Run Windows on iMac

rctneil

rctneil

rctneil

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Joined
31 Jan 2007
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1,860
Hey guys,

As I have just got a Macbook Pro from work to use and liking it, I am looking to to replace my current Pc at home with a 27" i7 iMac. I think this would be a great idea so I can use Mac normally and keep in line with stuff being used at work but also being able to run Windows on the machine as well to continue using some stuff on that. If I kept with a Windows machine I would be unable to use Mac OSX legally or without hassle. I have also been given an excellent price for an iMac so now just dithering on whether to go for it

Now, about running Windows on it. I know it comes with bootcamp to install Windows 7 on but that means shutting down the machine and booting up into Windows. However, I am used to VM. If I installed Windows 7 in a VM using VirtualBox or something would that be ok to use for the occasional Windows application or even light windows gaming such as the new Age of Empires coming out in August?

I also have just remembered about Lion having full resume capability so I guess having a bunch of stuff open in Mac OS and then having to boot into Windows is a not a huge issue now as when I boot back to Mac it will all be as I have left it.

Any thoughts guys?

Neil
 
Virtualbox works fine once you install their drivers in the Windows VM, although I wouldn't like to say how it might perform with games. For general office/browsing tasks in full screen I sometimes forget it's a VM.
 
Ross1234 said:
Don't do any kind of gaming in a virtual machine. You need to dual boot if you want any 3D performance at all.
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Not true, I can run relatively old or less-demanding games like Sins of a Solar Empire just as well in Parallels as I can in BootCamp, and this is on an Intel HD 3000 GPU. It's more about the amount of CPU and RAM resources given to the VM that makes the difference.
 
Deku said:
It might be the fastest but I really much prefer VMware:Fusion. Guess it's down to personal choice.
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Same here, I won't touch Parallels now as when I first used it, it BSOD'd my Windows install. Tried VMware and worked a treat, never looked back since!

Prefer to boot direct in to Windows with Bootcamp though, so don't use VM much any more.
 
Deku said:
It might be the fastest but I really much prefer VMware:Fusion. Guess it's down to personal choice.
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One of the most useful features of VMware Fusion is the fact that you can use bootcamp AND VMware fusion on the same windows installation.

Reboot using bootcamp for gaming, or just run through VMware fusion if doing none demanding tasks.
 
paradigm said:
One of the most useful features of VMware Fusion is the fact that you can use bootcamp AND VMware fusion on the same windows installation.

Reboot using bootcamp for gaming, or just run through VMware fusion if doing none demanding tasks.
Click to expand...

Parrallels has the same feature.
 
Parallels is a lot faster and has more functionality than Fusion. Lot of people seem to think of Fusion as being more stable, maybe Parallels was bad ages ago, I don't know, I've used it on many setups since v6 came out and it has been excellent.

You can play old games in a VM, AoE3 onwards would be too demanding I expect. There's also Crossover games and other wrapper methods about which are faster than VM but still slower than Windows.
 
Parallels is great, its amazing how well it does actually run Windows 7 and thats on just 4gb of RAM. Can't wait to try it out when my 8gb goes in next week - it should be even better..
 
Elric said:
I have my BootCamp partition running via parallels all the time I'm in OSX. Works very well.
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+1
works brilliantly and free as well. No big deal to just reboot the MAC from OSX into Windows to get the functionality of Windows on a MAC.

Running VMware Fusion still steals some performance and Windows is more sluggish to boot IMO. When rebooted and running natively on the MAc hardware it runs brilliantly.

And free too....;)
 
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