So All in all: BootCamp or OS X?

[Young Spade]

I'm thinking of getting a new MBP in a few weeks. Question: for gaming alone, would I be better off installing games on OS X or running Bootcamp and using Windows 7 (XP?)

I'm thinking of getting the baseline 13 inch with 4 gigs of ram and a HD3000 graphics card.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

Windows 7. Although don't expect to do any gaming on the 3000. It's the world's worst™ current gen graphics card, on par with an ATI 5xxx series.

 

[Young Spade]

Haha; I've watched a few videos; I'm not trying to play anything in HD with full graphics. Sadly one cannot expect top tier performance across the boards without shoveling 1.5k in Apple's face when wanting a laptop :/

 

[0098386]

Windows 7 for sure - even more so if you're getting one of the lower end machines. At least if you're getting a powerful machine then you'll be able to run OSX and Win games at max, but on a lower-end machine the difference between OSX and Win gaming will be greater.

(someone who used to game on a 2006 iMac up until a few months ago)

 

[doh123]

depends on your definition of "better"

if better means, runs all Windows games to their maximum performance level... while losing all access to OSX while gaming... and having to care for a whole Windows install like any other PC, then go for Bootcamp.

if better means, just being able to run most/many games, though some may take more work to get running, and the performance will probably be slightly, to greatly less, but runs right in OSX along with all your other apps, and no Windows needed... then go for OSX.

 

[roadbloc]

Ubuntu Linux.

 

[Young Spade]

Well I'm already getting a MBP as I've been with Macs for a while now; I'm only going to be gaming on the Bootcamp partition, hence my asking.

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

[thunderclap]

Ubuntu Linux.

How is this at all helpful?

 

[riptideMBP]

Windows for sure, even when games come out for osx, the windows version will perform better... that being said, you're definitely gonna have issues with that graphics card

 

[Young Spade]

Windows for sure, even when games come out for osx, the windows version will perform better... that being said, you're definitely gonna have issues with that graphics card

Yea I know it isn't the best; however seeing that I'm alright with playing games mid-low settings, it suits my needs. Gaming will always be an "extra" that comes with the system. Is it alright to settle? Not when I'm paying over a grand.

I'm a college student though and I love OS X. That and the fact that I just simply don't have the funds to get a 15 inch MBP unless someone wants to donate

 

[avro707]

I used bootcamp and Windows 7. But I also have VMWare for those times I quickly want to access Windows 7 without rebooting the machine.

However, this is on MacPro 5,1, rather than a MacBook. I generally find it works well - and the games I run, I'd not try to run them in any other environment other than Windows.

I can see Mac OSX HDD from Windows 7, but cannot write to it. But I can usefully read from that drive, so it mostly works well enough.