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VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or Crossover?

N

nylock10

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 26, 2006
209
0
Hey,

I decided to stop using Windows XP via Boot Camp, I needed the space back and by using MacDrive in Windows it erased my external HD twice.

Right now I loaded Steam (Counter-Strike Source, Half-Life 2 etc) in CrossOver which runs OK, but will I get better performance with VMWare Fusion or Parallels, or should I just stick with Crossover?

CrossOver runs pretty well, but the mouse slows down sometimes which makes it difficult to use games.
 
VMware

From everything I researched and tried myself, VMware Fusion seems faster.

Their Tech Support for VMware Fusion is in Bangalore however and it SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCKS!!!!!!!!! beyond compare....

So if it just works and you don't need anything special, I would recommend VMware.
 
speaking of this. which of them has the best comparability with managing a boot-camp partition too?
 
nylock10 said:
Hey,

I decided to stop using Windows XP via Boot Camp, I needed the space back and by using MacDrive in Windows it erased my external HD twice.

Right now I loaded Steam (Counter-Strike Source, Half-Life 2 etc) in CrossOver which runs OK, but will I get better performance with VMWare Fusion or Parallels, or should I just stick with Crossover?

CrossOver runs pretty well, but the mouse slows down sometimes which makes it difficult to use games.
Click to expand...

what are your system specs? Also, what fps are you getting in source running crossover? I'm curious to see which option I want to go with as well on my new MBP.
 
I'm afraid you're out of options. Bootcamp or crossover are your options for games, and it seems like you've tried them both.

Unless things have very, VERY recently changed, fusion and parallels won't run most games because they don't support Shaders.

Also, switching to fusion or parallels means you're gonna have both windows and os x running SIMULTANEOUSLY, so you'll have to dedicate RAM for each operating system... so unless you have plenty of RAM, any gaming you do (which you probably won't be able to do in the first place) would take a hit.

And I don't think you'll be saving yourself any hard drive space switching from crossover.
Crossover is the most space efficient because you DON'T need to install windows. As you know, bootcamp requires you to install windows.... and since fusion and parallel both run windows in emulation... they of course require windows to be installed as well...
So crossover is the only one that does NOT require you to install windows.

And regardless of what solution you use, you're gonna have to install any games or other PC applications onto your hard drive... whether you're running them in bootcamp or parallels or crossover or anything else.

---------------

Simply put, you're going to get the best gaming performance in boot camp... period. No way around it.

And if you had problems with MacDrive you should take it up with the developers. I wouldn't touch the mac partition from within windows or vice versa unless you really know what you're doing though... sorry you lost your data : \
 
Yeah, the virtualization software didn't even come close to playable.

I wish there was a way of playing these games at full speed without Boot Camp (*cough* Valve needs to port them *cough*)

Anyways, I tried both Windows XP virtualization softwares and have found this out: They run games like crap.

CrossOver is by far the best choice, runs pretty well (30FPS - 40FPS) at almost any resolution I set it to. And like you said, CrossOver is the most space effective.

Another reason why I decided to get rid of Boot Camp is that I found myself either having less time to play games or just not interested in it (and more interested in other applications).

One other possible solution to not having to use Boot Camp, is to put Windows XP on an external firewire/USB drive (I found a guide around the web on how to do this). It kind of ruins the whole "space saving" thing I was trying to go for, but at least it wouldn't be on my internal drive.

My specifications are:
Core Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM, Radeon x1600 256MB.
 
nylock10 said:
One other possible solution to not having to use Boot Camp, is to put Windows XP on an external firewire/USB drive (I found a guide around the web on how to do this). It kind of ruins the whole "space saving" thing I was trying to go for, but at least it wouldn't be on my internal drive.

My specifications are:
Core Duo 2GHz, 2GB RAM, Radeon x1600 256MB.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't you need to use bootcamp to put it on the drive in such a fashion that ur mac would boot from it though?

BTW... our systems have the same specs. Half life 2 ran very well on my iMac with pretty much all settings on high and resolution at 1280x800. I couldn't go higher than that though without compromising performance.

With Episode 1 (and especially Episode 2) I have to turn down the settings a bit though. I maintain the same resolution because turning it down makes half life look HORRIBLE on a 20" monitor. I can't keep the rest of the settings on high in episode 2... even lowering them a bit i still often drop below 30 fps. Still playable that way though.

What's your performance been?
And btw, what size screen you using (and iMac or macbook pro?)
 
I'm using an iMac with a 20" screen, and 1280x800 doesn't look bad at all.

I tried Team Fortress 2, the performance was OK but it didn't look very good.

Boot Camp wouldn't be required to put it on the external drive as far as I know, it just makes it easy to make a Windows-compatible (FAT32) partition on your internal drive.
 
i can't get half life to run on my macbook. i have the beta 2 version and it says it should run but i can't get it to load.

the window says preparing to launch half life 2 and then just disapears about 2 minutes later.

am i missing somthing?
 
VMWare Fusion is over priced garbage

I hate it. I absolutely hate VMWare Fusion. I use a Mac but I have to use a couple programs from Windows for work. This lovely product only manages to run slow if it manages to run long enough to get windows booted. 50% of the time the VMWare Fusion virtual machine will blue screen just starting up. If it manages to make it up and I get some work in it's still just a matter of time before it blue screens trying to do something trivial like save a file.

I haven't tried parallels but I am giving strong thoughts about just dual booting with bootcamp and using a thumb stick to move files between the windows and OSX heads. If I have to continue to use VMWare Fusion I am going to scream.
 
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