Parallels an Windows Gaming!

I just got my Macbook Pro back in late April and I could not be happier with it I have not had one single issue with it. The only problem I am having is that I like to game a wee bit an as we know not a lot of developers release games for Windows an Mac. So over the course of the week I have been trying to come up with ways to get Windows games to run on my Mac!

I first started off with Crossover games an that just turned out to be a bigger headache than I care to explain. In short I downloaded about 5 different Windows exclusive games an were supposedly supported by Crossover games an not one of them worked!

The next suggestion someone had for me was to use Parallels I got it an Windows 7 Ultimate a couple of days ago an was able to successfully download an install a game with these basic minimum requirements...

OS Windows XP SP2 or above
CPU CPU Pentium3-800MHz or above
GRAPHIC DirectX 9.0c or above (VRAM : 32MB or above)
RAM 256MB or above
HDD More than 8.7GB disk space
SOUND 16 bit stereo 44KHz WAVE compatible sound card
DISPLAY 800x600 or above, High Color display
NETWORK 1M bps or above

Now here are the stats of my Macbook Pro

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro6,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 4 GB

When I started the game on Parallels I was mortified about how slow the program was running. I figured with a system like mine it would be able to run quite decently. So basically my question is would I benefit any by upgrading my RAM I was gonna get a 4gb stick an replace the 2 so I will have 6gb an give a lot more RAM to the Parallels instead of the 1GB it gets now? Also would it make any difference if I just went up to 8GB of ram an gave more RAM to the Parallel? I do not need to play games in ultra high settings but just to play them with little to minimum hiccups would be nice?!?! I would appreciate any an all suggestions, Thanks a lot!

Unfortunately, gaming is not the domain of virtualization. There is a layer of abstraction that dramatically slows down GPU calls. Some games will run, but high-end stuff will never run as well as it would natively.

You could give it all the RAM in the world and it won't run any faster because it can't directly touch the hardware. With each successive generation of both Parallels and VMware Fusion, it gets a little better. But it's not there yet (and likely will never be).

In short, install Windows via Boot Camp and run your games that way.

Some advice: If you like to play games and want the best performance from the game, (Windows games) then you have to decide:

1. Run them on a PC

or,

2. Install Windows 7 using the Boot Camp assistant. (dual boot)

Crossover in my humble opinion is useless for a graphic demanding game. It has its place for some Windows games like Solitaire, etc.

Parallels is much better of course but it still uses its own drivers which do work well for some games, however, anything that requires 3D and graphic acceleration does not work well.

Yikes alright I was dreading the answers but I suppose I can give Boot Camp a try an see how it goes. It is a shame more developers are not supporting Mac users. I just have had such wonderful experiences just using OSX that putting Windows 7 on my system was something I was extremely weary about however I guess you can't have your cake an eat it too in this case!!!

Thank you for the responses!!!

Well, now that Steam is available for Mac and Source is native, I think the tide is starting to turn a bit. You're already starting to see a healthy amount of games being developed for Mac, particularly since so many geam developers are running Macs to write for iOS devices.

Ok well I got boot camp to work an installed windows 7 I would be posting from Windows except I do not have the head to figure out how to set up the internet connection (< computer dumb). So I installed The Sims 3 real quick to see how it would perform on Windows 7 an when I went to launch the game I got a pop up basically telling me my video card sucked. I dug a little deeper an it was using the onboard video card an not the...

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Type: GPU
Bus: PCIe
PCIe Lane Width: x16
VRAM (Total): 512 MB
Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)
Device ID: 0x0a29
Revision ID: 0x00a2
ROM Revision: 3560
gMux Version: 1.9.21
Displays:

So now the million dollar question can I get this video to work on Windows 7 via boot camp or are these cards only mac compatible or something? If that's the case well my days or trying to play PC games on my Mac are probably over =x

When Windows 7 finished installing, did you insert your OS X disc (whilst running Windows) and allow it to install the Boot Camp drivers? If not, go back and do that first.

If you have already done that and it's still a problem, run the Apple Software Update from the Start menu and allow it to download and install the newest Boot Camp software package.

Oh my heck I am posting from Windows 7 an I got the video card driver issue resolved thanks to your help!!! Thank you so much!! Now a quick question if I wanted to give this partition more memory would I have to go through the entire bootcamp process again an reinstall windows 7 or is their another way?!! Thank you so much for all of your help its been terrific!

WillyDark0 said:

Oh my heck I am posting from Windows 7 an I got the video card driver issue resolved thanks to your help!!! Thank you so much!! Now a quick question if I wanted to give this partition more memory would I have to go through the entire bootcamp process again an reinstall windows 7 or is their another way?!! Thank you so much for all of your help its been terrific!

Click to expand...

Memory or disk space? There is a big difference.

Windows will use all of the memory installed in your computer.

Disk space is allocated during the Boot Camp Assistant setup process. There are products like CampTune from Paragon that can reallocate space non-destructively. Otherwise, the only option is to revert back to a single volume and then run the Boot Camp Assistant process again.

Be really really careful when changing the partition size - make sure you back up both OSes.