Is Fusion right for me?

Hello everyone! This is my first post. Thanks in advance for your help. First off, I just want to let you know that after decades with Windows, I have made the switch to Mac. I just bought a Macbook Pro with 4GB of memory.

Now here's the deal... I'm a gamer. (Not so much a computer gamer as a pen and paper gamer.) I play GURPS. It's sort of like Dungeons and Dragons. To support these gaming activities I rely on several Windows only applications. One of these applications uses memory intensive autocad (for building maps). When I'm actively running a game, I like to have several applications open at the same time. I.e. Word/Excel on Mac and several instances of a character builder program. In Windows, I Alt-tab'ed constantly.

Finally, I do occasionally play games that require DirectX or OpenGL.

Now that I have switched to Mac I'd like to install parallels or fusion and use bootcamp. Though must report that Parallels is not bootcamp friendly, a letter on their website says it is.

Ideally, I'd like to have Windows XP on a bootcamp partition and use that SAME partition for Parallels/Fusion when "virtualized". In addition, I want to keep all my files in one place so I would like them to share the same "Documents" folder. Finally, I've read a lot about Parallels being a resource hog. I don't mind if it takes up a lot of memory as I'll reboot if I want to do serious gaming. I'm worried that I won't be able to run multiple Windows and Mac applications at the same time and "apple-tab" between them quickly. Thoughts?

Does anyone know if this combination is possible with Fusion and/or Parallels? Can you guru's tell me which solution is better for me based on the needs I described above (i.e. Fusion or Parallels)? Note that I have a server that I can use for keeping all my files in the same place, so if I absolutely cannot combine bootcamp and shared folders, I can manage without. The only problem with that is that accessibility may be shaky when I"m not at home. (I don't trust my Internet provider.)

Thanks for the help!!!

Using the same partition for Fusion AND BootCamp is tricky, because Windows sees a different hardware profile in each one and so thinks it needs to be activated again. If you're after running DirectX of any kind then Fusion has better DirectX support than Parallels, but nowhere near as good as BootCamp, which is accessing the hardware directly. BootCamp will run games pretty well on a MacBook Pro.

The best solution might be to use Fusion for your D&D-style gaming, and make a separate BootCamp partition for DirectX games, which is what I did on my iMac.

Either way, I'd recommend Fusion over Parallels; as I said the DirectX support is better, as is the customer support, and if you need to share the BootCamp partition, Fusion definitely does it.

I run Boot Camp for gaming and Parallels for working with my Windows-only apps. I've got no issues. Gaming in Boot Camp is perfect. Being a PC-user for 12 years I can't see big differences between gaming on PC and gaming on MAC via Boot Camp. My Parallels' experience and brief report is in neighbour thread.
I've heard that Fusion has better DirectX support so oblige to agree with knightlie. But if you run games thru Boot Camp Parallels/Fusion DirectX support doesn't worry you.
Don't want to argue again about Parallels customer support. I find it well. I've found all the question I had on their web-site in Knowledge Base and Forum.
Anyway, I wish you good luck in your uneasy choice!

Hello! I'm a new here!
kolevich, I use too parallels and sometimes Bootcamp. I don't really like to play games much, that's why parallels is enough for me. I saved money having bought parallels, because I had a lot of programs especially for PC... So now I continue to use them on mac trough parallels! That's great. Unfortunately I didn't try Fusion but fortunately there were no necessity to do it, because I'm completely glad with parallels.