Parallels, Vmware Fusion, or bootcamp?

[0007776]

I am going to finally be getting an intel Mac in the next few days, and i want to put XP on it, the computer that I plan to get is a refurb of the top of the line mini from the previous generation. I would like to be able to play Medieval 2, first of all will that game even work with a Mini, and also, I don't want to have to bother with rebooting to run it, so is it possible to use either Fusion or Parallels to run it? If both will work, is there a good reason to buy one over the other? Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[lugesm]

I am going to finally be getting an intel Mac in the next few days, and i want to put XP on it, the computer that I plan to get is a refurb of the top of the line mini from the previous generation. I would like to be able to play Medieval 2, first of all will that game even work with a Mini, and also, I don't want to have to bother with rebooting to run it, so is it possible to use either Fusion or Parallels to run it? If both will work, is there a good reason to buy one over the other? Thanks for any help you can give.

I am looking for pretty much the same answers. I found this article on CNET. It makes some interesting comparisons, and it would be valuable to read the opinions of others on this Forum regarding the data and conclusions stated by CNET.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9760910-1.html?tag=blog.5

 

[Haoshiro]

You will not get good game performance from a virtualized installation of windows.

Boot Camp is really the only choice if you want to play games, as it is just a normal install of windows, not virtualized at all (just as if you ran Windows on any PC)

Parallels does have some 3D support though, and smaller games play fine. I've played Peggle with good results.

 

[TimJim]

Install with Bootcamp, it's free, and you can run virtual machines from it. You cant install it on Parallels then use it natively.

 

[Crash-n-Burn]

Bootcamp will be your best bet for gaming.

As to if the game will run. Does the mac mini meet system requirements?

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000/XP
Processor: Celeron 1.5GHz Pentium 4® (1500MHz) or equivalent AMD® processor.
Memory: 512MB RAM
Optical Drive: 8x Speed DVD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate)
and latest drivers
Disk Space: 11GB of uncompressed free hard disk space WTF
Sound Card: 100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible 16-bit sound card
and latest drivers
Input Devices: 100% Windows® 2000/XP compatible mouse,
keyboard and latest drivers
DirectX: DirectX® 9.0c
Graphics Card: 128MB Hardware Accelerated video card with Shader 1 supportand the latest drivers. Must be 100% DirectX® 9.0c compatible.
Display Resolution: 1024 x 768
Multiplayer: Internet (TCP / IP) play supported;
Internet play requires broadband connection and latest drivers;
LAN play requires Network card.

 

[0007776]

thanks for the information. It looks like the GPU in the mini may not be quite good enough for it, but if anyone has run this game on a mini let me know. so since that probably won't work, I will probably use the older Medieval Total War, that only required a GPU with 16Mbs of Vram and direct x 8.1 support, so can any of the virtulizations emulate at least that?