Windows On Mac :: Virtualized Windows And Linux Performance On A MB Or MBP?
Feb 22, 2009
I am a high school senior. Next year I will be going to college and majoring in Computer Science. I am going to purchase a laptop for school, and I'm sure that you can all relate to the fact that there is simply no way that I am going to drop a grand or two on a Dell or Sony; a Macbook or a Macbook Pro is definitely in my future (actually, I've wanted an Apple computer for about five years now).
However, due to the nature of university computer science work, it is inevitable that I will need to run both Windows and Linux to complete research, assignments, and projects. Because I will need to use these two operating systems on a daily basis along with OS X for personal use, I have decided that virtualization, not Boot Camp, is the right option for me. I think I will use VMWare Fusion, but let me know if you think Parallels is much better.
I am trying to decide whether I need/want a Macbook or a Macbook Pro. I have weighed many factors, such as price, portability, expandability, etc., but my question is this: for day-to-day virtualization of Windows and Linux, is a Macbook Pro necessary for acceptable performance, or would a Macbook do almost as well? If Windows XP or Vista or 7 on Parallels or VMWare on a Macbook will drive me nuts with lag, a jittery cursor, etc., then a Macbook Pro would be a justified purchase.
One of the main differentiations between the Macbook and the Macbook Pro is the graphics chipset; it is important to note for this discussion that I have little interest and requirement for working with video games or 3D graphics. I might have to run a few small OpenGL programs here and there for programming exercises, but this will be rare.
I just installed a copy of window 7 x64 ultimate on my uMBP 15", 2.66, 4GB ram, 9600 GT.
everything went well using the bootcamp that comes with my snow leopard dvd and also using the bootcamp driver on that dvd too.
anyway i have a few question regarding this.
-after i installed the windows, now everytime i perform disk utillity, verify disk permissions, it takes considerable longer time compared to when the machine is Mac OS only. previously , after i hit the "verify disk permissions button" it will says straight away like estimated time 28 minutes, then drop to 8 minutes and then to 1 and finaally done. now after i install window 7 on my mac using boot camp. when i hit the "verify disk permissions" it it says estimated time 1hour 40 minutes !!! of course it will finissh eventually in less than that , but still it considerably took longer compared to prior window 7 installattion, does anyone experience this as well ?
-the performance benchmark on win 7 ultimate x64 on my mbp is 5.6 score. is this normal ?
can you run linux on a mac and how do you do it.. i need it for school next year and im needing to get a new laptop for next semester.. i dont want to go and get a new macbook this january and end up having to get another new laptop year after.. as of now i dont know what version of linux i need but any version will do..
I'm currently looking to buy a new graphics card for my 2006 Mac Pro. I'm not going to be using OSX at all on the computer, only Windows/Linux, so I'm wondering what PC graphics cards I can use on if OSX drivers aren't an issue?
I've done a search and found a fair few answers, most of which have been more than a little contradictory and have got me somewhat confused. So any clear answer as to what's what on this would be much appreciated.
As a quick aside, just to explain why I'm doing this, in case anyone can think of a better idea, the situation is thus:
I work in VFX, primarily using Houdini. The main reasons to switch to Linux/Windows were OSX's lack of support for OpenGL 3 and 4 and the overpricing and unavailability of the new Ati 5870. Also Houdini is just that much snappier on Linux. So this mac pro is becoming a render/work box and I'm going to replace it for everyday stuff with a mac mini.
I've accessed my Windows 7 partition but would now like to branch back into Linux territory. I was hoping to hear from your experiences, tips & tricks, etc. with virtual machines, both with Windows 7 and other OSes through VMWare Fusion. Even though I have 4 GB of RAM, should I utilize a 64 bit VM or is it worthless since the VM isn't given enough? Which Linux builds will give me the most drivers and performance otb?
I have recently bought a macbook, and i have used boot camp with windwos xp and 7, and drivers worked perfectly, but i need this drivers for linux, like key functions, camera, key ilumination, etc. So i was wondering if its possible before i install linux in my mac.
I'm trying to get the best performance out of my vmware, so, what are the best settings i can put (remember I want the closest to bootcamp quality) on my Unibody Macbook pro 2.5 4 gigas RAM.
Does anyone have any comparisons of disk performance under OS X and Windows? The reason I ask: I've come to notice that the sound of disks being accessed is very different under the two OS varieties*. So much so, I can recognize the OS in use merely by the sound of the disk! So, I'm led to wonder: which OS on a Mac Pro has better disk read/write speeds? * - Really rather rough and silly descriptions follow Windows - snow being crunched underfoot OS X - a spun coin settling on a table
I have a Mac Pro 2009 2.66 quad with ATi3870 and 6 gigs of ram. I used to run a boot camp Win7 RC partition with first Fusion 2 and then 3. It worked fine. Now I bought Win7 Ultimate and I'm getting ****** graphics performance in Fusion. The screen updates slowly. When I move a window there's noticable tearing. Fade effects don't really show fade but a few fading frames of the animation.
I just bought a brand new i5 quad core iMac. I installed Starcraft, and I have to crank the settings down in order to get a decent frame rate, so I thought I'd give Bootcamp a go.
I installed Win7 64bit and then installed the drivers from the DVD which came with it. I started up the Starcraft 2 installer and 8 HOURS LATER, it was still at only 60%.
Steam also seems to have issues, it will halt with a "This program is no longer responding" window, and then randomly spring back to life a few seconds later.
The system also feels really sluggish. I've not been able to benchmark anything on it to see if the system is really slow, or if it's just my perception as all the modern games I have are in my steam account.
For some reason when I shutdown, Windows also seems to hang on "Shutting down". It does not exhibit the same behaviour when I launch the boot camp partition through VMWare.
I installed Vista Home Premium on a bootcamp partition. When I load it up in vmware, the graphics really take a fall. Is this normal? I have to use the vista basic theme since it won't let me run aero!
I'm running W7 ultimate on a Rev. A MBA. I'm looking for some tips on improving performance in Bootcamp.
Here is what I have done so far: - Installed latest BC drivers (3.1) - Defragged windows partition - Disabled hibernate function (to save HDD space) - Installed all updates from Windows Update - Disabled (some) of the Aero eye candy - Disabled unnecessary services (ala Blackviper's site) - Disabled unnecessary startup programs
EDIT: - Disabled Index Service - Disabled Windows Search
My main reason for wanting to do this is that I'm having some issues when playing MP3s in WMP. They play fine until I say, launch Firefox. Doing so causes the playing MP3 to skip, or temporarily become garbled. I assume this is due to taxing the HDD, but since upgrading to an SSD is currently not an option, I'm trying to squeeze as much performance out of the system as I can.
System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service pack 3
Computer: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7400 @ 2.16GHz 2.16GHz, 2.98 GB of RAM Physical Address Extension
Leopard info: Version 10.5.8, same hardware.
I've installed XP via Boot Camp. The internal drive in the mac is 230gb (total), and I allocated 60gb to XP. I formatted the partition to NTFS (not quick), and completed the rest of the setup. I then inserted the Leopard DVD and installed the boot camp drivers. Then I downloaded all available updates for XP, and the only other thing I've installed is Mozilla Firefox. I've also made changes to the system using an optimization guide (link below), and the performance seems to be the same before and after.
[URL] - I've only done as far as number 20.
The performance is very sluggish. It shows most while scrolling. It's not smooth and jitters a lot. On previous installations of XP on this computer, I've run audio software (Pro Tools/Cubase) and the performance is terrible. It can't handle even the simplest of tasks.
On the Mac OSX side of the machine, however, performance is fine. Everything runs smoothly.
As far as I know, the specs of the computer are pretty good. I can't understand why performance wouldn't be up to scratch
So, I'm just wondering if anybody has any ideas on what's going on? Is this normal, or am I missing something? It seems like Windows isn't using the full power of the hardware.
I have a 15" 2010 MBP. I got it well spec'd, with 7200 drive, 8 GB ram, best CPU... First thing I did was bootcamp. Went smoothly - did a 400 gb partition for Windows 7. The drivers all installed fine and Windows 7 does alright.
My Windows Experience scores: Processor: 6.9 RAM: 6.9 Graphic: 6.4 Gaming graphics: 6.4 Hard drive: 5.9
Things look good... But I am having trouble playing hidef content - VLC is choppy on a bunch of files that play smooth as silk when booted into Mac OS - and actually even play ok on my old Santa Rosa 15" MBP. Quicktime is also slow. I have always found VLC to be very solid. (actually use it on the Mac side for this test as well). I tried playing with the hardware acceleration toggle, and it does seem better with it disabled - anyone else having issues playing hidef media on the windows side of this MBP?
Considering buying win 7 so i can bootcamp for 1st time. Before I do though, I want to know if/why it'll work. I've read that OSX 10.6 has driver issues witn nVidia hardware. Well, why would they be any different on Windows? Does Microsoft write its own drivers for Mac hardware? Or is it nVidia? I ask this b/c dont you have to install the drivers off the OSX disc? Doesn't make sense why apple would give you better drivers for windows than they do for OSX. Point is, I'd be doing this for gaming. I just don't see why there'd be any performance improvement with the SAME HARDWARE, just running windows instead.
I have bought Macbook pro 13 , 2.4 GHz 2010 model with nVidia 320m graphics, Now my question is that I have installed win 7 on bootcamp and windows experience index scores 5.2 (win aero ) and 6.0 (gaming) , these both scores are same as friends 9400m macbook white, so is it ok ??? or future driver updates may increase these score??
Is it better for me to buy the upgrade for windows 7, from vista to windows 7 or to buy the full copy? If i buy the fully version, should i get rid of my pardon, and re-do it with bootcamp, or should i just do it over my current pardon? (Vista) I just want the best way, less pain, less anger. Im willing to pay more for full IF IT IS THE BEST way to do it.
so i have a windows XP professional disk, SP2 and all. i am trying to install windows, i get as far as partitioning the disk, but once it says "please insert XP disk" i do that, and it will think for a few minutes, and make a loud noise [coming from the mac] then a message pops up and says 'please insert installation disk.' the disk is brand new, what am i doing wrong? should i be partitioning the windows side larger?
I just installed Parallels 6 and virtualised a brand new Win 7 OS. I then installed some basic sw (e.g. antivirus, firewall, Chrome etc) and am ready to test Win 7 and Chrome. First comment: browsing in Chrome, even if it's virtualised, is faster (!) and snappier, than Safari 5 on my i5 MBP. How on earth can that be. Scrolling up and down a page, of course, is smoother on the MBP, in fact scrolling in the virtualised environment is choppy, but everything else (e.g. downloading, accessing pages etc) is definitely faster in the virtualised Chrome. The MBP is the base i5. Safari is 5.0.2. Chrome is the latest as of today.
i have my aluminum 2.4GHz 4gb RAM aluminum macbook with the geforce 9400m. and i was wondering. is DirectX 9 better then DirectX 10?. even if the difference is only 8 FPS it still counts.(really the only game im going to play is elder scrolls 4 oblivion)
just trying to get back into Windows 7 after installing it via Boot Camp. Only thing is that holding down the option key during restart does nothing, and although the partition in which Windows 7 is installed under shows up in finder, I am unable to view it in system preferences so that I can boot from it. Any advice?
Ok, Here is the scoop. I am trying to get Wifi to work on my macbook while on XP. When I put in the disk and it says "The package requires a newer version of Windows Installer. Would you like to update?" I say yes and it says "The requires resoruce update is missing." and if I click no it says "The operation is aborted." or something.
