Vista on C2D MBPs for the n00bars

[Machead III]

Right, I've ordered a C2D MBP and am a long time bootcamper for games. I have always dual booted with XP, but I am considering switching to Vista now I have access to a beta (or could alternately buy upon release).

So, 1) is there any major difference in stability and performance between the latest pre-release copy of Vista and what will be released in January?

2) Will running games written for XP see a performance increase, decrease or no change under Windows Vista?

3) Is Bootcamp happy dual vooting with a Vista install?

4) Are there any other reasons anyone can think of why a noob like me should definately try or avoid trying to install Vista on my MBP C2D?

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

Perhaps this thread should be moved to the "Windows on the mac" forum?

 

[Machead III]

Well when I ask about Vista performance, I mean specifically on the new MacBook Pro C2Ds, given their specs.

 

[Jiddick ExRex]

Nevermind me then.

 

[iW00t]

So, 1) is there any major difference in stability and performance between the latest pre-release copy of Vista and what will be released in January?

Stability, performance, and Vista in 1 sentence?

lol

Here is why you should not bother with Vista.

1. Unlike PCs, Macs do not come with DX10 ready GPUs
2. The only real reason why to use Vista is to get DX10 support really
3. It sounds like you are a "warez dude", considering how much DRM there is in Vista no way in hell would I want it on any of my PCs, let alone my workhorse mac, but YMMV

 

[Pressure]

Generally you will see a decrease in performance in games under Vista compared to Windows XP, as various drivers still have more overhead compared to refined drivers for Windows XP.

It also requires more system resources but it does look prettier.

 

[projectle]

The real question that we should be asking is how can we downgrade XP to 2000 so that we can get rid of all of that pesky overhead and still play all of our games at even higher framerates under Bootcamp?

Sure, 2000 would lack a lot of the Wireless Networking stuff that we have in XP, but all of the other drivers should run with no issues.

Sure, Vista is where it is all going, and sure I will probably throw a copy on my Macbook Pro sometime just to check out how it has evolved since I last saw it a year ago (I was working at MS in Windows Core, and then left for philosophical reasons...)

Either way, the whole "try it for 30 days before you need to enter a product key" would probably entice some people who would not consider it otherwise.

That way, MS already has an in for convincing people to pay them $400 to keep using their computer with the latest and greatest.

Still, I am following CodeWeavers' Wine implementation very closely as I am sure that it will pave the way for Windows apps and games under OS X Pseudo-natively. All we need is Transgaming's Cedega DirectX Wine implementation and we will be set (it had HL2 running in Linux since 3 days after its release with some pretty nice fps).

 

[Anonymous Freak]

1. Unlike PCs, Macs do not come with DX10 ready GPUs
2. The only real reason why to use Vista is to get DX10 support really
3. It sounds like you are a "warez dude", considering how much DRM there is in Vista no way in hell would I want it on any of my PCs, let alone my workhorse mac, but YMMV

1. Unlike any computer, Macs do not come with DX10 add-on GPUs. Only the just released nVidia 8800 supports the new DirectX 10 functionality. (Although all current Mac GPUs do support DirectX 10 just fine; just as my ancient GeForce 256 (the original,) supports DirectX 9 just fine. They don't support the new DirectX 10-specific functions (Pixel shader 4.0,) but they are 100% 'DirectX 10 compatible', or will be when new drivers come out. My GMA 950 supports DirectX 10 in Vista just fine.)

2. There are more reasons than just DX10, really.

3. How does he sound like a "warez dude"? The beta is open to anyone. I've had it for months, perfectly legally.

As for the system resources, you can still put Vista in 'Classic' visual mode, just like you can in XP, to make it look like Win2000. And Vista can be tweaked pretty well to disable some of the 'advanced' features.

As for DRM? Deal with it. XP has it, even 2000 had DRM tacked on. If you want to run current software, you have to deal with DRM. (Most major-release games have it, too.) Just having DRM on the system doesn't make it inherently less secure. It's the privacy policies you need to pay attention to.

 

[witness]

I installed the final release version of Vista Ultimate under bootcamp today and I have to say that the performance was pretty good. It's much more stable than the pre-release versions.

I'm not much of a gamer, but I installed a few games and the graphics were pretty good.

One thing that I've noticed is that now that the UI rendering is done in the graphics card, general usage of the OS UI is a lot smoother. I think that most all Intel macs (possibly with the exception of the Intel GMA models) will support the aqua interface under vista. Of course OS X has had this for a long time, windows is just catching up

 

[SiliconAddict]

Anyone who uses Vista at this point after MS has had so many issues is nuts. Seriously. XP's buggyness was 10x less out of the box in 2001. Vista is NOT something to mess with until SP1 and its 100+ tweaks is released, which I expect to occure before the end of '07.
But by all means go ahead. Never mind that Apple hasn't even started looking at Vista support yet.

 

[witness]

My job revolves around windows security. I'm currently working on a product that totally replaces windows security in W2K and XP with a very high grade security layer. As part of that job we need to look at porting our product to Vista.

I would probably not use Vista as my primary OS (I like unix and am quite happy with OS X), but from what I've seen so far it's not as unstable as people have been reporting. Remember that most of the reports have been from people who have been using pre-relase versions.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Intel GMA950 supports the 'Aero' interface of Vista. I've been running it on a GMA950-based computer for a while now. Unfortunately, Microsoft Flight Simulator X is unstable in Vista. (Apparently it's a known issue, MS says to turn off Aero to fix it.) It's also dirt slow. It's much faster in XP on my MacBook Pro. (3.8 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 GB RAM and the GMA950 vs. 2.0 GHz Core Duo with 2 GB RAM and ATI X1600/256MB.)