Using the new iMac, and was wondering what windows emulator you all would suggest so I can play games on this box. Also, do I need to install Windows (I have a copy), or will Parallels or VMWare just work when I buy them? And this is only for gaming. Everything else I need can be down with the Apple OS (Adobe Suite, Office, Final Cut Pro, etc.).
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Really Fake
Bootcamp
srv
I use VMware Fusion, was just $49. Yes, you need to install windows on top of that.
Not sure how gaming emulation works, presume the game doesn’t prereq some exotic gaming board. I think the iMac has some basic intel graphics.
I know other people who use Parallels for work and don’t seem to have problems. But I think it’s more setup. Fusion is super stable.
Davis X. Machina
Parallels, for me at least, has always worked with minimum fuss. You do need an install image of Windows, though, for setup.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@srv: I use VMware Fusion on my Macbook as well. It works well, but I don’t do gaming.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
If it’s just for FPS gaming, you probably want to dual boot with BootCamp.
I set up my step mom with a Win7 virtual machine with Virtual Box so she could run Quicken and QuickBooks. I sent her a memory stick with the VM already configured after I installed Win7-64 in it. There were some teething issues, but she eventually got them worked out.
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
You can buy Parallels with Winders with it, or without.
I assume you’ll quickly get 300 replies, so I better post this…
HTH a little. Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Francis
I have kind of a related question. I just bought a Dell laptop and connected it to a stand-alone monitor. I can’t get my games (I was planning on replaying Bioshock) to play on the big monitor.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Francis: I assume you’re using the F5 (or whatever) key to direct the laptop to use the external monitor and that’s not working. Sometimes there’s a software gizmo that takes over from that. Maybe this thread will help.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
El Cruzado
Bootcamp AND Fusion/Parallels. You’ll need to restart in ‘pure’ Windows for the more demanding games, but older/more casual fare should work well from the Mac through virtualization (both applications support loading the Bootcamp partition from within OS X).
dopealope
Just buy an xBox or PS3 …
Doc Sportello
Not a gamer, but Parallels has always done well for me with other stuff. Check around the web, as there js usually some kind of special deal going on.
Intrigued by the idea of just running Windows through straight boot camp.
taylormattd
John, I’m finding people that used Parallels two years ago to run SWTOR very nicely (1680×1050, high settings, 40+ fps), so I am quite sure it will work for your needs.
karen
I use Crossover so I don’t have to install windows on my mac.
Soonergrunt
@Francis: Hit the Fn and F8 keys at the same time to change the primary display to the external monitor. You may have to do this a couple of times.
Ivan X
You definitely need a copy of Windows. Parallels and VMware Fusion are just the hardware emulators.
They’re both excellent, but I haven’t used either for gaming. Parallels has better Mac OS integration in my opinion. I agree with El Cruzado that you should set up Boot Camp for when you need max performance, but then use your emulator with it when you want to be able to go back and forth between your Mac and Windows apps without rebooting.
P Jones
@Really Fake:
Seconded. You’re going to take a huge performance hit if you use a virtual OS.
Hank
Parallels and VMWare are just programs that run on the Mac while it’s running OS X. Inside that app you can boot an operating system that thinks it’s really running on an actual computer not inside a program that is running inside some operating system that is running on an actual computer. That was a long, convoluted way of saying that you’ll be buying Windows. You can dual boot between Windows and OS X (using bootcamp) or you can run Windows inside a virtual machine (using Parallels or VMWare). The upside of the virtual machine is that you don’t have to reboot the computer to run Windows. The downside of the virtual machine is that graphics performance will suffer since when Windows thinks it’s talking to the graphics card it’s really talking to a pretend graphics card inside the virtual machine. The virtual machine will then take the graphics command, translate it to Mac-ese and send it to the actual graphics card.
That being said, you could go another route and get Crossover. This is a program that has reverse engineered the Windows system calls and allows you to run some (there’s a list on their website) Windows programs on Mac OS without having to buy Windows. The graphics performance in this alternative are again not so awesome.
I dual boot my Hackintosh to play games, but have experimented with Crossover for playing World of Tanks. It worked after a fashion but the game crashed intermittently and the graphics would sometimes go a bit weird.
Villago Delenda Est
Totally OT. More idiocy from Noisemax:
Romney: Obama’s Foreign Policy ‘Monumental Bust’
Oh, really, brilliant guy who managed to tick off the Brits with offhand comments about the London Olympics?
David Koch
Sounds like you’re jumping through a lot of hoops just to play Pong on your pc.
Villago Delenda Est
@dopealope: The more, um, demanding games actually run on PCs and Macs. Demanding in the sense of “greater intellectual challenge” for the most part, although there are exceptional games that run on the game consoles that are pretty good in the adult entertainment (not talking pr0n here) category.
rikyrah
Obama nominates 4 to fill U.S. District Court judgeships
former Pennsylvania attorney general, an ex-lawyer for the Philadelphia School District, and the president of the Pennsylvania Bar Institute all made the list Friday as President Obama nominated four candidates for spots on the federal bench.
If confirmed, the nominees, none of whom has judicial experience, will fill four of the five current vacancies in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, which covers the Philadelphia region.
“I am honored to put forward these highly qualified candidates,” the president said in a statement. “They will be distinguished public servants and valuable additions to the United States District Courts.”
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20140614_Obama_nominates_4_to_fill_U_S__District_Court_judgeships.html#jOF7TdEeigucX8Pj.99
dmsilev
Do both VM and Bootcamp; the major VM programs can recognize a Bootcamp partition and work with it just fine. That way, if you want to run something undemanding in Windows you can do it in a VM and not shut down everything else you have running in OS X, but you retain the option to reboot into Windows if you need more computational grunt.
Depending on what games you want to play, running them in a VM can work reasonably well (I’ve run Skyrim in a Parallels VM on my Macbook Pro, albeit at slightly lower detail levels than booting natively into Windows). Also, check to see if there’s a Mac-native version of your game. If you buy your games through Steam, you usually get both versions as part of the same purchase.
? Martin
Anything that really hits the GPU just go straight to Bootcamp. Apple’s drivers aren’t great, so download the drivers from NVIDIA.
VMWare works very well, but you’ll lose about 5% on framerate assuming you have enough RAM to cover MacOS + Windows + game (>8GB). If you have 8GB or less, you’ll probably suffer worse performance.
Personally I stick with VMWare. I don’t run many Windows only games, and when I do I don’t mind the small performance hit.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: What are “adult entertainment” games. Not trolling, I really don’t know. I was never much of a FPS which of course is the big category of games, but I found moving to a tablet and smartphone I find myself playing kids games. But I think a lot of that is I just like to play a game for 30-45 minutes. Outside of Civilization and a few other games not so into a game that takes 30+ hours to finish.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tommy: Well, I was thinking Civ and games like it and some RPGs myself. Console games are a mixed bag…some stuff is pretty mindless, orthers are pretty deep. The more deep MMOs are PC/Mac games.
dmsilev
@? Martin: Last time I read a comparative review of the VM software packages, Parallels came out slightly on top compared to VMWare for 3D-heavy stuff (slightly better frame rates, fewer compatibility glitches). Both companies put out new versions every year or so, so that may be out of date by now.
VirtualBox is free, but it’s 3d performance is spotty compared to the commercial packages.
? Martin
@Tommy: In the last few years, game titles have become more realistic both graphically and in terms of character behavior. As a result they’re becoming more emotionally realistic as well. Basically, games are slowly becoming more like interactive movies, with movie settings, decisions, consequences, and messages.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: Agreed. I am a little more “old school” with my games. I still have a PS2, PS3, N64, and Sega Dreamcast set-up that I play. I just don’t needed the “newest” game. Playing Batman Arkham City and wow is that a fun game.
Tommy
@? Martin: Yes they have. Not gotten a PS4 but even on my PS3 I am stunned by the graphics. Heck my father was over and I was playing Tiger Woods and he walked by the TV a few times, from way across the room, and at first he thought I was watching the PGA and not playing a game.
Audio
I prefer VMWare Fusion. I have 4 or 5 old Windows PCs I virtualized prior to scrapping them so, anytime I think I may have lost an old document, I can fire up any of those old virtualized machines.
Additionally, you will need a genuine Windows license. You can download the Windows 7 image from the internet and install the Windows Bootcamp partition or create virtualized desktop from the image and then, after creating the partition or virtual machine, activate Windows using the license key.
? Martin
@dmsilev: VirtualBox is shit. We evaluate all of the virtual machines at work as we do a lot of heavy 3D graphics and such. Parallels is definitely marketed toward consumers and gamers, and they do have good 3D performance, but I think their advantage is a bit more on 2D (non accelerated). VMWare we find to be pretty close behind, but more consistent and stable and a better environment to work in overall.
We run into periodic problems with Parallels, so I guess it depends on how finely tuned your performance/hassle sensor is. Because we have support costs, we’re happy to forgo a small amount of performance for less hassle. If you don’t mind mind fucking around with it now and then, or going a few weeks not using a game because Parallels was too aggressive on optimization and causes your game to crash while waiting on them to fix the problem, then I don’t see any particular downside to them. They’re both quite good, but with different priorities.
dmsilev
@? Martin: I use Parallels largely because one of my use-cases (Autodesk Inventor) recommends that instead of VMWare. Not sure why, but it works well enough for me that I’ve not bothered looking too deeply into switching. Parallels is irritating with their constant stream of paid upgrades though (every year). I usually upgrade every second version and that’s been fine.
? Martin
@dmsilev: Autodesk had some kind of agreement with Parallels, but we found it worked just as well in each.
Michael J.
If you’re going for absolute speed, Bootcamp. If a VM is acceptable (nicer because you don’t have to reboot) I recommend VMWare because Parallels spews stuff all over your drive, and VMWare is a contained app that you can manage like other normal software.
lamh36
Um..so I got tired of Sprint, so I switched my carrier to AT&T. I ordered a phone online, but I didn’t like it so I went to the store to return the one I don’t like and trade in my Sprint Galaxy S4 for a credit towards purchasing another phone (Sprint doesn’t have AT&T compatible SIM card, so you can’t use Sprint phones with AT&T). I like my Galaxy S4 and I was gonna just use the trade in credit to purchase an AT&T S4. So I looked at AT&T online for some possible phone options and I while I was looking at phones, I figured let’s check out the new Ipad Air. Long story short I bought a new Ipad Air online and picked it up at the store when I went
I was debating whether or not I was gonna go back to the IPhone, but I just went ahead and traded in my Sprint Galaxy S4 for a credit and I used it towards a the AT&T Galaxy S4. Like I said, I like my Galaxy, and after using Galaxy for over a year, the IPhone face is just TOO small. I felt like a giant using the keys (and I’ve had like 2 IPhones before) .
So I’ve got a new Ipad Air with cellular and wi-fi capabliies unlike my old Ipad 2 and right now I’m transferring my ICloud backup storage to the new IPad Air and it’s going seamlessly.
Just wanted to share my new tech news.
Ivan X
Re Crossover: Every few years I take another look at it, conclude that it’s more trouble than its worth in terms of both operation and compatibility, and happily return to Parallels.
Bill E Pilgrim
Thirding Bootcamp, FWIW.
I bought a Mac around 2007 and used Bootcamp to run it as a Windows machine at least half the time. You have to boot up into whichever one you want (restart the computer to switch, in other words) but for the most part it was impossible to distinguish (I almost wrote “virtually indistinguishable” but decided that risked confusing the issue) from any other Windows laptop.
The Mac Powerbook actually cost considerably less than the Sony Vaio I was thinking of buying though so even having to buy a copy of Windows for $100 or whatever it was still left me way ahead on the deal.
I’ve used VMware also and it’s fine, but not the same thing. With Bootcamp it was a Windows machine, no performance issues at all.
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
OT: GOP minority outreach continues apace.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I’m shocked.
No, wait, I’m not.
shelley
@Villago Delenda Est:
Even more idiocy. ‘Do you think Romney should run again? Vote now’
nickrud
If you’re going to play windows games on your iMac do it in Bootcamp. There is inevitable overhead when you’re running an emulator and, depending on the game, it may bee too much.
Having said that, I use paralllels for office apps daily and am quite happy with it.
dmsilev
@shelley: I confess to being vastly amused by ‘D’Souza’s ‘America’ to Portray Teen Hillary’. On so many levels. The idea that anyone will give a fuck about Teen Hillary being the most hilarious.
John (MCCARTHY) Cole
What will I need to install it? I have a copy of windows 7 I used for my pc. Can I use that license and just buy bootcamp?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: You don’t buy BootCamp. FAQ.
Just like on a real PC, you need a new Win7 license if you install Win7 in BootCamp.
Think of BootCamp as just another real PC that lives inside your iMac. If you want Windows on it, you gotta pay the MS tax. Using BootCamp (or VMWare or Parallels or VirtualBox or …) doesn’t change that.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
mike with a mic
You’ll need to dual boot. The imac has really shitty components. They use laptop parts instead of desktop parts and always a generation or more behind to boot. So first you take the performance hit for using laptop/lower power parts, keep in mind you’re behind a generation or more, and then you take the performance hit for using a virtual machine.
That’s not really effective for gaming unless you’re talking really low end/casual stuff.
Sorry but, just give up on high end computing tasks when using a mac unless it’s a mac pro… and then accept you have to live in apples walled garden.
magurakurin
uh, I thought Apple products “just worked”…
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole: One more thing that may or may not be important to you:
Another advantage of using a VM approach (VMWare, Parallels, VirtualBox, etc.) over BootCamp is that you can take the Virtual Machine files and use them on another PC/Mac/Linux box whenever you want. So, in a year or two when you decide you want a different machine, you can still use your VM with Win7 (or whatever) without sending more money to MS. If you install Windows on your iMac with BootCamp, it’s stuck there.
Of course, if you’re interested in games, then you’ll be at the mercy of the game writers and their version of DirectX and their upgrades that only support the latest OS versions, and so forth, so it might not be much of a benefit to be able to move VMs.
Just another thing to consider before you make your choice. Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who finds that VirtualBox works fine for me, but I don’t do 3D gaming.)
J R in WV
I’ve been in the Linux world for several years now. It can be as infuriating as Windows at times. Yesterday I was installing a common piece of software, and reading BJ in another window while watching the install progress bar in a tiny window. It was a Canon printer driver for a new printer I got yesterday.
The linux std work space has icons along the left edge. a dozen or so. There was a twitch over on the left edge. I looked more carefully. An icon disappeared!!
As I watched, the icons went away. Finally, I decided to turn the machine off, regardless of the potential mess.
Then it wouldn’t boot. In Linux you can see the progress of a boot by pressing ESC after the boot loader starts. It would run a page or two of responses, then one would fail, another would fail, and boot would hang.
So today I spent 3 hours with a friend from next door reloading the machine. Now it has a newer LTS (long term service, means it will be supported for years) version. And the printer works. Nice photo quality output.
But it doesn’t really do games without an emulator, just like the Macs. But I don’t play games, so that’s OK.
Glad there wasn’t really anything we needed to recover, we could have but it would have been a pain. The utils let you repartition to save things, if you need to. Glad we didn’t have to.
? Martin
The nice thing about both Parallels and VMWare is that you can create a Bootcamp partition and then have either virtualization software run off the bootcamp partition. So if you don’t mind parting with $50 for the software, you can do both at your convenience.
@mike with a mic: GTX 780M with 4GB is very good for a laptop GPU.
mike with a mic
@magurakurin:
As long as you don’t need to do anything complex or that requires high end and high performance hardware and live in an apple only world they do.
There are a lot of things where that just won’t cut it. So if you buy a mac you need to accept you’re living in a world of limitations and stuck to low end and low quality hardware.
Bill E Pilgrim
@magurakurin: Well, they run Windows. Try doing that the other way around, running a Mac OS on a PC/Windows machine.
Can be done, but more complicated and only the virtual option is even possible.
Not to get into a whole Mac v Windows thing, they each have things they do and don’t do, but in this particular case with Bootcamp it’s an example of a Mac capability that a non-Apple PC doesn’t even have.
mike with a mic
@? Martin:
It’s a generation behind, the 800 series is out. It’s still a shit GPU though, the 780m is nothing like the desktop 780, it’s laughable. Hence why for high end gaming and high end GPU compute, crippled laptop CPUs and GPUs just don’t cut it.
I have a 780m and 870m in my laptops… I do all my real gaming on a desktop because they are such trash compared to the desktop. Gaming laptops are for fucking around in games that aren’t all that graphically demanding on the go. They aren’t for rocking through AAA titles that show off the power of a computer compared to a console.
John Cole needs to just buy a PS4 or Xbox One and call it a day.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@mike with a mic: Another way to put it is to use the right machine for the job. If you want to run games, then it makes a lot more sense to get an
XBox360XBoxOne or PS4 than to run them on a PC (or Mac). If you want things to mostly “Just Work”, especially in a heterogeneous network of PCs (of various vintages), Macs and Linux boxes, then a Mac is a very good choice.Cheers,
Scott.
(Who has Macs, Winders, and Linux boxes at home.)
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
What flavor of Linux are you using? I have a no longer supported Windows XP laptop that I’m thinking of converting to a Linux hobby project.
audio
@Michael J.:
Actually, with a Windows bootcamp partition, you can Use VMware Fusion to boot the bootcamp partiton within OSX. So you can run your bootcamp partition like a VM.
mike with a mic
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I have all flavors at home and deal with all at work as well (sysadmin/netadmin). Cole wants to game. He either needs to buy a proper windows box or any one of the three consoles. Using generation old parts that are already crippled mobile technology and then taking a performance hit for running it through a virtual machine is simply “how can I use the worst possible hardware and fuck this up as much as possible”.
Macs also have various security and enterprise issues.
Or he can buy an ipad and game off that, that’s what apple gaming boils down to. There’s some good stuff on there, but he’s not going to get the great titles.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Steeplejack: Not JR, but I’ve lately converted to Linux Mint 13 with the XFCE desktop. It’s fairly lightweight but capable and everything works out of the box with it. (Fujitsu P7120D, Dell E6400, etc.).
http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=18
It’s supported until April 2017. There’s a newer LTS (long-term support) version 17 that is supported until April 2019 that I haven’t tried yet.
HTH a little.
Cheers,
Scott.
audio
@magurakurin:
Do you want to know the last time I installed a driver on my 6 year old MacBook? Um, never. Never had to do it. Just plug suit in and it works.
mike with a mic
For linux Mint and Unbuntu are the most new user friendly. Fedora works if you want to be a bit more techie about it.
mike with a mic
@audio:
That’s largely true of most operating systems as well. It’s also why apple doesn’t get high quality or performance parts, so you don’t have to deal with it. You just pretty much said “you know how many times I’ve had to ask for rare or medium at McDonalds, never, I just eat it”. It says a lot about the quality of what you buy and what you can appreciate, and not in a good way.
Also, you just said exactly what Rush Limbaugh says about Macs… you’re in great company.
Steeplejack
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Cool, thanks.
JustRuss
@John (MCCARTHY) Cole:
I’m not super familiar with Windows consumer DRM, but I don’t think so. If you already used that win7 license it activated itself and became associated with that computer. Installing on a new machine could be a problem, you may have to call Microsoft and convince them you’re not using the original machine anymore.
I’ve heard that can be a pain or a breeze, depending on how the stars line up. Best of luck.
magurakurin
@audio:
Do all Mac users harbor some believe that people doing generally mundane and simple day to day tasks on a Windows machine spend copious amounts of time “loading drivers,” whatever that must mean, and other intensely complicated things to read their email?
whatever.
J R in WV
@Steeplejack:
We run Ubuntu, upgrading from Version 13 to 14, which is a long term support release that will be supported for some years to come.
You do have to install “non-free” software yourself, like MP3 players, Flash, and video tools.
There are actually several versions of Ubuntu, I prefer the mainstream, it seems to be more robust.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
I had a netbook that I loaded Ubuntu, I think version 6 or 7 and while it ran OK it was entirely useless to do anything other than read email or websites. Printing was almost impossible, anything more than printing was impossible. I understand that a lot of the uselessness has gone away, drivers are now available, etc. If that is so it may now be acceptable. Tell me that’s so. I’d love to get away from the two biggies, who seem to be merging towards each other, MS getting better technically, Apple getting worse in customer service.
pseudonymous in nc
@magurakurin:
I think Mac users have a well-founded belief that gamers spend an inordinate amount of time installing drivers and tweaking GPU settings. Now, hardcore PC gamers would say that Mac users should shut up because they don’t have any good games, and Mac users would reply “sorry, what was that? Couldn’t hear you over the sound of your GPU fan.”
Bootcamp for GPU-intensive stuff and VMWare for everything else, like everyone said. And look for Mac versions of certain games, esp. if you have Steam. Dunno if you can recycle a Win7 licence if your old PC is out of commission; might be tricky to get Microsoft to sell you a new one, unless it’s a “Windows 8.1 Downgrade licence” where you pay for Win8 but they let you install Win7.
Steeplejack
@J R in WV:
Thanks. I was leaning toward Ubuntu. Still need to do some research and figure out what “non-free” stuff I’ll need.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@pseudonymous in nc: You can still get Win7Pro at Amazon.
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Steeplejack: Mint is built on top of Ubuntu. Some of the caveats about the “non-free” stuff applies there as well, but it’s not a major problem. It’s often just a matter of clicking an appropriate checkbox, etc.
This site has lots of information about running Linux Mint13 with XFCE. There may be too much detail, and some of the recommendations may be overbearing, but it might be worth a look.
Do note that in some cases you may need to install the OS software then connect to the network via Ethernet, do an update, and install appropriate WiFi drivers to get your wireless networking working. It depends on your particular hardware.
HTH a little. Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
LongHairedWeirdo
Re: needing a new Win 7 license
It depends on how you buy your software. If you bought a PC with Windows pre-installed, you probably have an OEM license, which is restricted to that piece of hardware. You probably can’t transfer that legally to the mac. (Whether you *can* or not – I don’t know, I’ve never tried.)
If you have a full licence of Windows, you’re allowed to run one copy anywhere you want. If you’ve wiped your old PC, you can use it on your mac. But if your old PC is donated or sold with Windows still intact, the license is still in use. Here, I can say that you definitely *can* install on your mac, but it’s not legal.
dopealope
@Villago Delenda Est: @Villago Delenda Est:
Oh, really? Care to provide any examples?
MikeInSewickley
I’m in the process of creating an entire hacking / network lab on our campus using VirtualBox.
I gave up on Parallels on my Macs years ago when it had trouble with connecting seamlessly on an upgrade. I would have stuck with it but tried Virtualbox for the first time and it came up as soon as I installed Windows.
Oracle (which runs and maintains Virtualbox) keeps it free and even has a number of complete VMs for download that include Linux, webservers, Oracle DBs,,
You still need a licensed Windows to run on it but it is smoothest VM I’ve ever used.
am
Vmware fusion. Sorry to be late to the party. VirtualBox is free and pretty good. Parallels isn’t as polished and costs comparable/more. The bootcamp suggestion is a good one, but I don’t know the various products as well there.