Parrallels, BootCamp, or Crossover?

[Westside guy]

Simpler games work just fine under Parallels, so it really depends what type of games you're talking about. If you're an 18-year-old guy then we know what sorts of games you're looking at, and Boot Camp is really your only option.

Somehow or other I got hooked on Moonbase Commander which runs fine in Parallels. If you're playing MS Pinball or Solitaire (why?) that level of graphics support works fine.

Codeweavers is a worthy endeavor, but for general-purpose Windows support it's just not there yet. To be fair, that's not the market they're pursuing anyway - they're looking to help the folks who need to run a handful of specific Windows apps (usually work/productivity stuff).

I am using parallels with windows vista beta rc1.
It works fine for me...
I just have a few questions.
How do i switch from windows to Mac OSX... there is no alt button on my keyboard so...
And as well i am wondering if there any way to fully utilize my video card that i have with my 24" Imac in parallels...
And lastly is there a way to transfer my music and pictures from my Mac OSX to Windows vista that i'm using. Like a simple drag and drop?
Or how come all my music and pictures that are on my computer don't show up when i'm running windows...

- The "option" key corresponds to the "alt" key. "ctrl+option" shifts you away from full screen Windows mode.

- As others have already said, you don't get anywhere near the full benefit of your video card inside of Parallels.

- You need to set up a "shared folder" inside of Parallels. The user manual will explain exactly how to do this. It's not a wise practice to share your entire home directory with Windows.

 

[youyou]

Thank you guys for the replies...
Actually in 27 years old and i don't care much about games.
I installed vista and don't have all the effects that come with vista.
Basically vista aero which has the " widgets" and the fade effect to pages...
So i was wondering if that had to do with my video card...
As for sharing files i figured it out with your help and it's just to transfer a few pictures and tunes.. nothing else really...

 

[B-Line]

Coming from a PC, I had some windows editions of programs like office ect. I chose to get parallels because word is still not universal binary. That being said, I have found parallels to be very stable for my word processing and excel needs (read: hasnt crashed yet... knock on wood). My only gripe has been that it can be a little slow printing documents due to the lack of usb 2.0.

As a student, I find that parallels has allowed me to save money on programs that I already have (at least until they are UB) and still keep productivity high since I dont have to restart all the time. It has been more stable than my previous windows machine (i have never had to use the dreaded control-alt-del combo). I have also seen friends do some basic 3D rendering in autocad 2002 on their macbooks using parallels, but they did have 2GB of ram on board. I am satisfied with parallels and it has made my machine much more versatile . I also like the fact that if my machine was to get corrupted, reinstalling my machine to how it looked previously is a breeze

Like other have said, it really depends on what programs you want to run. I should mention that I bought my macbook when they were first introduced. Therefore I had the advantage of getting parallels at the introductory price. Am I happy with parallels? You bet. Would I pay full price for the program? Again, the answer is yes.

 

[Arnaud]

Actually... I bought Parallels last week, because I need a Windows solution to access my PDA, etc.

But I'm not that satisfied. I run it on a C2D 2.33 (iMac 24"), and I find that it is unstable and very heavy on the whole system. When running, I get hangs / slow downs with XP, but also with the other applications, including the finder.

I don't mind slow downs, I can be patient for XP, but not on the rest of the machine. It ends up being "open parallels and forget about the rest", so I could as well use boot camp. The worst seems to be when using heavy network software (p2p).

Maybe some of these issues can be solved by twitching paramaters, but I've already tried around...

 

[balamw]

I run it on a C2D 2.33 (iMac 24"), and I find that it is unstable and very heavy on the whole system.

How much RAM do you have? I had similar behavior w/512 MB until I upgraded to 2 GB...

B

 

[Arnaud]

How much RAM do you have? I had similar behavior w/512 MB until I upgraded to 2 GB...

B

I already have 2 Gb installed, and the whole system is very fluid when Parallels is not open.

 

[crevs]

A few no doubt very easy questions from an absolute novice Mac user. In fact i must confess that this is the first time that I have considered purchasing a mac.

With reference to Parallels:

1. If I run a external monitor off the macbook via an extended desktop display, can I run windows on one pane and OS on the other?

2. Is joining the macbook to a pc based network now easier to do given the ability to operate windows?

3. How do you connect to the internet via both operating systems at the same time? (a mate can do it with one system but not the other at the same time - as it says that the internet is in use by another system)