Is bootcamp good?

[Batsassin]

I have a 27' iMac mid 2011. I am considering getting bootcamp for it for the sole purpose of gaming.

Will my mac even be able to play good games like Skyrim? I only have used about 145GB in my 1TB hard drive.

I read somewhere that you should back your data up before downloading bootcamp. I don't have an extra disk, so is it even possible to back something up on the same drive through time machine?

If something does go wrong will my Lion software or Windows office (which are the most important things on my mac) be ruined? My mac came with Snow Leopard but I got a free code from the store I bought for Lion software. I also used a CD to download my Windows office, so I hope if anything goes wrong neither of those will be affected.

So is bootcamp a good idea for my specific mac and downloading it without backing it up?

Thanks in advance.

 

[GGJstudios]

I have a 27' iMac mid 2011. I am considering getting bootcamp for it for the sole purpose of gaming.

Will my mac even be able to play good games like Skyrim? I only have used about 145GB in my 1TB hard drive.

I read somewhere that you should back your data up before downloading bootcamp. I don't have an extra disk, so is it even possible to back something up on the same drive through time machine?

You don't download Boot Camp. It comes with OS X. Read more here.

You should never backup a drive to itself, because if the drive fails, so does the backup. Always use an external drive for backups.

 

[Señor]

i run Windows 7 with Bootcamp, and is the absolute best way to run Windows on your Mac.

Sure, there's Parallels and all that jazz, but this is just much more amazing.

 

[LongSticks]

I came to mac when Snowie came out just because you could Bootcamp. I have to use Windows daily as a lot of the proprietary work software I have to use is windows based only.

In my opinion it is the best way to run windows. All the stuff that causes issues in Windows with viruses etc coming in from IE and email etc, I don't worry about as I do all that on the mac side. No AV software slowing windows! Hurrah!

My Bootcamp is just the works software I need only. Very quick and I haven't seen a blue screen of death in 6 years......

 

[GGJstudios]

I came to mac when Snowie came out just because you could Bootcamp.

Leopard also has Boot Camp.

 

[LongSticks]

Leopard also has Boot Camp.

Your right.....I did let it settle one iteration, though.

 

[Lankyman]

i run Windows 7 with Bootcamp, and is the absolute best way to run Windows on your Mac.

Sure, there's Parallels and all that jazz, but this is just much more amazing.

In what way is it more amazing? Properly set-up running Windows in Parallels is a great experience, one which I find hard to tell from the real thing.

 

[Señor]

In what way is it more amazing? Properly set-up running Windows in Parallels is a great experience, one which I find hard to tell from the real thing.

Parallels is just poorer quality IMO. It seems to really lag for me.

It's just overall not good.

 

[bkribbs]

i run Windows 7 with Bootcamp, and is the absolute best way to run Windows on your Mac.

Sure, there's Parallels and all that jazz, but this is just much more amazing.

In what way is it more amazing? Properly set-up running Windows in Parallels is a great experience, one which I find hard to tell from the real thing.

Parallels is just poorer quality IMO. It seems to really lag for me.

It's just overall not good.

To add- it depends what you need. For my classes, I can launch excel or word and do web browsing and its great. And honestly easier to deal with on a retina screen then in bootcamp.

Computational power I'm not sure about, but if you need graphical power, I do have to resort to bootcamp. I very rarely go to bootcamp though, parallels is awesome.

 

[clukas]

Bootcamp is the best way for gaming, I use it as well and it works perfectly. I would still recommend you backup at least your most crucial data, even though chances are everything will go fine I would not risk it. If you dont have an additional drive sign up to a free service like dropbox or skydrive. I would do this for your most crucial stuff like important word documents etc.