24" imac 3.06ghz owners ???

steveo · 2 Sep 2008 at 11:25

just looking for some advice on one of these machines with the 8800gs cards in them as i have been looking at getting my first apple machine. now the reason i would get one of these is that it would have to last me years as there is no way i could afford another one next year or some thing when the new models come out.

i plan on using bootcamp at first so i can slowly start to come of the windows programs i use for work and home and start the transition with ease, now my first question is would it be possible to use a external hard drive to put xp on via bootcamp and install all programs and games on that and leave the internal 1tb (getting it upgraded) to osx and apple programs,

the other reason i plan to get the 8800gs version is for gaming via bootcamp (tf2,cod4 and dawn of war 2 when its released) how easy is it to set up the imac to game via xp and what games is the imac capable of playing,

also plan on upgrading the ram myself as theres no way i will pay for that with apple :eek:

VaderDSL · 2 Sep 2008 at 13:07

I do the same as you, but I don't know about the exteral hard drive, to be honest I don't think it would work very well.

I game on my imac 24" 3.06ghz

plays everything wonderfully, I play company of heroes, TF2, CSS, DOD:S, Cod4 etc. etc. I play Cod 4 in 1280X1024 it seemed to struggle slightly at 1920X1200 with everything off/low.

It's reall simple to setup, just start bootcamp assistant in OS X, partition the HDD, insert the XP disc, restart and away you go installing

then when in XP insert one of the startup discs you get with the imac and it installs all of the drivers.
And I went up to 4gb from a certain memoery supplier also.

unknowndomain · 2 Sep 2008 at 13:07

steveo said:
i plan on using bootcamp at first so i can slowly start to come of the windows programs i use for work and home and start the transition with ease, now my first question is would it be possible to use a external hard drive to put xp on via bootcamp and install all programs and games on that and leave the internal 1tb (getting it upgraded) to osx and apple programs,

Yes but you would have to install leopard on the external disk as well inorder to boot from it and you would need to partition the drive with boot camp utility after formatting it with the GUID partition table, easy to do if you add me to msn i can guide you through it.

steveo said:
the other reason i plan to get the 8800gs version is for gaming via bootcamp (tf2,cod4 and dawn of war 2 when its released) how easy is it to set up the imac to game via xp and what games is the imac capable of playing,

Should be fine you will need a windows xp disk with sp3 slipstreamed which is easy to do using nLite and then your good just install windows and then pop in the mac os x install disk and install all the drivers.

steveo said:
also plan on upgrading the ram myself as theres no way i will pay for that with apple

Remember that only apple ram is covered under warrenty so technically you could void the warrenty by doing that but form experiance you should be okay, just keep the original ram for when you go in for repairs. and get applecare.

VaderDSL said:
I do the same as you, but I don't know about the exteral hard drive, to be honest I don't think it would work very well.

Correct it would not be great if you get a FW800 drive.

steveo · 2 Sep 2008 at 22:47

cheers for that guys think i will just use the externals for storage and keep 20gb for a partition of xp, so the 1tb will come in handy then, didnt think about the warrant void for the ram but is the memory not user upgradeable anyway so the warrenty should be ok, i was going to get the corsair ram from some where else unless the sticks the ocuk sell are good enough

unknowndomain · 2 Sep 2008 at 23:32

Yeah it is user upgradable using the ram at apple.com. You should be okay but be aware of it

bimmerboii · 3 Sep 2008 at 04:41

the 8800 GS of the 24" imac is comparable to which ATI card? (sorry im more familiar with ati)

unknowndomain · 3 Sep 2008 at 13:05

no idea, ask in the graphics forum or google

Prospector · 4 Sep 2008 at 03:40

The 8800 GS in the imac is pretty decent, the only game it really stuggles with is crysis, but even then I can play with all but a few settings on high. It seems to breeze through most of my other games though (COD 4, Bioshock, Orange Box).

Just to reassure you, gaming with machine through boot camp is great. It works perfectly even with Vista which is what Im using.

OzyOly · 5 Sep 2008 at 19:25

Prospector said:
The 8800 GS in the imac is pretty decent, the only game it really stuggles with is crysis, but even then I can play with all but a few settings on high. It seems to breeze through most of my other games though (COD 4, Bioshock, Orange Box).

Just to reassure you, gaming with machine through boot camp is great. It works perfectly even with Vista which is what Im using.

Same, plays games nicely. I play oblivion with max settings and high frame rate. Not got anything newer than that, but it plays all that I have at full settings.