Playing MS Windows Games on Mac (Guest PC)

[truz]

I just wanted to know if anyone has used Guest PC (lismoresystems.com) or any other software like Guest PC to play MS Windows Games like "Half-Life 2, HL2 Counter Strike: Source". If so.. hows the game play?

 

[PlaceofDis]

you're not going to be able to play any Graphics intensive games with an emulator. Virtual PC and Guest PC are simply an emulation of Windows. they won't help you run games because they cannot directly access your hardware

 

[mkrishnan]

From the GuestPC website:

Can I play games with Guest PC?

"Yes" and "No". There are tons of PC games, and some of them require a powerful PC to work the best. To see if Guest PC is appropriate to run the game you want to buy, check the box or the Users Manual for the game’s system requirements. If the game doesn't need accelerated 3D video and high processor performance, it will run. If you want to run the latest shooters, or quests and you are an enthusiastic gamer, we suggest you buy a hardware PC or a game console.

Your games would fall under the "no" part of "yes" and "no."

 

[truz]

I can run Counter Strike: Source on my old laptop amd2400+ with 512mb ram and a 32mb shared video card and it runs okay.. Not lagging at all the graphics just look a little shabby.

Is Virtual PC and Guest PC the same? Would I be better off running Virtual PC if I were to purchase office pro for mac. I know Guest PC installs windows on your mac, Does Virtual PC do the same or no? Also, how hard is it to remove windows once installing it on a mac? Does windows try taking over your mac or does mac force it to stay in its place as well as allow easy removal of ALL FILES!?

 

[mkrishnan]

I can run Counter Strike: Source on my old laptop amd2400+ with 512mb ram and a 32mb shared video card and it runs okay.. Not lagging at all the graphics just look a little shabby.

Is Virtual PC and Guest PC the same? Would I be better off running Virtual PC if I were to purchase office pro for mac. I know Guest PC installs windows on your mac, Does Virtual PC do the same or no? Also, how hard is it to remove windows once installing it on a mac? Does windows try taking over your mac or does mac force it to stay in its place as well as allow easy removal of ALL FILES!?

If you have a G5 Quad, you might get performance approaching your AMD. On a good day. But I would actually doubt it. I've never tried it, so I can't vouch. The game may not even run if it uses DirectX.

VirtualPC is a pretty clean application. Both GuestPC (AFAIK) and VPC install the Windows environment in a disk image. So there's basically only one file that holds all the Windows files (in addition to preferences, and so on, for VPC or GPC itself). It isn't like you'll suddenly have 20,000 Windows files strewn about your drive. It won't leave detritus anymore than the average MacOS application.

You'd probably be fine on a newer Mac using Office through VPC, although I dunno about using it full time that way (if you mean you want to avoid buying Office for MacOS). I personally think that would get old very quickly.

 

[topgunn]

I can run Counter Strike: Source on my old laptop amd2400+ with 512mb ram and a 32mb shared video card and it runs okay.. Not lagging at all the graphics just look a little shabby.

Is Virtual PC and Guest PC the same? Would I be better off running Virtual PC if I were to purchase office pro for mac. I know Guest PC installs windows on your mac, Does Virtual PC do the same or no? Also, how hard is it to remove windows once installing it on a mac? Does windows try taking over your mac or does mac force it to stay in its place as well as allow easy removal of ALL FILES!?

Your old laptop is faster than emulating Windows by a sizable amount when it comes to games.

VPC keeps all of Windows in one image. The Windows sees the image as an entire partition with all its files in it. It is very clean.

 

[truz]

alright I was only asking. I'm new to mac's so I'm learning..

 

[blaster_boy]

Any game that is non-graphic intensive will run fine in VPC, ie adventure games like monkey islands I and II, but the moment you play any 3D games in VPC, performance will slow to a crawl. VPC emulates an S3 card, which is really, *really* old !

Old DOS games will run fine using the dosbox emulator (so not using VPC, this is a separate application). Do a Google for it if you are interested.

I think (or rather : I hope !) that once the Intel Macs come out that we will be able to run 3D intensive windows games concurrently on the same mac with only a little bit of speed loss, as there will be less emulation needed.

And please don't feel attacked by the others. This is a bit of a sore point for mac users...