Considering a Quasi-Switch

Hey everyone,
As of late, I have been seeing a lot about the new Macs built on Intel hardware and their ability to run multiple operating systems. Because I'm a technician, and enjoy portability, I figured I would look into getting either a macbook, or macbook pro. My question is, which is better, bootcamp, or parallels? This is the one thing holding me back from purchasing a mac. I need the ability to run both OSX and Windows in order to get my work done efficiently. Does either peice of software lag, or take up more memory then the other? All of your help would be great. Thanks!

Parallels is an emulator, so BootCamp will be much, much faster. Boot Camp is simply a way to run Windows natively on Mac hardware. Most benchmarks show the MacbookPros running Windows faster than a lot of PCs.

Running Windows XP on an Apple using BootCamp runs exactly the same as a PC with the same specs.

I don't know have any experience with Parallels, is it actually out? I keep hearing people talking about it, but no one that I have talked to has actually said they used it.

edit: Parallels isn't out yet...probably why no one has it...

Parallels is NOT an emulator, it is virtualization software. There is a large difference between the two. For example, VirtualPC for Mac is an emulator. Parallels takes advantage of the hardware already in your computer instead of emulating all of the hardware, which is much slower.

Bootcamp allows you to natively run XP, just as it would on a piece of Dell hardware. There is no lag whatsoever, and space wise it only takes up as much hard drive space as you want the partition to consume.

Parallels is only a virtualization, not a true OS installed. It is going to lag in certain applications and gaming would be out of the question. Your best bet is to get a Macbook or Macbook Pro and use Bootcamp, giving you both OS's in their pure form. Good luck with your decision.

ezhangin said:

Parallels is NOT an emulator, it is virtualization software. There is a large difference between the two. For example, VirtualPC for Mac is an emulator. Parallels takes advantage of the hardware already in your computer instead of emulating all of the hardware, which is much slower.

Click to expand...

Learn something new everyday.

techster82 said:

It is going to lag in certain applications and gaming would be out of the question.

Click to expand...

Just for the sake of asking, how do you know this is true? Do you have it? Can you point us to a good review of it? Are you assuming based on prior experience with emulators?

I have read other peoples reviews that gaming was a no go. I believe on Macnn's forums, but correct me if I am wrong.

I really don't know and your post was the first I have head about gaming being a no go. That's why I asked. Anyone else know anything?

Parallels does not give the "guest" OS (Windows) direct access to the video card on the Mac. Any game that requires 3D graphics hardware won't be able to run, at least in any playable fashion.

There's also some overhead due to sharing the CPU and memory with the "host" OS, so even Windows apps that don't require 3D hardware will be somewhat slower when virtualized.

This is the tradeoff for the greater convenience of having both OS's available at once.

http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2740&p=13

Read the whole review but this is the page where Anand tested Parallels.

Hmm. It seems like Boot Camp is the best bet for my required operation. I do enjoy gaming though, so I guess parallels is out, until they put out a stable release, maybe then it will work. Thanks for the help guys!