Mac OS Noob, Please Help!

[devol fish]

I'm a long time user of Windows but am interested in purchasing a Powerbook because i work extensively with graphics. However, there are some applications that I currently use that Mac does not support. I was informed that there are 3rd party applications available for Mac's that allow me to run Windows applications. Can someone please point me in the right direction? Also, is it stable... loss of performance? This will be greatly appreciated.

 

[StarManta]

Virtual PC
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc
It's relatively stable, but won't let you run anything that requires a 3D card. On my 1Ghz powerbook it runs at the speed of about a 600-800 MHz PC. Not too bad, but certainly not good....

What programs do you need to run? Almost every program I've needed besides games has either an equivalent program in OS X or has been ported. Frankly my copy of VPC has been useless to me so far... glad I didn't have to pay for it. *whistles innocently*

 

[devol fish]

Virtual PC
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=virtualpc
It's relatively stable, but won't let you run anything that requires a 3D card. On my 1Ghz powerbook it runs at the speed of about a 600-800 MHz PC. Not too bad, but certainly not good....

What programs do you need to run? Almost every program I've needed besides games has either an equivalent program in OS X or has been ported. Frankly my copy of VPC has been useless to me so far... glad I didn't have to pay for it. *whistles innocently*

Thanks for the quick reply. I don't plan on running any major programs since most of them are supported by Mac (e.g. adobe, macromedia...). But I was hoping to run 3d applications or games. Does VirtualPC hog the RAM? I plan on using WindowsXP and with PC it already struggles with 256.

 

[shanx]

Why do you need to run XP on a mac? What are the design stuff you do, man?

 

[Graphite]

I have a 800Ghz iMac (you heard me) and it laggs really bad using Xp in VPC, but works like a charm running win 98, 2000 isnt bad either (which is windows best os ever)