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On my new IMac , Bootcamp or Paralles?

H

Hibernia

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 24, 2011
49
0
Scotland
Hi guys
Next project on my first iMac is to get windows 7 installed in preparation for the new star wars mmo and was going with bootcamp option.

However I've just witnessed Paralles 6 on a friends mac working and was most impressed. However he's not a gamer and i'm sure for the windows purpose which option is best for me?

Any Parallels users play games with this and can recommend it or are there reasons I should stick with bootcamp?
 
Whilst Parallels is good and does look like a complete Windows installation from within... it just doesn't compare to Bootcamp when Gaming. With Bootcamp you get full use of the iMac resources and even better use of GPL processing.... required for better FPS. I have gone through the same process and use Bootcamp with great results.
 
Do both!

Parellels is very flexible. I suggest you setup with bootcamp, then get parallels which can run your bootcamp partition when in OS X. Hardcore gaming, boot into windows, just accessing some productivity software? Use the bootcamp partition in parallels.

Parallels also does ok with less intensive games, but this way you can have the flexibility and best of both worlds..
 
You can do both. Install windows as boot camp and then have Parallels boot from that. Then you can choose which one you want to do for different situations.
 
VMWare fusion behaves the same was a Parallels. Can install a bootcamp partition and then run it from Fusion.

Whilst this isn't meant to be a Parallels vs Fusion war, I'd suggest Fusion, since in the past there's been issues with Parallels causing crashes and whatnot - might not be common now but a track history is never a good thing ;)

Also regarding virtualisation never being the best for gaming - it depends on what you're playing. For example, on my system, running the original Crysis in Fusion it runs pretty bad on low settings. But if I'm running something like Trackmania Nations on high settings, it runs perfectly.
 
Boot Camp is your only option. Don't game in a VM, it sucks. You get massively degraded performance as it doesn't use your GPU but a virtual one.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I'll get my OEM of Windows 7 first of all , get that running ok then maybe consider Parallels down the line a bit.
 
If I may, I'd like to ask a question...

I've still got Parallels 5, uninstalled from when I purchased my mbp. I thought there was a problem using the bootcamp install in virtualisation?

Problem with win7 activation....seeing the Bootcamp and Virtual as two separate instances, needing two keys. I have also read about problems with Bootcamp not working after Parallels is set up, etc.

Because of this I gave up on the idea, but are you saying there shouldn't be a problem? Are there any special steps to be taken or things to be avoided? It would be handy to boot in Parallels for none gaming applications.

Thanks
 
whitenoise said:
Problem with win7 activation....seeing the Bootcamp and Virtual as two separate instances, needing two keys. I have also read about problems with Bootcamp not working after Parallels is set up, etc.
Click to expand...

This problem was solved for me by just activating it again using the same key. I only had to reactivate once; the first time that I rebooted into Windows after setting up VMWare. Had to do Office this way too, but it didn't gripe about it.
 
Hmmm, thanks for that. I was totally put off by the posts I had seen.

I'm sure Microsoft's answer was that "the license is for one machine, Actual & Virtual counts as two machines". I also noticed a lot of confusion over this so I just didn't try, (incase I screwed something up). :rolleyes:

I'll give it a try and see what happens. :)
 
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