Bootcamp running OSX and Windows?

Cam


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I know all about parallels, and the whole emulation thing doesn't really appeal to me. I'm running windows xp on my mac pro, but I'd like to just be able to dip into mac osx rather than having to restart everytime.

Is there any way possible of running both OSX and Windows at the same time. I figure I've got 2 processors, a couple of sticks of ram, I use my m-box2 as the sound card in osx so I've got the onboard sound free for windows, and I'm planning on buying a second video card entirely for use with windows anyway for games, and keeping my 7300gt for osx (both through a switching box of some sort). I've got a second screen on the way, and the though kinda just popped into my head.

It seems to me I've got 2 of everything hardware wise, so could it run 2 os's, one on each screen? Obviously I guess software would have to be written to make it properly possible (ie, mouse moving between 2 screens, so the os's would have to communicate somehow).

Sorry! This started out as a genuine question but I'm disproving it myself as I write!

Thoughts? Is it technically possible?
 

cwa107


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I know all about parallels, and the whole emulation thing doesn't really appeal to me. I'm running windows xp on my mac pro, but I'd like to just be able to dip into mac osx rather than having to restart everytime.

Yes, Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Parallels is not using emulation in its strictest definition since your Mac Pro is already running on Intel. There should be little or no performance degradation from running it natively - aside from the 3D video support being limited.

Is there any way possible of running both OSX and Windows at the same time. I figure I've got 2 processors, a couple of sticks of ram, I use my m-box2 as the sound card in osx so I've got the onboard sound free for windows, and I'm planning on buying a second video card entirely for use with windows anyway for games, and keeping my 7300gt for osx (both through a switching box of some sort). I've got a second screen on the way, and the though kinda just popped into my head.

It seems to me I've got 2 of everything hardware wise, so could it run 2 os's, one on each screen? Obviously I guess software would have to be written to make it properly possible (ie, mouse moving between 2 screens, so the os's would have to communicate somehow).

Sorry! This started out as a genuine question but I'm disproving it myself as I write!

Thoughts? Is it technically possible?

Unfortunately, although you have "two of everything", you don't have two computers with separate memory spaces. But that's where virtualization comes in (note that I didn't use the term emulation, because that's not what's happening with Parallels or Fusion).
 

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