Games on Bootcamp

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This may not be the correct place for this thread but oh well!

I just recently used Bootcamp to install WindowsXP onto my 15 inch Macbook Pro. Windows runs fine and I even installed Command & Conquer Tiberium Wars; which also worked fine the first time I played it.

But each successive time inserting the C&C disk and clicking play causes the dreaded Windows blue-screen of death to rear its ugly head.
Three things:

1) What are other people's experiences with playing games on Bootcamp (I ask this because I want an up-to-date experience, I googled it and mostly got threads from 2006!)

2) Im using the standard settings for the games but does this mean that the currently running graphics card (NVIDIA GeForce 9400M) doesn't cut it? Should I be running the game using the second graphics card - a NVIDIA 9600M GT?

3) Was I a fool to install windows for the sole purpose of gaming? :O

Cheers
 
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Is there any reason you opted for Windows XP instead of Windows 7?


Also, what specs does your Macbook Pro have?
 

robduckyworth


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have you installed the drivers from the disc? i had no problem with XP on bootcamp, and i ran c & c 3 on it.
 
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He made that face at the end of the question because he know how we would answer :p
 

chscag

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Most folks who install Windows on their Mac do it to play games. Granted there are some people who install Windows because a certain application is not available for the Mac, but for the most part, Windows via boot camp is for gaming.
 
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1) What are other people's experiences with playing games on Bootcamp...

My son wanted to play high-end 3D animated Windows games on his Macintosh. He tried using Parallels, and that met with mixed success. The programs that allow you to run Windows under virtualization (i.e. Parallels, Fusion, VirtualBox) don't have a 100% implementation of ActiveX, which is required for some 3D games.

So, instead, he moved to using Bootcamp. Bootcamp fully supports ActiveX and is just about no different than actually having a Windows PC. He runs all of his Windows games on a recent iMac using Windows Vista (which was used because we already owned it), with perfect success and excellent performance.

___________________________________________

Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)

Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
OS X Maintenance And Troubleshooting
___________________________________________
 
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I have always played games on Boot Camp with no problems whatsoever. The blue screen of death seems like a hardware problem to me. It happens on my desktop computer and after running some hardware checking tools I discovered that one of the RAM sticks installed was flawed and replacing it did the job for me.

Windows XP is just fine for gaming, no need for Windows 7. If you know what you are doing, you'll not experience any major problems with Windows XP. I know that because I have been running it for years now. I did switch to Windows 7, though, but I am just saying I never experienced major problems with XP.

To answer your second question, I think your graphics card is fine to run games on low-med resolution, depending on the game, of course. My older MacBook Pro with a 8600M GT runs, or to be precise used to run since the graphics card recently died, the latest games on low resolution with no problems whatsoever.

To answer your third question, no you were not a fool to do that. Everyone I know who installs Windows on Boot Camp does it to play games. Most necessary Windows applications can run perfectly fine on a virtual machine while running Mac OS X but people choose Boot Camp in order to game. So in short, that's the main purpose of it to most of us.

Insert your Mac OS X install DVD and run the Apple Hardware Test and check if there are any errors. Here's an article about the Apple Hardware Test: Intel-based Macs: Using Apple Hardware Test
 

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