Gaming on Bootcamp

[vitorferreira]

Hi i have a imac 27" i5, i am an illustrator/designer and only have bootcamp installed cause i like to alienate myself playing some videogames. Now here comes my question, is it possible that the imac may have come with a bad CPU, or something hardware malfunction related, that makes it impossible to install ANY friggin game on bootcamped windows? anyone had issues in here? i tryed to install with no success - PES 2010, operation flashpoint dragon rising, LOTR battle for middle earth 2, mafia 2 and resident evil 5 - all these games either, dont let me install them ( poping a DOS windows for a sec and vanishes ), let u install the game but error in game.dat appears when trying to launch the game...i am getting very frustrated, in my previous imac 20" 2006 i was able to install everything it would be capable of run. please help!

PS - i tryed to install those games in W7 x86, W7 x32 and XP sp3 with same results on 3 OSs ... its must be something in the hardware

Help, i might have a bad Imac, and dont know how to explain this to the seller, cause everything on mac side its working perfectly, even EVE online which i play on mac.

 

[Grannyville7989]

That is incredibly odd as you've explained that OS X can play games fine but Windows doesn't want to know. I would say that it could be a hardware issue. I've installed Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast on my MacBook Pro running Windows 7 with no problems and it plays well too. I assume you keep up to date with latest Boot Camp drivers after you've installed Windows?

By the way, I highly recommend Jedi Outcast to anyone who's a fan of Star Wars

 

[vitorferreira]

I have everything up to date...also...i forgot to mention that i did manage to install 1 single game in windows, it was company of heroes, the first edition, but for instance LOTR: battle for middle earth, i played a lot in the 2006 imac 20" and it does install on the new one...i ferking dont get it!! and also...the only game i installed and play in mac, is EVE online...never tryed to install COD or other games which have mac version...maybe i should try that...install more mac games and see if i find a problem, if so it would be much easier to justify to the reseller, that the hardware has a problem, if that problem happens on the OS X.

im just getting very pissed off with all this...and not seeing the light at the end of the tunel...every new game that i try to install happens this...last night was mafia 2

 

[aki]

This sounds very strange. If you can run things normally in OSX, apps, software, then that would suggest you don't have any hardware problems. In theory, bootcamp should have your mac running exactly like a PC, ie. I would have said any issues you were having were Windows/software/OS-type issues. But you say you have the same failures on different Windows OSes? That's extremely odd.

The only thing I can think of off-hand, which is kind of obvious, is have you been installing the bootcamp thingy off your Mac OSX install DVD after installing Windows each time? You need to do that to install the correct drivers for your video card etc.

Presuming you have, the next thing I would try is (again, obvious) Windows Update and DirectX update and consider installing newer drivers for whatever video card you have in your iMac (the video drivers that come on the OSX DVD are old).

As I say, if your machine operates normally running OSX, this strongly indicates hardware is not your problem.

I guess I should also ask, the games you are trying to install, you are sure they work? Like, they are normal retail copies? Can you install other software in Windows, Office or Photoshop or whatever other apps you have lying around?

Hope some of that helps. Good luck!

 

[vitorferreira]

Ok..i have some updates to my weird situation...last night i downloaded STEAM, and then downloaded the demo of mafia 2 ( one of the games that i couldn't play ) and it works just fine! Now...what could be doing this? is it the fact that the .iso image of the game that i load using daemon tool on windows, is on the mac drive? could it be some sort of incompatibility of daemon tools with the hardware? any thoughts? I'm thinking in reinstalling the W7 32bits since i now know that isn't a issue of the OS...like i had the same bugs under XP SP3...is there a tutorial on how to install it, last time i did it there was a driver bug where the screen went all black in middle of instalation...is that already fixed...cause the way i did it, was by deleting a system32 file related to ATI...oh boy i am so lost!

 

[Grannyville7989]

Where did you get this ISO image of the game that you're having problems with?

 

[vitorferreira]

from the internets...but may i remind that the LOTR 2 its an original dvd i bought, that worked on my previous imac and doesnt on this one. Well also that anhilates my theory of the image beeing on the mac drive...arghh

 

[aki]

Ok look - once you start installing daemontools etc etc all bets are off. Some software specifically looks for daemontools installs and other virtual drive software and disables them or otherwise prevents installing etc. Basically while you have that stuff on your system you're never going to be able to tell for 100% certain what your problem is when failing to install software, from legit sources or otherwise.

I suggest if you haven't already and maybe you have that you start again with a fresh Windows install, update bootcamp, update Windows, directx, and your drivers, and then install a purchased game, and see if that works. Work forwards from there, installing one thing at a time, and see where it comes appart.