Ready to game on the rMBP - Need win7 advice please

[snyder17315]

Mac newbie here! I finally have everything setup on my new rMBP from the Apple side, now I just need to get win7 up and running so i can do a little gaming and leave my desktop PC turned off!

Could someone please point me in the right direction between the following options - with the explicit focus being the best solution solely for gaming:

1. Bootcamp win7 install
2. Parallels 8 win7 install
3. Fusion 5 win7 install

I'm also specifically interested in how large of a partition i'd need to make to accommodate win7? I'd estimate 20GB for the games themselves, so please take that into consideration as i've only got 256GB to work with unfortunately.

Appreciate the help!

 

[Dyno-Mike]

Deffo boot camp without a doubt. Games are not a good experience in a virtual environment.
I've allocated 120gb of my drive to it and the rest to OSX.

I'm still running out of space on both partitions so I kinda wish I had gone for the 512gb rMBP.

 

[snyder17315]

Deffo boot camp without a doubt. Games are not a good experience in a virtual environment.
I've allocated 120gb of my drive to it and the rest to OSX.

I'm still running out of space on both partitions so I kinda wish I had gone for the 512gb rMBP.

i hear ya about the 512gb part! I couldn't swing the drive at the time of purchase, but i'm planning on picking one up a year or so from now when they've come down in price and are a little easier to source.

 

[mrbigglessworth]

Bootcamp Win7 for pure gaming. Get a VM solution for when you are mucking around in the Mac environment and want to update/download stuff in the background.

Also, install BootChamp.

 

[Freyqq]

If you are gaming, you will get BY FAR the best performance in bootcamp.

 

[snyder17315]

Sounds like boot camp is the winner - though I do so hate parting with that precious SSD space

 

[Engali]

You might want to consider the Nifty Drive. It's a cheap way to upgrade how much you can store on your comp and will get better as microSD cards get larger in capacity. I got one even though I have the 512gb rMBP.

 

[669532]

Bootcamp for gaming every time.

Gaming in a v. machine is really poor.