To BootCamp or Not BootCamp

[b00st4ddicted]

Hi All,

Just bought a rMBP 15 with 256gb. I am really trying to decide whether or not to bootcamp this or not. I will only be using Windows for gaming when I have time and that time is very limited. I am just wondering who on here has bootcamped and regret that they did and decided to redo and who actually have bootcamp and what do you use Windows for? On top of everything I would like to know if installing Windows on USB 3.0 and boot from it is an option. If it is doable, what kind of performance should I expect from the USB 3.0. Will it be slower than a 7200rpm hdd or will it be similar to a SSD. Thanks in advance!!

 

[Buckaye]

If you want to play windows games - bootcamp it. Just be smart about how much of a partition you create - it's easy to over or under-do it - I did one machine with too small of a partition and regretted it (couldn't get but a few games on there) and then I went the other way on another machine and didn't like the lack of space on the Lion side.

 

[b00st4ddicted]

If you want to play windows games - bootcamp it. Just be smart about how much of a partition you create - it's easy to over or under-do it - I did one machine with too small of a partition and regretted it (couldn't get but a few games on there) and then I went the other way on another machine and didn't like the lack of space on the Lion side.

thanks for the reply. I am gave my current bootcamp 60gb worth of space. haven't got to the point where I am thinking about redoing it.

 

[rabidz7]

Hi All,

Just bought a rMBP 15 with 256gb. I am really trying to decide whether or not to bootcamp this or not. I will only be using Windows for gaming when I have time and that time is very limited. I am just wondering who on here has bootcamped and regret that they did and decided to redo and who actually have bootcamp and what do you use Windows for? On top of everything I would like to know if installing Windows on USB 3.0 and boot from it is an option. If it is doable, what kind of performance should I expect from the USB 3.0. Will it be slower than a 7200rpm hdd or will it be similar to a SSD. Thanks in advance!!

EFI boot it!!! Hybrid masterbootreacords are HDD killing services.

 

[tgi]

thanks for the reply. I am gave my current bootcamp 60gb worth of space. haven't got to the point where I am thinking about redoing it.

OP, would you say 60 GB is enough for strictly gaming? I only plan only having 1-2 games installed at any given time. How much usable space did you have on your 256GB drive out of the box?

 

[Superspeed500]

Bootcamp

I use Bootcamp for games. One thing that is important when using bootcamp is to make sure that the Mac partition got enogh free space for temporary files. I have heard that there should always be 20% empty space on the Mac Os X partition. Not sure if that is true. I had performance issuses in Mac Os X after I started to use Bootcamp, but that seems fixed now.

My Bootcamp is on 189 gb. How much space needed for gameing drepends on the size of the game. Please note that bootcamp will/might give a lot of system trouble.

 

[blesscheese]

OP, would you say 60 GB is enough for strictly gaming? I only plan only having 1-2 games installed at any given time. How much usable space did you have on your 256GB drive out of the box?

I would definitely go Boot Camp. Do you use Steam? I'm running a plain, vanilla Skyrim and that is 10.0 GB in size. Older games, such as Oblivion, weigh in at about 5 GB; really old games or smaller games seem to weigh in at about 1-2 GB a piece.

If you stick to just one or two games, don't do anything else--I think 60 GB should be fine. Don't forget Windows will take up a good chunk, and you will also need empty space (about 20% of your drive) for a VM swapfile. I definitely would not go any lower than 60GB.

 

[tgi]

I would definitely go Boot Camp. Do you use Steam? I'm running a plain, vanilla Skyrim and that is 10.0 GB in size. Older games, such as Oblivion, weigh in at about 5 GB; really old games or smaller games seem to weigh in at about 1-2 GB a piece.

If you stick to just one or two games, don't do anything else--I think 60 GB should be fine. Don't forget Windows will take up a good chunk, and you will also need empty space (about 20% of your drive) for a VM swapfile. I definitely would not go any lower than 60GB.

Thanks for the advice. What's a VM swapfile? I'll probably end up going with a 60GB partition size. My biggest concern is making it too big and not being able to utilize the space as I'll probably need it more on the OS X side.

 

[saturnotaku]

If you don't mind carrying a bit of extra bulk, install your games on an external hard drive. You can use USB 3, but Thunderbolt will give more consistent performance.

 

[collinmac]

never thought about doing that before, how is the speed going from an external.