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greg400

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 13, 2009
332
0
So it's getting fairly annoying to have to restart over and over again just to play a simple game of counterstrike every once in a while. Is there any virtual machine that allows you to use Windows as if it was running natively while using all system resources for gaming? Having to restart is a massive pain in the ass when all I want to do is play a couple of quick rounds and be done with it. All I want is to be able to play on the same max settings I do in BootCamp only without having to restart. Any possible way to do it?
 

sushi

Moderator emeritus
Jul 19, 2002
15,639
3
キャンプスワ&#
Depends on the game requirements.

In some cases VMware Fusion or Parallels will be enough. In some cases, the games will have to be played at a reduced level if you will. YMMV.
 

greg400

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 13, 2009
332
0
Just installed the demo of Parallels and was getting about 10 fps in counterstrike. Which is just absolutely horrendous. I'm guessing VMWareFusion doesn't fair much better. Looks like i'm stuck with restarting into BootCamp.
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
You should try VMWare Fusion 3 (updated with better DX support) and the forthcoming Parallels 5 likewise. There will be an improvement over Parallels 4 but tbh your still better to play in bootcamp.
 

Icaras

macrumors 603
Mar 18, 2008
6,344
3,394
So software doesn't solve it, now turn to hardware.

Best thing you can do in my opinion is upgrade your HD to an SSD drive. This should definitely shorten the boot times between OSes. I would say totally go for this option as this is what I'll be setting up shortly for my new Mac Pro and I game quite a bit under Windows as well.
 

MythicFrost

macrumors 68040
Mar 11, 2009
3,944
40
Australia
Parallels 4.0 (Don't think 5.0 will be out for a while, IDK tho) or VMWare Fusion 3.0 will be your best bet, if your playing CS maybe you can dedicate more VRAM, RAM or CPU to run it? I'm not sure what Mac you have.
If you don't have the Parallels Tools installed in the VM make sure you do, it might help.

Kind Regards
 

Galileo

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2009
16
0
So software doesn't solve it, now turn to hardware.

Best thing you can do in my opinion is upgrade your HD to an SSD drive. This should definitely shorten the boot times between OSes. I would say totally go for this option as this is what I'll be setting up shortly for my new Mac Pro and I game quite a bit under Windows as well.


I've been reading a lot about SSD here recently and it's left me a bit confused.
I'm soon to buy a Mac Pro and therefore would like to make the right decision.

When you get a new Mac I assume just like every other PC everything is already pre installed. When you guys are getting these SSD drives are you uninstalling OS X from the original drive and then re installing it on the SSD ?
Assuming the SSD is 160GB is that enough to place OS X and Windows there and then partition it with boot camp ?
Or am I totally off and another configuration is used ?

Thanks
 

gugucom

macrumors 68020
May 21, 2009
2,136
2
Munich, Germany
I've been reading a lot about SSD here recently and it's left me a bit confused.
I'm soon to buy a Mac Pro and therefore would like to make the right decision.

When you get a new Mac I assume just like every other PC everything is already pre installed. When you guys are getting these SSD drives are you uninstalling OS X from the original drive and then re installing it on the SSD ?
Assuming the SSD is 160GB is that enough to place OS X and Windows there and then partition it with boot camp ?
Or am I totally off and another configuration is used ?

Thanks

You would typically just clone the OS X on an SSD. You can use the old drive for data storage normally.

On a Mac Pro you would not naturally partition a drive for Windows. It is far easier to use a second drive entirely for Windows. Of course this can also be an SSD. SSDs come in 2,5" form factor though while the Mac Pro drives sleds are 3,5". So you will need an adapter for each SSD. You do have an empty 2nd ODD bay in the 2009 Mac Pro with a full SATA connector also. That can be used without adaptor to fit one SSD directly. You will just need a bit of sticky tape or velcro to fix it somewhere in the bay.
 

Galileo

macrumors newbie
Sep 25, 2009
16
0
You would typically just clone the OS X on an SSD. You can use the old drive for data storage normally.

On a Mac Pro you would not naturally partition a drive for Windows. It is far easier to use a second drive entirely for Windows. Of course this can also be an SSD. SSDs come in 2,5" form factor though while the Mac Pro drives sleds are 3,5". So you will need an adapter for each SSD. You do have an empty 2nd ODD bay in the 2009 Mac Pro with a full SATA connector also. That can be used without adaptor to fit one SSD directly. You will just need a bit of sticky tape or velcro to fix it somewhere in the bay.

So you would get 2 SSDs one for OS X, one for Windows and then use the old drive for data storage ?
 

balamw

Moderator emeritus
Aug 16, 2005
19,365
979
New England
Sure, why not? If money is no object a dedicated SSD for each OS is bound to be better than sharing one drive, you've got plenty of bays in a Mac Pro.

When you get a new Mac I assume just like every other PC everything is already pre installed. When you guys are getting these SSD drives are you uninstalling OS X from the original drive and then re installing it on the SSD ?

I just wanted to point this one out since gugucom didn't.

There is no need to remove OS X from the original drive. It's not "activated" or anything like that, in fact keeping the original drive bootable and in the system gives you an immediate fallback to boot from in case the SSD gets corrupted or otherwise damaged. I'd just use CCC or SuperDuper to clone the HDD to the SSD initially, as gugucom suggested, and go from there.

Since OS X boots fine off external media, it's still a good idea to have an extra bootable FW or USB drive around just in case.

B
 
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