Windows Windows 10 and gaming?

[SuperMatt]

So, I love the Dragon Age games, and would like to buy Inquisition. However, I have a Mac and don't want to buy Windows 8 just to play this game. I see that I can download Windows 10 and use it for free until April, which should be more than enough time to play Inquisition as much as I'd like. Has anybody tried gaming with the Windows 10 preview? If it works ok, I'll make a boot camp partition for it and game away!

 

[Dirtyharry50]

I would not expect driver support in bootcamp to exist for a version of Windows that is not officially released yet. The other issue would be the age of your Mac and whether Apple elects to support your model with hardware drivers for bootcamp at all for newer versions of Windows such as Windows 10 when it does release.

For example, when I owned a mid-2011 iMac the most recent version of Windows that bootcamp supported on that model was Windows 7 even though Windows 8 was available. I didn't care in that case but just bring it up to illustrate the point above.

Keep in mind however, I am not an expert in all things bootcamp so for all I know added driver support for various models does get released over time. I never bothered checking again and I have not checked on my current 2013 iMac either since Windows 7 was supported and I am not buying Windows again.

 

[imacken]

For example, when I owned a mid-2011 iMac the most recent version of Windows that bootcamp supported on that model was Windows 7 even though Windows 8 was available. .

Not sure what you mean, Windows 8.1 has been supported by the latest Bootcamp drivers for quite some time now. Includes mid-2011 iMacs.

 

[Dirtyharry50]

Not sure what you mean, Windows 8.1 has been supported by the latest Bootcamp drivers for quite some time now. Includes mid-2011 iMacs.

As I said, when I tried it which would have been maybe 2 years or more ago, that was not the case. Bootcamp specifically informed me which Windows was supported to install.

Just out of curiosity, you have a mid-2011 iMac and have done a Windows 8.1 bootcamp install on it?

In any case, I'm not making that up. In my own experience I did not have the option to go with Windows 8 on a mid-2011 iMac running probably Mountain Lion at the time even though Windows 8 was available in release form. As I speculated above, perhaps driver releases take some time for all Mac hardware to be covered for various Windows release support.

 

[imacken]

Just out of curiosity, you have a mid-2011 iMac and have done a Windows 8.1 bootcamp install on it?
In any case, I'm not making that up. In my own experience I did not have the option to go with Windows 8 on a mid-2011 iMac running probably Mountain Lion at the time even though Windows 8 was available in release form. As I speculated above, perhaps driver releases take some time for all Mac hardware to be covered for various Windows release support.

To be honest, I don't understand this at all.
I have run Windows 8 and 8.1 under Bootcamp since the day they were released on my 2011 iMac with no problems at all, even with the Bootcamp drivers available before they were officially supported, i.e. the Windows 7 ones. I was running Windows 7, then upgraded to 8 and then 8.1. Always with the latest (sometimes pre-release) versions of OS X.
All seamlessly!

 

[Dirtyharry50]

To be honest, I don't understand this at all.
I have run Windows 8 and 8.1 under Bootcamp since the day they were released on my 2011 iMac with no problems at all, even with the Bootcamp drivers available before they were officially supported, i.e. the Windows 7 ones. I was running Windows 7, then upgraded to 8 and then 8.1. Always with the latest (sometimes pre-release) versions of OS X.
All seamlessly!

Okay. What you just said might explain the difference in our experience. I notice you say you upgraded an existing Windows 7 bootcamp install to Windows 8 and later to Windows 8.1. Neither of those upgrade installs would have required the use of bootcamp per se, other than to download and install the most current bootcamp drivers from Apple. Am I right about that? Did you fire up Windows 7 and then run the Windows 8 upgrade install directly on it?

I was talking about the experience of running bootcamp from within OS X to install Windows from scratch and on my system, Windows 8 was not listed as an option doing that, only Windows 7 was, this despite the fact that Windows 8 was out so presumably at the time I was attempting it bootcamp had not been updated on my iMac and I check for updates daily.

This further explains the difference and also points out how over time older Macs do not continue to be supported for latest versions of Windows. I installed prior to the release of Bootcamp 5 which would explain why there was no Windows 8 support.

http://www.macwindows.com/Apple-releases-Boot-Camp-5-for-booting-Macs-with-Windows-8.html

 

[SuperMatt]

Well, I was going to put a fresh install of Win 10 tech preview in bootcamp on a nMP 6-core, D500 machine. It's really just for the one game, because I'm not a big gamer - just love Dragon Age, and sorry Inquisition doesn't have a mac version. I'm thinking the graphics will be very good with Crossfire.

I installed Win 10 in Parallels and tried a simple game - Infinite Crisis - and it worked just fine with very good framerates considering it's emulation. So I'm pretty hopeful that boot camp will work. That being said, if anybody's tried gaming with Win 10 and bootcamp, it'd be good to know.

 

[lewdvig]

I've been using it with zero problems on my gaming laptop. I believe it really is Windows 8.2 that they just decided to rebrand it became of all the hate for eight.

I really like 10.

 

[Renzatic]

I've been using it with zero problems on my gaming laptop. I believe it really is Windows 8.2 that they just decided to rebrand it became of all the hate for eight.

Yeah, it's pretty much a reputation patch, much like 7 was for Vista. There are enough features added to justify a new version number (TWO OF EM), but at its core, it's 8.1 with a little more.

Which is an important thing to keep in mind, because 99% of the time, you can use drivers meant for a previous version of Windows in the latest version with nary a problem. About the worst you'll have to do is set the executable to Windows 8.1 compatibility, because some drivers look at what version of Windows you're on, will see that 10, then give you a version not supported error. Other than that though, they generally work fine.

Generally being the key word, because, well...<liability waiver> I don't want to be held responsible if it doesn't, and your computer blows up. </liability waiver>

 

[malman89]

8.1 (and 8 really) is fantastic, but if you don't have it and they are offering 10 for free, go for it I suppose.