I’m not a gamer; but, I understand the correlation between gaming requirements and performance in general. PC WORLD says the Boot Camp process is smooth as glass.
It works. Impressively well. With games, even. That’s our first impression of Windows XP running under Apple’s Boot Camp on our 20-inch iMac.
XP on a Mac is refreshing, but Microsoft’s idea of an “exciting new look” feels a little last century.Eager to get our hands on a real, dual-booting Apple/Windows hybrid, we ran the Boot Camp installer on a 20-inch iMac and found the process amazingly smooth. It took about an hour. Graphics drivers–the major remaining performance hurdle under WinXPonMac–were solid and responsive under limited testing on our iMac.
Back in Windows, I got right down to business and installed a few games to put the graphics and sound support to the test. The quick and dirty verdict on performance? Most impressive. Doom 3 and Far Cry both ran smoothly with high-end graphics options turned on.
In both cases, I had to tweak visual settings manually, since the games automatically set themselves to very low settings. Far Cry, for example, autodetected very low settings, but it ran without a hitch when I bumped the resolution up to 1280 by 720, with all visual quality options set to “High.”
Our 20-inch iMac came with a 2.0-GHz Core Duo processor, 1GB of RAM, and an ATI Radeon X1600 graphics card with 128MB of GDDR3 memory. That’s roughly equivalent to a high-end laptop machine, and anecdotally the performance I obtained was about what I’d have expected from that type of PC.
Rock on!
If only a mac didn’t cost so much. I can play doom on my PC that costs have the price!
Wow, have the price! Maybe too many games isn’t a good thing. 😉
I think people are actually paying for the OS X experience more than the box it comes in (the hardware)…but part of that experience has always been the very simplified compatibility that comes with running a Mac…because it IS so exclusive compared to the diverse PC market. I actually think there are many Mac users who are quite pompous and all of the other criticisms, but that ultimately you still get what you pay for. If all you want is to get from A to B, an old VW will do the job. If you are particular in what ELSE you can do on the ride, then you have to consider that you may not be able to buy that experience at the Used VW lot. But, the “feel” of the ride on a Mac is very much because of OS X, and making a Mac run Windoze may or may not serve as a bridge, but it won’t become the prefered experience in itself.
What a mess of metaphorical gunk.
Between the ability to dual boot a Mac to Windows and the possibility of a built-in virtualization that would let OS X run Windows software without rebooting, my next computer will most definitely be a Mac.
Sure, Mac’s are expensive. So are Alienware computers. Have you compared the price of the MacBook Pro with a Dell laptop similarly configured? You will find that the MacBook Pro is actually a little cheaper than the Dell. Sure, you can configure the Dell down in price, but you are also lowering the abilities as well.
It’s going to be interesting to see what the prices wind up being for the Tower units when Apple converts them to Intel.
I am thinking about getting a new notebook computer very soon, and it will probably be a Mac. I am not a Windows fan, but that s where the software is for me. I use a lot of programs that are awesome, but are Windows only, such as DVD-Lab Pro for my DVD authoring. Nothing on the Mac even comes close to the flexibility I need asa video professional. However…
There are a few Mac programs I would like to use and now I can have both worlds.
I do think this will sell a whole lot more units for Apple. As they say, they are int he hardware business. I expect their sales numbers to at least double.
Pure genius, jobs, but long overdue.
I just don’t get it. I can understand the appeal of paying more for a better OS, but what advantage is there in kludging a Mac system by dual-booting Windows?
Is Doom3 spiffier and quicker just knowing it’s running on a Mac? No.
Is the interface and menus better for Word when running on a Mac? No.
Is Excel easier to use when running on a Mac? No.
What advantage does a Mac provide when running Windows? None.
So why buy a Mac if I want to run Windows software?
For me, it’s all about price. I want the best gaming machine I can build or buy for around $1,100. Mac doesn’t make the cut, especially if I have to buy a copy of Windows XP.
I guess Boot Camp makes sense if you already own a Mac and want to play games or run company software at home. But I just don’t see Apple getting the huge market-share increase everyone seems to expect.
If you want an elegant OS, buy a Mac.
If you want something “good enough,” plus the huge variety in software, buy a PC with Windows.
If you want an elegant OS, just so you can run Windows software, then I suggest you buy OSX and place the unopened box next to your Dell PC.
Who says you can’t do games on a Mac (at least anymore)?
I knew they would figure out a way to get viruses on a Mac!
If I were a Windows prisoner, I would not be too happy about the prospect of Apple giving up on the OS business. You can thank apple for just about every innovation in GUI’s. Microsoft has always tried to catch up by adding layer after layer of spaghetti code and are paying the price now. If Apple never existed, DOS 2006 might have just been released on time and within budget.
Curious.. does anyone know if this Boot Camp kit allows people to also install Linux/Unix besides Windows? And possible multi-boot more than just two OSes?
BTW you can thank ZEROX for the GUI you’re using, Apple just took it over and expanded on it.
I think now Apple can finally justify the price difference, since Mac hardware is the ONLY hardware “officially” that can run both OS X, and Windows XP (and possibly Linux too). Where as legally we can’t install OS X on a PC.
Thank ZEROX, thank the xebra (a relative of the horze), thank my sister-in-law who plays the zylophone, and I’m being overxelous, but I’d even thank the ‘big bang’, if any of the above saw the value in XEROX’s GUI and ran with it until apple-envy caused it to become mainstream.
I don’t own a Mac, but would like to one day. I am not a gamer either.
So when you load XP on a Mac does it open all these security holes that XP has? Isn’t that one of the reasons to get a Mac (more security)?
I see it now, you get XP on a Mac. Now you want different hardware (i.e. Graphics cards, etc.) so you try to go around that, you succeed, and the next thing you know you are back to a Windows machine with the same problems and less money in your bank account.
Well done John, another Apple will use Windows point
Shame, I liked the look of Objective-C
hey, your prediction actually came true
(kind of.)
I will be waiting for the Intel equipped tower version before my next Mac purchase. Hopefully, by then, Apple will allow us to load Windoze on a second (read separate) hard drive. With a dual or quad core CPU, there should be no reason why you couldn’t have both OS’s running concurrently.
Personally, I want to be able to swap files from system to system in real time. And I don’t want a Windoze crash from obliterating my Mac OS partition.
As for why anyone would want a Mac and PC in one? Desk space, of course!
Now, the next question is “when will it run Linux”? That would be the ultimate triple threat! That would be a machine for the true techno-nerd in all of us.
i’m BUYING a MAC!!! thank you apple!
#1 & 2, I think you mean “half” the price…..instead of “have” the price? Anyway, I have friends who play games on MACs & they always end up waiting 4 to 6 months for the MAC release of a PC game. What’s worse is that by that time the PC game has been patched once or twice & the MAC version may not end up being released with the patch included which leaves them out in the cold as far as finding a server to play online. Being able to run windows & therefore PC games natively will be wonderful.
EQ2 on my MBP runs better than on any Windows laptop or desktop I’ve seen.
I’ll be buying a second MBP, for my wife, in a few weeks. Bye-bye PC’s.
I posted on the other thread about Boot Camp being released + no games for the Mac. I hope this new development is true, because that would be sticking point for me -ever- buying a Mac. I love building/hot-rodding PCs, but more platform choices is a good thing!
Now, if Apple would lower their prices and come out with choices other than silver and white that’d be FANTASTIC… the commercial jab that PCs only come in boring little beige boxes defies reality. You’d be hard pressed to have found a beige PC box in the last 3 years even if you -wanted- one. In reality, all Apple boxes look the same. And $1,999 for a G5 dualcore 2ghz w/512MB RAM, 160GB harddrive, and 128MB GeForce6600? Add a 20″ LCD for $799 for a grand total $2,798. You can get a Dell XPS dualcore 2.8ghz w/1GB RAM, 160GB harddrive, 256MB GeForce 6800, INCLUDING a 20″ LCD for $1,699. WTF??? Is that $1,100 premium for the “Apple Experience”???? Sooooo, you can buy a much faster Dell desktop AND a $800 Mac Mini to hook to your home entertrainment center and still have money left over for the price of a slower G5?
Bring those prices down, Apple! Then you’ll be moving some boxes!! Be like Nike and Just Do It!