Boot Camp + 08 MacBook Pro = Nightmare

RichyX

I got round to installing Windows XP on my new MacBook Pro today.
I'd read mixed reports as to which graphics card XP would use.
Unfortunately it turns out it's the wonky old 9600m.

At the moment there doesn't appear to be any way to use the 9400m, which would have been ideally suited to my plan to use XP for web development.
Now if I want to use XP I'm stuck with poor battery life and a GPU that runs hot and has higher than usual potential to fail.

I pray Apple will sort this out in an update of Boot Camp as I'm starting to regret buying this laptop.

zAbbo

I have the new macbook (non pro) which also has a 9400M, and it runs XP/Vista fine under VM Ware Fuzion, much prefer running it virtually - than in Bootcamp.

Unity ftw!

Gregor Samsa

zAbbo, the MacBook only has the 9400M, so naturally it's going to use it. The MacBook Pro has both the 9400M and a 9600M GT, which you can swith between (on OS X). RichyX's issue is that XP (under BootCamp) isn't letting him use the lower power 9400M, as he doesn't need the more powerful (& hotter and battery draining) 9600 for web development.

However, I think using either Parallels or VM ware on a MacBook Pro to run a virtual machine will allow XP to use whichever graphics card you have OS X set to use. Also, it's a much more versatile solution than running Bootcamp. Either one is definitely worth the money if you plan on using XP in any way regularly.

RichyX

phutyle wrote: »

However, I think using either Parallels or VM ware on a MacBook Pro to run a virtual machine will allow XP to use whichever graphics card you have OS X set to use. Also, it's a much more versatile solution than running Bootcamp. Either one is definitely worth the money if you plan on using XP in any way regularly.

Interesting.

Any idea what sort of speed Windows would run at?
There are a few games I'd like to be able to play occasionally, so it would be handy if performance isn't dented too much.

Thanks for the responses.

J-blk

phutyle wrote: »

However, I think using either Parallels or VM ware on a MacBook Pro to run a virtual machine will allow XP to use whichever graphics card you have OS X set to use.

No, it wouldn't. Fusion and Parallels don't actually use whatever graphics card you have - instead, a virtual graphics card is used within the VM. This is exactly the reason why 3D performance is pretty poor in a VM (when compared to running on the native hardware itself).

RichyX, to answer your VM questions though, performance in a VM is pretty good, with the exception of 3D-heavy stuff. I've been using Fusion for ages and it works great for any kind of development work and I would recommend it if that's what you are doing - the sheer ease of use not having to reboot all the time and using the Unity features are pretty cool.

However, for any 3D gaming, you're going to have to use Boot Camp - performance in any VM would be good for things like Solitaire and 3-4 year old games, but won't even be able to run most current games - the fact that your MBP has a 9600M would make no difference practically.

Gregor Samsa

J-blk wrote: »

No, it wouldn't. Fusion and Parallels don't actually use whatever graphics card you have - instead, a virtual graphics card is used within the VM. This is exactly the reason why 3D performance is pretty poor in a VM (when compared to running on the native hardware itself).

I suppose what I meant was that if you set your Mac to use the 9400M, using XP under the virtual machine won't change that (it won't make you use the 9600 like BootCamp does). But you're right, XP won't use the full power of the graphics hardware (not that it would matter for web development).

Parallels lets you use your BootCamp installation as a virtual machine (I'm sure Fusion does to), so you could easily use the VM for the development, then boot into BootCamp for the games. Personally, I've got Parallels and find it excellent (Parallels "Coherence" mode is the same as Fusion's "Unity" view, and is indeed an amazing way of running Windows applications), but I believe there's not much between it and Fusion.

J-blk

phutyle wrote: »

I suppose what I meant was that if you set your Mac to use the 9400M, using XP under the virtual machine won't change that (it won't make you use the 9600 like BootCamp does). But you're right, XP won't use the full power of the graphics hardware (not that it would matter for web development).

Oh right, I see what you mean there - true, both Fusion and Parallels won't do anything to your hardware graphics settings. If you have the 9400M set and boot up your VM, then it makes no difference - it'll only change if you boot the Windows partition via Boot Camp.

And I've used both Fusion and Parallels - the differences are indeed very minor and I'd say it's all down to personal preference as to which you should use and how good a price you get for each one...

Red Alert

VMWare Fusion does do accelerated 3D AFAIK. I definitely would drop the dual-boot idea and go for one of the VM options. For web development you're not going to see any gain by dual booting.

RichyX

I've been playing around with Fusion today.
Very impressive so far, especially the Unity mode.

Installing Visual Studio now, so we'll soon see how that runs.

Having to activate Windows again was a balls, had to call them up and get a confirmation code. Hope it won't force it to do that again if I want to play some games using my Boot Camp install.

J-blk

Red Alert wrote: »

VMWare Fusion does do accelerated 3D AFAIK

Yes, it does - and so does Parallels. It's only DX9 level though, with very limited shader support, etc so it still will not cut it for most modern games. Not too sure about Visual Studio, but it should run fine. The only two things that have ever been problematic for me in a VM are games and Windows Media Center's video playback - for everything else, using a VM is the way to go...