NationStates Jolt Archive

I'm thinking about buying a PowerBook because of Apple's generally superior hardware. But, I want to use Windows because it's generally more compatible with today's software/games. Since Mac has switched to Intel chips, does that mean that I will be able to run Windows on a Mac?

Apple's generally superior hardware.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Post-Script: Btw, on the most recent Mac systems, yes, one can run Windows software.

But, to be honest, why not just build your own machine and put windows on it?

I doubt you can

Edit: but use Linux you may not get any new top of the line games but some games are just plain bad ass (like to add I do not use Linux)

I think you can, but come on. Get a PC, you know you want to.

I don't think that you can on a PowerBook as I don't think it has an intel processor.
You would be able to on a MacBook, MacBook Pro, or any other macs with intel processors.

Actually. You can put Windows on a Mac with todays current technology. Maximum PC did a test not too long ago (in their Feb issue) in which they dual OSed a Macintosh with OSX and Windows XP and it ran both well. Although it did run XP slightly faster than OSX, but they wern't sure how that happened.

just get a macbook pro and you'll be all set... you get the superior OS X, great laptop design, and have the ability to run windows apps when you need to

It's a subjective thing, basically; Depends what you want to do.

Since Mac has switched to Intel chips, does that mean that I will be able to run Windows on a Mac?

yes

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

just get a macbook pro and you'll be all set... you get the superior OS X, great laptop design, and have the ability to run windows apps when you need to

Right on :)

yes

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/
Thats what i said....you just provided a link to go with it....;)

yes

BUT as I said before the Mac has to have an Intel processor!

Anyways, i like building my own PC. It gives me the options of picking the parts I want and putting it together int he configuration that I wish.

Like i'm going to pimp out my PC in a few months. I have a black case with red glowing fans, UV Cables, and it has two red bar lights along the frost part of the case. I'm probably going to put a AMD Athlon 64 at 3200+ or similar into that bad boy.

BUT as I said before the Mac has to have an Intel processor!

yeah, but functionally that just means it has to be a new mac rather than something found at crazy steve's slightly used discount computer supershack

Thats what i said....you just provided a link to go with it....;)

a link that informs us that it isn't just a possibility, but is actually going to be a built in feature. so it did add a bit to the topic, no?

Yep.

But I normally don't like using Beta versions of stuff. Most of the time Beta versions of stuff conflict with other programs that i use. I wait till full versions com out. But thats just me...heh

Actually. You can put Windows on a Mac with todays current technology. Maximum PC did a test not too long ago (in their Feb issue) in which they dual OSed a Macintosh with OSX and Windows XP and it ran both well. Although it did run XP slightly faster than OSX, but they wern't sure how that happened.

It's because Bill Gates sells the souls of the homeless to Satan.

Mac on a Windows?

Mac on a Windows?
Why the hell would you want to do that? It's bad enough that Mac has sullied itself in this manner.

Mac on a Windows?

That is one of th Signs of The Apocalyspe... the LAST ONE, actually... ;)

You could use Bootcamp.

yes

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

I was afraid of this:


Mac hardware operates differently from PCs, and this public beta does not support all features of the Mac in Windows. Learn more about running Windows on a Mac.


I wouldn't be surprise, therefore, if Windows isn't capable of utilizing that "generally superior" hardware to it's fullest. At least for now, anyway.

I have seen Windows XP Pro running on one of the new MacBooks, however, at my university's bookstore. I logged in to the "customer" account, got into the Start menu, opened FireFox and was about to type in a URL when I went "wait, Start menu?"

Anyway, I suppose it is sufficient for keeping things like documents and whatever else like that in sync with this unfortunately microsoft-centric universe, however, for more hardware intensive things like graphics and games, I'd double check a few times to make absolutely sure that everything is going to work right before spending all that money. Especially when very basic things are being described as upgrade features ("Improved Apple keyboard support including Delete, PrintScreen, NumLock, and ScrollLock keys").

(At any rate, I'd rather ditch Windows completely and have a superior operating system to go with my superior hardware myself, but...)

I'm thinking about buying a PowerBook because of Apple's generally superior hardware.

It's the other way around: PC hardware is better and cheaper; Mac software is more stable and easy to use. Unfortunately you can't use Mac software on PC hardware... yet.

EDIT: If you want to use PC software, however, buy PC. Mac doesn't run it that properly.

I wouldn't buy a powerbook for gaming purposes. I wouldn't buy any laptop for gaming purposes, especially not a powerbook.

My personal vendetta against Apple aside, the Powerbook is not an especially wonderful laptop. It's about average as far as harware goes. You'd probably be much better off buying an HP; with an AMD processor if you want to play cutting edge games.

If you want to actually have a machine that plays games well, rather than at the minimum graphics settings, go to newegg.com, shop around a bit, and build yourself a custom box. I'd suggest an Athlon 64X processor or better, and a high end graphics card from either ATI or Nvidia. You'll probably want at least a gig of RAM and a sizeable hard drive, depending on how many large games you're planning to run. Something around 200 gigs should work just fine. A Creative soundblaster is probably your best bet for a soundcard, you pick the version based on budget, and you'll want a pretty big power supply to run all this stuff, probably 500 watts.

It's the other way around: PC hardware is better and cheaper; Mac software is more stable and easy to use. Unfortunately you can't use Mac software on PC hardware... yet.

EDIT: If you want to use PC software, however, buy PC. Mac doesn't run it that properly.

Yes you can. There just aren't many drivers... legal drivers.

Haven't you seen the latest Mac commercials that put down PCs? Windows XP runs on Macs nowadays.

I used to play Civ IV on my MacBook booted into Win XP before there was proper batches for the OSX version of Civ IV. WinXP version of it came 8 months before the OSX port, so it's pretty well batched. I've also played good old Total Annihilation when booted into Windows.

The problem with the MacBook is that it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, only an integreted one. This means that HL2 would load and install but just gave me a black screen when launching the game. (This is when booted into WinXP, again)

I have also played some games using Parallels Desktop for Mac, works well on older games but doesn't have DirectX support so it's a bit limited. Parallels allows you to install just about any OS made for x86 and run it as a virtual machine. Not just WinXP SP2 as Apple Boot Camp beta does. I've got XP and Ubuntu VM's running side by side.

I'd say that if you want a portable Mac to play games, go with MacBook Pro. Mostly because of the dedicated graphics card it has, you can max it to 256Mb. Otherwise, the MacBook is a beautiful machine, very compact, very very fast and the black one doesn't look like an iBook... :p hope this helps, k

Yes you can. There just aren't many drivers... legal drivers.

It's kind of convoluted, isn't it? Well, I thought it wouldn't take long anyway. In the good ol' days when Amiga strode the Earth like a giant amongst dwarves, a chap loaded the Mac kernel into an Amiga (it was the Motorola 68k days) and then called the subroutine in machine language and it worked rather well. Then it was fiddling around to have the OS working properly. The Amiga made a very good Mac platform, and much cheaper.

I suppose an Intel version would also work, but would require much more fiddling around to have the OS working as it should.

And legal drivers... I don't think there will ever be. Not Apple endorsed, anyway.

Mac on a Windows?

Yep. Piece of cake. And OS X runs much better than one would expect on a Dell Inspiron 9100! (Which, btw, is *not* a top of the line laptop!)

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/macbookpro.ars/1

yes

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

The drawback to buying a macbook pro is that Apple is no longer putting in PCMCIA slots. That may have absolutely no effect on you and your plans, but I use a PC-card to data collect and that would have been impossible with the new mac, despite the ability to run XP.

Make sure you buy that new computer like you would any other tool It has to do the job.