Question re VISTA’s Aero on Blackbook’s Video

[r-gordon-7]

I’m brand new to the Mac world - and have an MBP "Blackbook" on order. (When it arrives, it will be my 1st ever experience with a Mac.) It will have 4GB RAM & a 250GB hard drive. I intend to install VISTA Ultimate & run it w/Parallels. (This will be my first experience with VISTA, as well - as my old computer is a 3 1/2 year old HP laptop w/XP SP2 w/only 512 MB RAM & a 64 MB video card.)

Will VISTA’s Aero bells & whistles (fully enabled) run on my “Blackbook”, or is the "Blackbook's" shared video not up to the task of running Aero “full bore”?

Given the "Blackbook's" shared video/system RAM, will having 4GB system RAM in it help at all to run VISTA's Aero video bells & whistles, or does having more RAM to share not help?

(Note, I'm not a gamer, so at least I don't need or expect the "Blackbook's" video to perform on that level – but being able to run VISTA “full bore” would be nice...)

Maybe I should’ve gone with the MBP instead, but I like the “Blackbook’s” small form-factor – and I especially wanted the black finish.

Thanks,
r-gordon-7

 

[heatmiser]

Will VISTA’s Aero bells & whistles (fully enabled) run on my “Blackbook”, or is the "Blackbook's" shared video not up to the task of running Aero “full bore”?

Any Macbook will be able to run Aero in Vista, as the GMA950/x3100 cards are Aero-capable.

 

[~~Hello~~]

You can't get MBP blackbooks.

 

[triddent222]

You can't get MBP blackbooks.

*rolls eyes*

...>.....>....

Yes, the Blackbook (Black MacBook) can run Vista's Aero interface under BootCamp. Using Parallels/Vmware you will not be able to use the Aero interface. But that''s also true for the MacBook Pro (At least, I cannot).

 

[iMan G5]

Please tell me you didn't buy apple ram.......

 

[tersono]

As a previous poster said, Parallels and VMWare do not currently support the Vista Aero interface as the emulated video card is below Aero's minimum spec. This is regardless of whatever current Mac you are running. Vista Aero will, however, work perfectly in Boot Camp (dual-booting) - albeit the Aero interface slows things down rather whatever you run it on...

4Gb RAM isn't essential to run Vista and probably won't make that much difference over 2gb under Boot Camp unless you're running lots of heavyweight programs. It also doesn't make one iota of difference to the ability of the system to handle Aero. Under Parallels or VMWare, however, you're going to need all the RAM you can get, so 4Gb makes a lot of sense there.

One last suggestion - if you do want to run Windows under Parallels or VMWare, I'd strongly recommend sticking with XP - performance is far superior generally.

 

[r-gordon-7]

One last suggestion - if you do want to run Windows under Parallels or VMWare, I'd strongly recommend sticking with XP - performance is far superior generally.

Will I be able to install XP under Parallels using the (pre-SP2) discs that came with my 3 1/2 year old HP laptop and then download SP2 online and install it over XP as an XP upgrade, as I did each time I had to reinatall Windows on my HP laptop?

r-gordon-7