Parallels, VMWare, etc or Bootcamp?

[Leonardo]

Hey, finally made the switch and I honestly can say it has been a pleasant experience. I love how everything runs fast but is animated and designed well. Now I'm just unsure of a few things.

Finally made the switch and loving Leopard! I have a Black MacBook, 2.2 GHz Core 2 Duo and 1gb of ram. I want to play games on mac, e.g. San Andreas and have vista on mac just for the odd program.

•Can I use vista with virtualbox, parallels or vmware on my macbook with it running smoothly, and even able to play a game (if I can which has the best performance)? or is this out of the question because of the 1gb ram
•If I use bootcamp can I access the files in vista from mac os? e.g. word documents or pictures

and finally

•What's the best way of keeping the MacBooks battery life, to charge it to full then run it down and so on, or to keep it plugged in?

Thanks very much!

 

[KingYaba]

•Can I use vista with virtualbox, parallels or vmware on my macbook with it running smoothly, and even able to play a game (if I can which has the best performance)? or is this out of the question because of the 1gb ram

You can use them. Should run great. Don't expect to play games in virtualization. Your performance will suffer (if even supported). I would recommend upgrading your memory to 2 GB.

•If I use bootcamp can I access the files in vista from mac os? e.g. word documents or pictures

You will have to partition the hard drive. Your files will be separate. In order to exchange the files email the word docs to yourself or just use a flash drive or external disk.

•What's the best way of keeping the MacBooks battery life, to charge it to full then run it down and so on, or to keep it plugged in?

Use the battery. Cycle it every few days (I do). Bring it to the library, bring it with you on the couch and watch TV for two hours. Don't be afraid to unplug it.

 

[Leonardo]

Thanks for the help! Much appreciated!

 

[kuwisdelu]

I use VMWare Fusion and it runs great for me, but I have 2GB RAM. There's only a few programs I need, though, and they're not really games.

If you want to play games, you'll almost definitely want to run them using Bootcamp. You'll find that much better.

 

[jbkendrick]

Parallels vs. VMware vs. Boot Camp

I recently posted some references to a very thorough comparison of the three emulators at http://johnkendrick.wordpress.com/2008/01/03/which-is-the-better-windows-emulator-well-that-depends/. This information may help in your decision. John

 

[boast]

bootcamp just partitions your hard drive to install windows.

parallels and vmware are virtual machines.


so virtualization vs native = native always wins in performance

plus, virtualization with 1gb = not much multi-tasking, and thats with XP. If you want to use vista while you have 1gb, do bootcamp. Once you get more ram, get vmware, which will use your partitioned drive as the virtual disk. (and you can switch back and forth. boot into windows for gaming, and virtualize it for programs)

 

[Komiksulo]

My MB Pro running Windows XP SP2 natively from the Boot Camp partition beats the pants off my work computer running the same OS. I have noticed, however, that it runs very hot this way, even after I installed the drivers for the Apple hardware.

Running the same Windows installation inside a VMware Fusion virtual machine yields about the same performance feel as my work computer. However, I get the benefits of Mac OS / Windows XP integration.

Be aware that booting XP natively from BootCamp, then inside a virtual machine, then natively, then inside a VM, may trigger Windows' activation system as the OS thinks it's been installed on more than one machine, or that the construction of the underlying machine has changed too often.

For this reason, I try to keep the construction of the VM as similar as I can to that of the real MB Pro. I think that going between two processors running from Boot Camp and one processor on my first run from VMWare was a major trigger.

VMWare Tools, which VMWare provides for many 'guest' operating systems, and which you install after installing XP, is supposed to reduce the chances of this happening.

 

[Leonardo]

Decided to go with Bootcamp until I update my MacBook with more ram in the future! Thanks for all the help!

 

[cloudnine]

Decided to go with Bootcamp until I update my MacBook with more ram in the future! Thanks for all the help!

If it helps, I did a bit of research, and otherworldcomputing.com has AMAZING prices on good RAM... I'm planning on buying a new iMac with my tax return, and OWC has 4GB of RAM for $99! I would definitely recommend maxing out your MB's RAM if it's in your budget.

Just a suggestion and welcome to the wonderful world of stress-free computing with Apple hehe