Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Best (AKA Most Stable) way to run windows games on OS X?

M

morikaweb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 22, 2010
12
0
What is the most stable and fastest way to run windows games in OS X? I own Parralels but it seems to crash constently. I also own Crossover office (used it in my linux days) but have not tried it on mac os yet.

I'd be willing to buy VM Ware if I needed but what is everyone's opinion?
 
I have a question to tack on, seems appropriate.

What is the most stable/best Windows OS to use via bootcamp?

I currently am using Vista but I can buy Windows 7/Windows XP at my college for cheap. Can I run Windows 7 well?

MBP Specs:
2.4 GHz C2D
4 GB Ram
GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB

Thanks for any recommendations. Vista runs well for me, I am just curious as to my options.
 
Matthew9559 said:
I have a question to tack on, seems appropriate.

What is the most stable/best Windows OS to use via bootcamp?

I currently am using Vista but I can buy Windows 7/Windows XP at my college for cheap. Can I run Windows 7 well?

MBP Specs:
2.4 GHz C2D
4 GB Ram
GeForce 8600M GT 256 MB

Thanks for any recommendations. Vista runs well for me, I am just curious as to my options.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't even touch any other than Windows 7. XP is okay, but seriously, it's like 10 years old! Vista never caused me anything else but problems so I would avoid it like plague.

Windows 7 is as light as XP but provides the features of Vista
 
Matthew9559 said:
I have a question to tack on, seems appropriate.

What is the most stable/best Windows OS to use via bootcamp?
Click to expand...

XP, I've tried Vista and 7 on my computer but I'm sticking with XP until it's totally phased out. It's just fast and light (7, light? No siree. Massive HDD footprint, more ram (that could be used for games!)). I also get much better gaming performance from XP. The last time I balanced them all up (L4D2) I'd get on average 5 more fps than Win 7. It's not faster by a long gap but it's still there. It's also a lot quicker to boot into, which is pretty important to me as a Bootcamper.
 
Depending on the price difference I would go with XP due to it's smaller footprint.
 
Well boot-camp it is then, I personally use windows 7 x64 ultimate as anything else has problems with modern games.

But I have a question, I want to tri-boot my system w/ Linux for school, windows for games, and Mac OS for everything else. Is this possible?
 
morikaweb said:
Well boot-camp it is then, I personally use windows 7 x64 ultimate as anything else has problems with modern games.
Click to expand...

There are 2 games that won't run on XP (that need DX10). What problems are there on other versions of Windows?
 
morikaweb said:
But I have a question, I want to tri-boot my system w/ Linux for school, windows for games, and Mac OS for everything else. Is this possible?
Click to expand...

You could set up a Virtual Machine for you Linux OS, Bootcamp for Windows and OS X for everything else.
 
Windows Vista Ultimate in a virtual machine should play solitaire and minesweeper at it's highest settings.
 
Bootcamp. 7 is the best choice (from what I've read), however, I installed Vista when it was fairly new and honestly I don't know what all the whining in the Windows world was about. Maybe on PCs Vista sucked, but on my Mac it's been operating great for gaming. I mention it because it is cheaper than buying 7, but 7 would be better if you can afford it.
 
Win 7 performs beautifully under Bootcamp. Although there aren't many games that REQUIRE DX10 there are loads of games that look nicer with it enabled, so XP is silly IMO. Getting Vista now would be pretty pointless too.

Bootcamp is great as you can use the Windows partition in Parallels or VMware then anyway.. Some games perform well in a VM if you do it this way - especially if you have loads of RAM.. Then you'd install Linux in a virtual disk and you're sorted. (3D gaming performance probably isnt a priority for your Linux install?)

Do you have the most recent Parallels? It shouldn't be crashing.. It's rock solid for me. :/

Its so handy being able to do both native speed + virtualisation on the same Windows install.. Adding mods, games and stuff doesn't require a reboot then - you only need to do it for the actual playing, which can save significant hassle if you use osX for everything else.
 
morikaweb said:
But I have a question, I want to tri-boot my system w/ Linux for school, windows for games, and Mac OS for everything else. Is this possible?
Click to expand...
Yes it is, but it can take a while to setup. I have a triple boot setup on my Mac of OS X, Win7, and XP, and I cannot see how it wouldn't work with Linux instead of one of the others. I didn't use rEFIt as I didn't need to.

It was a pain in the neck to setup, but luckily, my computer was brand new at the time and it didn't worry me how many times I needed to erase everything (and I mean everything) and start over just to get it right.

I didn't use this guide, but it may be what you're after
http://wiki.onmac.net/index.php/Triple_Boot_via_BootCamp

I remember using OS X to setup the partition sizes, and setting two HFS+ partitions and a FAT MS-DOS one. Windows was installed on the FAT partition (formatted to NTFS during install), and then OS X was used to format one of the other HFS+ ones back to FAT for Windows 7 (converted to NTFS). The advantage of this is that the FAT partition is easily identifiable during the installs.

Provided your Linux boot manger works with Windows 7, selecting Windows in the bootcamp loader will then load your Linux boot loader and let you choose either Windows or Linux.

I have no idea if this works, but I'd install OS X, then Windows 7 followed by Linux. Perhaps put Windows 7 in the middle partition. That way when you're finished with Linux, you can wipe it and expand the Windows partition over it.
 
well everyone says "bootcamp" but thats not a valid answer

the question asks about playing on OSX. Bootcamp lets you install Windows, so it just turns your machine into a Windows machine.

Basically saying "bootcamp" is just like saying "Use a PC not a Mac"

to actually get a valid answer to the question... there is no 1 best way to run Windows games on OSX... it really depends on the game itself. Running Windows in a virtual machine is usually the poorest performance. Wine is usually the best way to go, wether is done on your own, or using Wineskin, or Crossover or whatever. There are also hack wrapper versions of Crossover out there (mainly CXZ), and of course using Cider out of other games...

Any of them can be best for a certain game, but bad for others.

but like everyone else has said, if you want to be able to play a Windows game easily, with the best performance, then just run Windows (for real, not virtualized)...
 
Dagless said:
It's silly to call better performance silly ;).
http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/information/windows-xp-vs-vista-vs-7/
Click to expand...
A quick google shows equal (or more) benchmark and gaming sites recommending the upgrade to 7 from XP.

Also worth noting is that there are 2 games that need DX10 to run, there are also many many more games that won't run on Windows Vista or 7. So at the moment XP is still the most compatible system.
Click to expand...
Many many games - like what? I have well over 100 games and they all run perfectly in Win7-64.. The performance difference you're mentioning really isn't noticeable, and some games run faster in 7 anyway.

What IS noticeable is DX10 mode making a lot of games look better with no significant performance hit. Win7 boots faster. Win7 feels more responsive. Win7 is more secure, etc. XP is showing it's age, as it should be!
 
If you want to play Windows games without Windows then your best option is Crossover Games or WINE/Cider emulation in general.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back