Thoughts for switchers and gamers/ must read advice for buying a new notebook!

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dtravis7


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baggss said:
Oh, that makes sense. So did you delete Windows or do you still have it installed?

I am planning on deleting it as I don't need it. Just have not gotten around to it. It's only a 5GB partition anyway so not in the way right now. I really got the Core Duo mini to use as a PVR in my front room system. No need for windows there.
 
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The Applenator said:
I'm guessing you now own a 15" MBPro. Do you have the one with the 256 vram or the 128? I plan on playing BF2 as well, and I am looking at getting that MBPro as well, I am just curious what your actual setup is?
And absolutely love BF2.

Ive got the original 1.83ghz 15" with 128mb of vram. Works great. You just need to tweak BF2 a bit. Nothing huge or geeky or anything, just go into the options and test the different settings. Me, I have mine on medium and it runs great.
 
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Mathiau said:
You say you know alot but this is wrong. it is not the VRAM.

MacBook - Integrated graphics - shares system ram, slow for core and memory speeds - not meant for gaming of newer games.

MacBook pro - Seperate AGP / PCIe based video card with decidated ram - faster core and memory speeds.

a dedicated video card with 32mb of ram would be faster then an integrated vid card with 128mb of ram.



NTFS is more secure and reliable then FAT32, and you can also make larger partitions. FAt32 also has a file limit size of 4G, so if you plan to rip a DVD - you cant on FAT32.

So what exactly did I get wrong? Your post backs me up. The macbook has slower graphics. Its not good for hardcore gaming like bf2/ halflife / crysis/ etc...

Macbook Pro, at least 128 of ram and it DOES run games well as I've tested them.

Wow, next time when I want to keep my typing time down I'll be sure to put in every single little detail that the average person wont need to know. Key word is average. All most people need to know is that if you want the graphics power, go with the MBP. Thats what that paragraph was trying to illustrate. I thought I did fairly well, but since I didnt, I guess I'm wrong and you're right. :eek:neye:

:::holygod:::: try and give some advice.. :)

Oh yeah... vram= video RAM. Sorry i didnt spell it out.
 
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baggss said:
Now you have raised another question. Why did you choose NTFS over FAT32 for the Windows partition? The OP in this thread reccomended FAT32.

I chose NTFS over FAT32 for a couple reasons. I wanted to do a 50GB Windows partition and from what I've read I think the Windows installer can only format 32GB in FAT32. Also, I've read that NTFS is safer and has better performance than FAT32. I installed MacDrive in XP so that I can get files off of the OS X partition and I can write to it, but I have that turned off.
 

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bishopazrael, I agreed with your origional post. The only thing you were wrong on is the memory size of the MacBooks Intel Graphics VRAM. This is straight from Apple.


Graphics and Video Support
Intel GMA 950 graphics processor with 64MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared with main memory.
 
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And here's my problem with people spouting off about NTFS.

Yeah yeah we all know its better. But I know something you guys dont. I've had to live with people asking why they cant drag a file from the Mac desktop to the windows folder of choice, and when explained that they put the drive in NTFS, they get all bent out of shape that someone should have said soemthing aobut that ahead of time!

I'm trying to give advice to people who probably dont know too much about windows, or know just enough to be dangerous. And guess what, they're ALL going to want FAT32. WHY? because they're going to want to write to that drive, sure as frack, and when they cant they'll come here and post and complain about it. If they know up front, then they'll put it in fat32 and be happy, future problems avoided.

I know... its against the PC Tech Ordinance 112.7 sub section b paragraph 2 line 1 that says "Thou shalt not confer upon mere mortals, any knowledge beforehand that could prevent them from having to call you later".

Im so sick of techs that let people walk into a problem only so THEY can solve it and look like the geek of the year.

Come on you guys, its common sense. Think 4 steps ahead and think, well what are they gonna want to do once they get windows installed? You solve that, and THEN you're doing a favor to your family/ friends/ neighbors/ customers who are switching over and using bootcamp. The fact that I have to chide you guys about this does not speak well of you guys. You should know better.
 
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dohidied said:
I chose NTFS over FAT32 for a couple reasons. I wanted to do a 50GB Windows partition and from what I've read I think the Windows installer can only format 32GB in FAT32. Also, I've read that NTFS is safer and has better performance than FAT32. I installed MacDrive in XP so that I can get files off of the OS X partition and I can write to it, but I have that turned off.


Ok, another question. I've never used bootcamp (yet). Can or will Bootcamp allow you to format the partition for Windows in FAT32? I am assuming from the OPs first post that it will, but I don't know.
 

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Baggss, If I remember right (I have only done it once 2 months ago) Bootcamp makes the partition and when you run the XP installer, it always asks you either to format the partition or to change the formatting of the partition. I dont' remember if Bootcamp formatted it or not. I am pretty sure it was Windows. Then you would would hit that 32GB Fat32 partition limit imposed by XP. I will try it later and get back to you. Will give me an excuse to get rid of that windows install.

I have 2 AMD 64 systems for my windows needs.
 
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yeah, as dtravis said, bootcamp just makes a partition. the windows installer does the formatting.
 
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bishopazrael said:
5. When doing the setup / install of XP it will ask you in the beginning if you want to format your xp drive. DO NOT. Leave the file system in tact. You want the FAT32 file system, so that the Mac can write to it if need be.

So my next question is for the OP, how did you format the partition? Did you allow Windows to do it?

Sorry if these questions are getting annoying, but I want to know what I am doing before I go into this process.
 
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bishopazrael said:
And here's my problem with people spouting off about NTFS.

Yeah yeah we all know its better. But I know something you guys dont. I've had to live with people asking why they cant drag a file from the Mac desktop to the windows folder of choice, and when explained that they put the drive in NTFS, they get all bent out of shape that someone should have said soemthing aobut that ahead of time!

I'm trying to give advice to people who probably dont know too much about windows, or know just enough to be dangerous. And guess what, they're ALL going to want FAT32. WHY? because they're going to want to write to that drive, sure as frack, and when they cant they'll come here and post and complain about it. If they know up front, then they'll put it in fat32 and be happy, future problems avoided.

I know... its against the PC Tech Ordinance 112.7 sub section b paragraph 2 line 1 that says "Thou shalt not confer upon mere mortals, any knowledge beforehand that could prevent them from having to call you later".

Im so sick of techs that let people walk into a problem only so THEY can solve it and look like the geek of the year.

Come on you guys, its common sense. Think 4 steps ahead and think, well what are they gonna want to do once they get windows installed? You solve that, and THEN you're doing a favor to your family/ friends/ neighbors/ customers who are switching over and using bootcamp. The fact that I have to chide you guys about this does not speak well of you guys. You should know better.

And here's my problem with people coming in here and spouting off about things and thinking they're the final authority on the subject. No one was advising anyone to use NTFS instead of FAT32. baggs asked why we chose to use NTFS, so we told him. If you want to tell your customers to use FAT32, knock yourself out. The Boot Camp manual talks about NTFS vs. FAT32 and if people can't RTFM then they can do it over again after they screw it up.
 
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dohidied said:
And here's my problem with people coming in here and spouting off about things and thinking they're the final authority on the subject. No one was advising anyone to use NTFS instead of FAT32. baggs asked why we chose to use NTFS, so we told him. If you want to tell your customers to use FAT32, knock yourself out. The Boot Camp manual talks about NTFS vs. FAT32 and if people can't RTFM then they can do it over again after they screw it up.


Nice. Thanks for participating. Did I hit a soft spot? :dummy:

So whats the problem with someone coming in here and putting out what they know from hard expierience? Would you prefer that some folks HAD that aggravation? I bet you would :) Come on.. admit it... you're one of those type of guys... Just for the record, what was your complaint? I posted something that I had gotten pm's or emails about and thought I'd post it for the whole board. People obviously want to know how a REAL tech does it. You clearly have not been asked. So thanks for your time. By the way, when's the last time you charged someone $80 and hour? What? Never? Well then, lets just leave it at this. People asked. I posted. I responded and gave people the standard spiel about the best way to set up their macbook if they're going to use bootcamp. What exactly did I say that got under your skin that you felt the need to come in here to this thread and spout off about telling me where to get off?

:::edit::: ahh.. You're from Petuluma. That explains it.
 
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baggss said:
So my next question is for the OP, how did you format the partition? Did you allow Windows to do it?

Sorry if these questions are getting annoying, but I want to know what I am doing before I go into this process.

Baggss,
if memory serves, it (bootcamp) partitions the drive then formats it for you. Since it ONLY does FAT32, the drive is partitioned and formatted in FAT32 by bootcamp. Once you get into the installer for xp it'll ask you if you want to format the drive in fat32 (some installs will, some will not) or NTFS or if you want to leave the file system alone. Just leave it alone and go ahead and install windows and you'll be fine. When you get back to OS X, there'll be an XP drive on your desktop in addition to your normal Tiger hard drive. Hope that helps clear it up.
 
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dohidied said:
And here's my problem with people coming in here and spouting off about things and thinking they're the final authority on the subject. No one was advising anyone to use NTFS instead of FAT32. baggs asked why we chose to use NTFS, so we told him. If you want to tell your customers to use FAT32, knock yourself out. The Boot Camp manual talks about NTFS vs. FAT32 and if people can't RTFM then they can do it over again after they screw it up.

And for the record I wasn't talking about ANYONE in here, I was being general. I'm sorry if that got your panties in a bunch.

Like I said, I was writing for the average person. You clearly feel yourself to be above the average person since you figure everyone can just RTFM and learn from that. In a perfect world, that'd be fine but its not. You know as well as I do that there are some people who are not so tech savy as you or I. They're average, and then there are others who will just rush blindly in and do it without reading anything.

I was posting those hints for those that wanted them and wanted to take advantage of someone else's knowledge. Clearly some here did not know what the difference was and it was addressed.

NTFS worked for you. Good for you. Hooray beer! However since I've set up more than just one person I thought I'd try and keep someone from bashing their head into the keyboad in frustration that they formatted in NTFS. Why be offended when I was clearly not talking about ANYONE specific, and was just trying to help the guys with questions?

Jesus, every time I post here, half my posts are posts defending my orignial posts. You guys are way too defensive about someone else coming into your little clique here and giving an alternative opinion.
 
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bishopazrael said:
Baggss,
if memory serves, it (bootcamp) partitions the drive then formats it for you. Since it ONLY does FAT32, the drive is partitioned and formatted in FAT32 by bootcamp. Once you get into the installer for xp it'll ask you if you want to format the drive in fat32 (some installs will, some will not) or NTFS or if you want to leave the file system alone. Just leave it alone and go ahead and install windows and you'll be fine. When you get back to OS X, there'll be an XP drive on your desktop in addition to your normal Tiger hard drive. Hope that helps clear it up.


Perfecto!

Thanks!
 
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bishopazrael said:
And for the record I wasn't talking about ANYONE in here, I was being general.

Yes you were. "The fact that I have to chide you guys about this does not speak well of you guys. You should know better."

Listen, it's nice of you to make a thread with advice about buying a notebook. Thanks for educating people about the subject. But there's no need to tell us that we should know better than to talk about NTFS.

bishopazrael said:
:::edit::: ahh.. You're from Petuluma. That explains it.

Dude, you live in New Mexico. Let's not go there.
 
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dohidied said:
Yes you were. "The fact that I have to chide you guys about this does not speak well of you guys. You should know better."

Listen, it's nice of you to make a thread with advice about buying a notebook. Thanks for educating people about the subject. But there's no need to tell us that we should know better than to talk about NTFS.



Dude, you live in New Mexico. Let's not go there.


If you read the whole thread...yeah ...you were getting chided for .... :::sigh::: I give up. Your right. Im wrong.

Whatever.

And what woudl you know about NM? Whats that? Nothing? I've lived in LA so I know Petuluma people. Dont act like you dont know ... you know.

What is it about new mexico? Please I want to know seeing as I just moved here from Portland.

Look let me end this right here. I made the thread to help. Your attitude came in with the whole NTFS thing. You've been misreading my words since the first post. Your attitude about it is clear.

RTFM (for those that dont know thats Read the Fracking Manual) and just STFU if you have problems along the way. That was clearly your attitude about the whole thing. I can quote you if you like.

My point was, you guys can tell people all day long you used NTFS, but you should KNOW that when you talk to average people, to tell them, look you can read NTFS, but you cant write to it, and thats a big difference. Why should you tell someone that? Why wouldnt you? If they're going to want to look at that drive, clearly the temptation is going to be there to write to it as well. Do I have to spell that out for you? Its about common courtesy to someone who might not know as much as you. Does it really bother you to have to tell someone that?

Yeah, now I AM talking about you. WHats with that anyways? RTFM and STFU. Nice. Real nice. I dont have a problem with NTFS. Its great. But you know, or should know from being in this forum.. how many times have you told people, use the search function? You should know from that that no matter how many times you say it someone will ask. And when they ask, what does that tell you? That people will always want to know....

Look, you clearly dont have the interpersonal social skills so I'm going to just block you from here on out. I'm not really interested in anything you have to say because clearly you want it your way, thats it, and there is no other, and if someone does bring up the other, how dare them say you're wrong. And so I'm clear, I never said you were wrong, or anyone else for that matter. All I did was point out that NTFS is not writtable in OS X. I never slammed anyone for using it. Just for them leaving out the glaring obvious fact that it cant be written to. That was my beef. If you leave it out, you're lying by ommission.

Jesus, please stop it, you're making yourself look bad.
 

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Whoa, you people really need to tone it down. No reason for the bickering. And I'm sure you all live in wonderful places too. :eek: Now, let's continue on with the geek speak.
 
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iWhat said:
Whoa, you people really need to tone it down. No reason for the bickering. And I'm sure you all live in wonderful places too. :eek: Now, let's continue on with the geek speak.

works for me. Thanks for stepping in.
 
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You charge $80 per hour? I hope you don't act as such in front of clients.
 
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