Boot Camp or Parallels.

[Adventurer]

So I installed Windows on my macbook via boot camp, but I heard about a different (possibly better) way of running Windows on a mac. Parallels.

From what you know, which would you choose.

And seeing how I already paritioned my disc for Windows, how do I give it back to the Macintosh HD, or will I need a parition using parallels.

Thanks.

[Genesis]

Well Boot Camp is used for Dual Booting Windows alongside OS X. Parallels is totally different. It's partitionless, meaning it runs Windows INSIDE OS X.

If I'm wrong, someone tell me, but I'm pretty sure that's the difference.

[Razekial]

Parallels is like Boot Camp, except it runs windows inside OSX. No rebooting.

[GDwarf]

Parallels will probably be a worse solution unless you're really tight for space.

Why? Because it's virtualization. It's running Windows inside OSX, which means that OSX is still running and everything you do in Windows has to be...translated, I suppose, so that OSX knows what to do.

I don't know how good Parallels is, but it'll definitely be at least 10% slower than boot camp. (If other virtulization software is any guide that is. In fact, most goes closer to 20% slower.)
(Or so I understand. I must confess that I don't use virtualization software at all, and I may be out of date in how efficient it's gotten.)


Also, doing some reading, if you have a multicore CPU or multiple CPUs on seperate dies Parallels will only be able to use one of them, whereas Windows can use all of a multicore CPU's processors (and Vista Business and up can use multiple CPU dies.)

[nighthawkx]

while virtualization is not perfect, it's not THAT bad.

FYI GDawrf what you're thinking of is more like emulation. there's not really and translation going on here, and while there is increased overhead and virtualization is not as efficient, it's not THAT bad for many things, hence why it's such a GREAT thing for higher end computing at the server level. Though in that regard AMD still has a fair lead over intel in virtualization. Then again when you've got more brute force overall it doesn't matter as much

it'd be more accurate to think of it like this, you've got one OS running, then you've got another one running next to it but kind of latched on. Now the way current virtualization is implemented you basically have HORRIBLE driver support, but if you're running OSX you'de have had horrible driver support to begin with. OSX has the most mediocre drivers of any OS out there.

FYI every intel mac has a multi core CPU as far as I know, aside form perhaps a random laptop or two running core solos.

[GDwarf]

Ah, my mistake then.

As I said, I'm not expert at these, and I did confuse virtualization with emulation. >_<


Still, I'd say dual-boot unless you really need that HD space.

[Adventurer]

Thanks. I'm using boot camp now, and Windows is working great now that I got all the drivers installed.

The real reason I wanted to run Windows on my MacBook is Project64. There's no decent N64 emulator for any Apple OS X systems. Tried it last night and it worked beautifully.

I'm sure it'll come in handy for some other things too.

But yeah, I kinda thought of it as an emulator as well...

[Aniday]

Parallels (due to its slowness) is for light windows usage, use Boot Camp if you're going to be using windows a lot, which you seemed to already have done. Besides Boot Camp already comes free with your Mac, gotta pay for Parallels.

[Adventurer]

^ Yeah, I was excited to learn I already had the software to do everything. Thanks.

[nighthawkx]

Don't forget WINE.

OSX is a *nix os and it can still use wine. WINE if it gets a bit more work is/will be a godsend to the *nix community.