Switch from Bootcamp to VirtualBox a good idea?

I confess. I love my iMac. But, while rare, I still boot into XP on Bootcamp as there are a few programs I own & use; namely Sony Vegas & Xara (sorry FC but the switch is too $$$ not to mention learning new software. Besides, I don't use these that often). It is a hassle booting back & forth so I thought I'd ask some users what they thought of my idea;

Delete XP/Bootcamp off Macintosh HD.

Install XP Home on VirtualBox & maybe upgrade to Windows 7 at a later date.

Well, that's it. But, is there a performance difference running these on VirtualBox vs Bootcamp? I have 4gb RAM on iMac Intel 2.66 Ghz DualCore using OS X 10.6.2.

Just thought I'd ask.

VirtualBox works well enough with Windows programs that are not graphic intensive or make use of 3D rendering. If your programs fall into that category, give it a try. But instead of deleting the Boot Camp partition, I would leave it intact until I was satisfied that VirtualBox met my needs. Since VB is free, you've nothing to lose by trying. Just don't activate your WinXP until you decide that's the way you wish to go.

Latest version of VB is 3.1.2, download from here.

Regards.

agreed. However I would not use virtualbox, or any other virtual machine. I have had some horrible experiences with all of them. I would recommend you keep your bootcamp partition in this situation. I also find that using graphics programs on virtual machines is very frustrating. Also, when a virtual disk is near full, the virtual machine begins to act just the way any machine would, slow and unresponsive. Again, I recommend you stick with bootcamp.