For Orange Box: XP or Vista on a MBP?

[washer]

I have a MacBook Pro 2.4 Ghz with 4 GB of 667 MHz ram. My graphics card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT. I'd like to run boot camp so I can run Orange Box; Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Half Life. I have about 35 GB free on my internal drive, but would like to use as little as possible for this to leave room for photo management.

So my questions:
Do you have to have the partition on your internal drive? Can I host it on an external?

On my setup, what would run it better, Vista Business or XP Professional with SP2?

How much do I need to partition to run Orange Box? Right now, that is all I really need it for.

Thanks a ton,
washer

 

[ninjapenguinart]

You would have to have roughly 20gb for orange box and xp, because XP>Vista as long as it is 32bit XP. And I dunno about the external part, but I think some one would have asked that same question in these forums.

 

[chrono1081]

I have orange box installed on an external eSata drive and I use an eSata express card to connect it to the macbook pro in my sig and it runs great. Infact that external is my "gaming" drive so I can hog it up all I want with games. I have never noticed a speed difference in games on the drive verses when they were on my harddrive.

I run XP Pro in bootcamp. I hate vista as an operating system but I also love vista because its the reason I now own a mac

 

[asme]

XP of course. The approximately ~1gig of RAM that it wouldn't recognize would be made up for by the approximately ~1gig of RAM that Vista uses WHILE IDLE.

That, and it doesn't crash half as often.

XP is also a smaller size to install, leaving you more room for VIDJA GAEMZ. At the very least have 20GB free if you want to install only XP and the entire five games of the orange box.

 

[washer]

okay, so XP it is then.

from what I understand, I need to install XP on my laptop, but I could have the games on an external. I don't have an eSata drive, but I do have a 500GB over firewire 800. would that be fast enough, or should I just stick to the internal? and a partition of 20 GB on my internal should be enough for the games and XP

 

[Stridder44]

XP of course. The approximately ~1gig of RAM that it wouldn't recognize would be made up for by the approximately ~1gig of RAM that Vista uses WHILE IDLE.

That, and it doesn't crash half as often.

XP is also a smaller size to install, leaving you more room for VIDJA GAEMZ. At the very least have 20GB free if you want to install only XP and the entire five games of the orange box.

It's called Superfetch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offline_Files#SuperFetch

Vista is not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I've been running Vista 64 on my MacBook Pro (I only have 2 gigs of RAM at the moment mind you, plan on getting 4) and it runs awesome. No problems at all, even runs fine when running Age of Conan (very graphic intensive game). I don't care if you want to install XP or not, I just want to call BS on the comment above, as I am so sick of Vista FUD.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

I swear to God. All you guys saying XP>Vista have probably never used Vista.

I get the same performance in Vista as I do in XP on my MBP in Source games (including Orange Box). If you're going to be buying a new OS, I see no reason to buy XP unless you have an older program that you need to run in Windows that does not work in Vista. Orange Box works just as well in Vista as it does in XP.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

I swear to God. All you guys saying XP>Vista have probably never used Vista.

I get the same performance in Vista as I do in XP on my MBP in Source games (including Orange Box). If you're going to be buying a new OS, I see no reason to buy XP unless you have an older program that you need to run in Windows that does not work in Vista. Orange Box works just as well in Vista as it does in XP.

I have used Vista, but I quickly stopped when I realized it was almost as unstable as ME. . . I still have flash backs of that OS. . . but even if they fixed any bugginess in SP 1, which I'll admit I haven't tried yet, there are still a lot of tests out there that shows XP runs a bit faster, especially for games. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531-4.html are some graphs and comparisants of what was found. I will admit though XP and XP SP1 weren't super, but at least SP 2 is decent, which is why I can allow it to be on my iMac. So before you state XP = Vista do your research to find out XP > Vista sure it isn't XP >> Vista that everyone should use XP, but it's still enough for a gamer to not touch Vista.

 

[Stridder44]

I have used Vista, but I quickly stopped when I realized it was almost as unstable as ME. . . I still have flash backs of that OS. . . but even if they fixed any bugginess in SP 1, which I'll admit I haven't tried yet, there are still a lot of tests out there that shows XP runs a bit faster, especially for games. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/xp-vs-vista,1531-4.html are some graphs and comparisants of what was found. I will admit though XP and XP SP1 weren't super, but at least SP 2 is decent, which is why I can allow it to be on my iMac. So before you state XP = Vista do your research to find out XP > Vista sure it isn't XP >> Vista that everyone should use XP, but it's still enough for a gamer to not touch Vista.

So you've never actually used Vista SP1, yet somehow it's terrible and unstable?

Not everyone should use XP, you're right. Vista is for newer hardware. However when ran on newer hardware, Vista is amazing. OS 9 ran pretty fast too on my old iMac, but that didn't stop me from installing OS X.

Again, I could care less what you/they install, I'm just sick of hearing all the BS about Vista.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

So you've never actually used Vista SP1, yet somehow it's terrible and unstable?

Not everyone should use XP, you're right. Vista is for newer hardware. However when ran on newer hardware, Vista is amazing. OS 9 ran pretty fast too on my old iMac, but that didn't stop me from installing OS X.

Again, I could care less what you/they install, I'm just sick of hearing all the BS about Vista.

I didn't say Vista SP 1 is terrible, I said Vista is terrible, because I do not have first hand accounts of SP 1 yet, and I was hoping some one has used XP SP 2 or 3 and Vista SP 1 would shed light on how much it changed, but the thing is Vista still doesn't match up with XP in the gaming department, which Orange Box needs. OS 9 ran pretty fast, but it didn't have the functionality Apple needed to go forward. XP has a bit more functionality than Vista right now, and until Vista gets as much fine tuning as XP did it will always be below XP, but there has been so much negative reviews of Vista that it will never get that fine tuning because of Windows 9 coming out next year, and if Windows 9 is junk then Windows shares in the computer world is going to get hit hard.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

I didn't say Vista SP 1 is terrible, I said Vista is terrible, because I do not have first hand accounts of SP 1 yet, and I was hoping some one has used XP SP 2 or 3 and Vista SP 1 would shed light on how much it changed, but the thing is Vista still doesn't match up with XP in the gaming department, which Orange Box needs. OS 9 ran pretty fast, but it didn't have the functionality Apple needed to go forward. XP has a bit more functionality than Vista right now, and until Vista gets as much fine tuning as XP did it will always be below XP, but there has been so much negative reviews of Vista that it will never get that fine tuning because of Windows 9 coming out next year, and if Windows 9 is junk then Windows shares in the computer world is going to get hit hard.

I love how you're basing your opinions on how well Vista performs in games when compared to XP by a test that was done January 29th, 2007. You do realize it was released to the general public January 30th of that same year, right? And it took roughtly 4-6 months for decent drivers to come out, which greatly improved performance. Those tests were done with horrific graphic drivers. I don't know when you used Vista, but if it was for those first few months, it was definitely rough due to crap graphic drivers.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

I love how you're basing your opinions on how well Vista performs in games when compared to XP by a test that was done January 29th, 2007. You do realize it was released to the general public January 30th of that same year, right? And it took roughtly 4-6 months for decent drivers to come out, which greatly improved performance. Those tests were done with horrific graphic drivers. I don't know when you used Vista, but if it was for those first few months, it was definitely rough due to crap graphic drivers.

Fine I'll give you one from 7 months after Vista came out:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page9.asp
And as you notice XP still has the advantage by 8%. I am not saying Vista can't be great, but I am saying Vista might not reach the levels of XP, and it might be better to wait till Windows 9 till you switch from XP to another OS.

 

[Stridder44]

I am not saying Vista can't be great, but I am saying Vista might not reach the levels of XP, and it might be better to wait till Windows 9 till you switch from XP to another OS.

Dude why are you even bothering with XP? Windows 98 runs way faster than XP does on the same hardware. WinXP is just a Win98 with a new UI anyway.

 

[bstreiff]

I've had Vista32, XP64, and XP32 on my Blackbook, and I've noticed no perceptible difference in Orange Box between either. (Would have tried Vista64 as well, but I couldn't get it from my campus store.)

In terms of actually being able to use the operating system, I disliked all the interface changes in Vista32-- even after disabling Aero and all the themes cruft, everything had been rearranged in seemingly arbitrary ways (new Control Panel, for instance).

I had difficulty with drivers in XP64-- the driver package in this post will get you most of the basic Apple stuff, but you'll need to get video drivers from Intel (easy), wired ethernet drivers from whoever it was that makes them (I forget), and wireless drivers from Broadcom (good luck). I found XP64 to be really sluggish in general-- applications would take longer to load, etc. Perhaps because of starting up the 32-bit compatibility layer.

I finally settled on XP32; yeah, I don't get to use all 4GB of RAM, but oh well. Steam is the only reason I have a Windows partition.

Steam worked just fine on all three OSes-- note that you gain no benefit from 64-bit in most Steam games.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Fine I'll give you one from 7 months after Vista came out:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page9.asp
And as you notice XP still has the advantage by 8%. I am not saying Vista can't be great, but I am saying Vista might not reach the levels of XP, and it might be better to wait till Windows 9 till you switch from XP to another OS.

I still see no mention of SP1... And 8% is hardly a deal breaker IMO, and in quite a few games, the difference was even less than that. You're not going to notice much of a difference between 60 FPS and 55...

 

[stainlessliquid]

Fine I'll give you one from 7 months after Vista came out:
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_nvidia_windows_vista_driver_performance_update/page9.asp
And as you notice XP still has the advantage by 8%. I am not saying Vista can't be great, but I am saying Vista might not reach the levels of XP, and it might be better to wait till Windows 9 till you switch from XP to another OS.

What I see is that XP and Vista perform the same. You only see a difference when getting into the 100+ FPS where the frame rates have more room too separate. There is no difference between 30fps and 30.6fps, benchmark tests vary more than that each time you run them on the same hardware.

They perform the same for most modern games on Nvidia cards. When DX10 matures XP users are going to be upgrading and wasting more money on a new OS that they could have gotten for just 5 bucks more in the first place.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

I don't know I think get XP now and wait a year for Windows 9 for a few reasons.

1. Better resource usage.
2. Not as big of an OS so more harddrive space
3. Performs slightly better in games.

And right now I am trying to keep washer informed that he will get better performance out of XP and he won't loose so much harddrive space out of it.

 

[ninjapenguinart]

What I see is that XP and Vista perform the same. You only see a difference when getting into the 100+ FPS where the frame rates have more room too separate. There is no difference between 30fps and 30.6fps, benchmark tests vary more than that each time you run them on the same hardware.

They perform the same for most modern games on Nvidia cards. When DX10 matures XP users are going to be upgrading and wasting more money on a new OS that they could have gotten for just 5 bucks more in the first place.

Oh and just to let you know, I benchmarked Counter-Strike Source, and I was hitting 235 FPS, and CSS is ran off of the same engine as the Orange Box games with decently the same needed specs. So I am going to go for Orange Box he would want XP.

 

[The Flashing Fi]

Oh and just to let you know, I benchmarked Counter-Strike Source, and I was hitting 235 FPS, and CSS is ran off of the same engine as the Orange Box games with decently the same needed specs. So I am going to go for Orange Box he would want XP.

First of all, Orange Box uses an updated Source engine.

Second of all, I see no mention of you running the same benchmark in Vista.

I get better FPS on my desktop in CSS in Vista than I do in XP.

On my MBP, I get the same FPS with both OSes.

And Windows 7 (I have never heard of a Windows 9) is supposed to be released around 2010.

 

[bstreiff]

CSS is ran off of the same engine as the Orange Box games with decently the same needed specs. So I am going to go for Orange Box he would want XP.

Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, and CS:Source are all off the original Source engine, which runs on DirectX 7.0 level cards (for instance, the GMA 950).

Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 all use the updated Source engine ("Source 2007"), which requires a DirectX 8.1 level card (for instance, the GMA X3100).

The MBP shouldn't have a problem meeting these requirements (since it has a real GPU) but CS:Source uses a much less resource-intensive engine than the Orange Box games, so it's not really fair to try a FPS comparison.

 

[stainlessliquid]

HDD space is the only valid argument for XP. Vista is not slower in games than XP anymore. If he wanted to run Windows in VMware or whatever then I would suggest XP since its smaller and runs a lot faster in a virtual machine. But Vista 64 is the wisest choice for bootcamp, its a much more user friendly OS and is DX10 compatible, if you have the right hardware for Vista then it feels much more responsive and faster than XP.

Plus Vista 64 is already equal to XP in performance in games, with 2gbs of ram. I would like to see someone do a benchmark with 4gbs and compare them, I will bet that Vista performs significantly better in games like Crysis and other games that have massive environments that use tons of ram.

 

[tgl]

I have the latest MBP with 4G ram and have Vista 32 Ultimate in bootcamp.
I'm amazed how well it runs after all the negatives I have heard about Vista since it came out (I'm running SP1 so maybe things have improved by now as well).
I also have to say that this is the first version of Windows I have ever used that I don't hate. I feel that they really improved the inteface, quality and quantity of underlying system tools, and security. The system is incredibly responsive - more so than any other windows machine I have ever used (and I work with computers for a living over the last 20 years).
I also just installed Vista 32 Home Premium on my son's black macbook (year old with 2 GB ram) and after 2 days the experience is just as positive - no problems whatsover - he mostly runs Office 2007 and few games such as the latest Chessmaster Grandmaster (great game).
I will add that in spite of all these improvements Vista is still and never will be as good as OSX - unless MS also decided to throw away all of their underlying OS and move to some type of Unix based OS like Apple did (most important and best decision Jobs ever made).