A lot of rubbish going around about Macs with the Intel 945M chipset not being able to run Windows Vista with the Aero eye-candy turned on. The MacBook will have no problem at it's native resolution, and if you have plenty of RAM, the 945M chipset will just allocate more system RAM if you want to use a larger and higher resolution external monitor. The thing that people don't seem clear about is this: if you have an Intel Mac with Intel graphics (MacBook and Mini), be sure to get plenty of system RAM. Aero will not be able to be enabled on a system with 512MB or RAM. 1GB and up will be no problem, and the 945M chipset is, in fact, designed for Aero.
Detailed Windows Aero system requirements
Windows Aero has the following requirements:
Windows Aero is available only to Genuine Advantage customers who are running the Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate version of Windows Vista.
The display adapter on the PC must support DirectX® 9 with Pixel Shader 2 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel, and Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) support. WDDM introduces a new level of graphics stability, significantly reducing one of the biggest sources of Windows support issues: graphics driverrelated crashes. It also improves graphics performance when you run multiple graphics-related applications.
Graphics memory bandwidth, as assessed by Windows Vistas built-in system assessment tool WinSAT.exe, of at least 1,800 MB/s at the following resolution:
Desktop PC: monitor resolution of 1,310,720 pixels (equivalent to 1280x1024)
Mobile PC: native resolution of built-in display
Appropriate graphics memory for specified monitor resolutions expressed as total pixels (X dimension multiplied by Y dimension):
64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution of up to 1,310,720 pixels (equivalent to 1280x1024)
128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution greater than 1,310,720 pixels and less than or equal to 2,304,000 pixels (equivalent to 1920x1200)
256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution higher than 2,304,000 pixels
Note: To achieve the memory requirements outlined above on systems with a Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) (also called shared memory or integrated graphics chipsets), 1 GB of dual-channel configured system memory (RAM) is required. The system must have at least 512 MB of RAM available for general system activities after graphics processing.
Detailed Windows Aero system requirements
Windows Aero has the following requirements:
Windows Aero is available only to Genuine Advantage customers who are running the Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate version of Windows Vista.
The display adapter on the PC must support DirectX® 9 with Pixel Shader 2 in hardware, 32 bits per pixel, and Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) support. WDDM introduces a new level of graphics stability, significantly reducing one of the biggest sources of Windows support issues: graphics driverrelated crashes. It also improves graphics performance when you run multiple graphics-related applications.
Graphics memory bandwidth, as assessed by Windows Vistas built-in system assessment tool WinSAT.exe, of at least 1,800 MB/s at the following resolution:
Desktop PC: monitor resolution of 1,310,720 pixels (equivalent to 1280x1024)
Mobile PC: native resolution of built-in display
Appropriate graphics memory for specified monitor resolutions expressed as total pixels (X dimension multiplied by Y dimension):
64 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution of up to 1,310,720 pixels (equivalent to 1280x1024)
128 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution greater than 1,310,720 pixels and less than or equal to 2,304,000 pixels (equivalent to 1920x1200)
256 MB of graphics memory to support a single monitor with a resolution higher than 2,304,000 pixels
Note: To achieve the memory requirements outlined above on systems with a Unified Memory Architecture (UMA) (also called shared memory or integrated graphics chipsets), 1 GB of dual-channel configured system memory (RAM) is required. The system must have at least 512 MB of RAM available for general system activities after graphics processing.
