installed the :apple: keyboard driver as that is really the only thing Win7 didn't find/have on its own after the install. I only wanted it for the cd eject and speaker control :) Instead I installed ALL the x64 bootcamp stuff. Wrong move on my part.
 
AppleWoW

AppleWoW

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2007
125
0
SLC, Utah
Haha ok well it seems like for the games I want to play its probably just easier to do a x32 bit version since all I will be doing on windows is gaming.
 
flopticalcube

flopticalcube

macrumors G4
Sep 7, 2006
10,456
186
In the velcro closure of America's Hat
CylonGlitch said:
That's odd, I have never had any problems like this. Also remember that it depends on what version of windows 7 he installs, either 32 bit or 64 bit. There is little real reason to go to 64 bit at this time (although I did). If you go 32 bit, just use the drivers from Snow Leopard and you'll be all set, no need to install anything else. In 64 bit you have to fudge around a bit to get them to work and you'll be using the Vista 64 bit drivers but you can't use the normal installer you have to run the vista 64 installer by hand.

No matter what you do, after you've installed the drivers, go to nVidia or ATI and install the latest video drivers for your OS, that will fix some issues.

As for crashing between games, I have not seen any of this. But I do know that you can copy WoW around without any issues, there is nothing that it requires outside of it's own directory. As for other games, many, or should I say, most require reinstalling. :(
Click to expand...
I'm not sure why its doing it but it relates to the video driver. I'm pretty sure its Aion causing the problems and I don't really feel like re-installing it as it was a 6gb download. Something to still be said for hard media.

siorai said:
The ability to actually use more than ~3GB of ram?
Click to expand...

AppleWoW said:
Right so I guess that one extra gig of ram will go pretty far right?
Click to expand...

x64 is supposed to be faster but I haven't noticed it yet. No x86 programs will make use of the extra ram (I have 4GB). Its mostly for the future. I figured this is my opportunity to move up and seeing as things are more or less stable in the x64 world I thought why not? Coming down the pipe are games that will not only be DX10 exclusive (would you rather run Vista?) but be available in x64 builds so that will be an advantage (both in CPU speed and RAM usage).
 
J

JollyRogers

macrumors regular
Mar 12, 2008
247
0
Virginia
I went x64 pro/ult because I want it to recognize all the memory and especially both my CPU's. Home premium will not see multiple cpu's. I have seen some games do take advantage also. I was running 32b Vista home, wish I had benchmarked it to compare.
 
I

inguatu

macrumors newbie
Dec 4, 2009
7
0
CylonGlitch said:
Not really, if you are only playing games, it really won't make much difference, AT THIS TIME. Down the road, 64 bits is the wave of the future. BUT at this time, to install Win7x64 required some additional knowledge and skill. Thus for someone who may run into issues, I don't recommend it.
Click to expand...

Amazingly funny thread.

Installing x64 version of Windows (or any OS over the x32 bit) takes no additional knowledge or skill. Click install, go through the process just like any other OS install and you're golden.

For standard screwing around on the interweb you don't need x64 but it doesn't hurt to have it. Some applications like Maya, Nuke and so on take advantage of x64 and subsequently have 64bit versions. I figure if you're going to get an OS and use the computer for the next 3-5 years, you may just want to go x64 and be done with it. It's no more expensive than the 32bit counterpart and again, takes no more brainpower to install than that of SL. There's really no reason at this point not to use a x64 OS.
 
S

siorai

macrumors 6502
Sep 14, 2007
321
2
AppleWoW said:
Right so I guess that one extra gig of ram will go pretty far right?
Click to expand...

In your case, probably not. Many of us do have more than 4GB, hence why the 64bit version is the only way to go. But overall,, why wouldn't you want to be able to use all the ram that you have? I can't think of any downside to running 64bit instead of 32bit. All my 32bit apps work just fine.
 
AppleWoW

AppleWoW

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 22, 2007
125
0
SLC, Utah
siorai said:
In your case, probably not. Many of us do have more than 4GB, hence why the 64bit version is the only way to go. But overall,, why wouldn't you want to be able to use all the ram that you have? I can't think of any downside to running 64bit instead of 32bit. All my 32bit apps work just fine.
Click to expand...

I have yet to upgrade my signature but I am running my computer with 4GB of ram.
 
CylonGlitch

CylonGlitch

macrumors 68030
Jul 7, 2009
2,956
268
Nashville
inguatu said:
Installing x64 version of Windows (or any OS over the x32 bit) takes no additional knowledge or skill. Click install, go through the process just like any other OS install and you're golden.
Click to expand...

If you have a 32bit EFI yes, yes it does. If you have the 32bit EFI you get the dreaded "Select CD-Rom boot type" message. If you didn't get it great, but MBP's that are 2008 version have this problem (most).

Select CD-Rom boot type message

These machines are the same machines that can't run SL in 64 bit mode. (my case)

EDIT: It's not the 32BIT EFI, but MacBookPros3,1 will not load SL64 bit. Still trying to see if there is a work around for this.
 
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