XP has never looked so good...

muscleandhate · Post by **muscleandhate** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 1:32 am

Finally took the plunge and installed bootcamp with XP Pro SP2 on my MacBook CoreDuo. At the moment, and considering it is a clean install, feels much smoother than my Desktop (which on paper is faster than this notebook considerably).

Well if I get round to it I'll undertake an OSX v XP performance comparative analysis and report back. As far as installing went, had to clean install OSX as well but this was probably needed as I installed hundreds of useless stuff and lots of stuff that wasn't UB when I didn't have a clue what was going on. OSX now boots in 15 seconds flat. Going to keep it clean this time around.

That stated, I've just installed Final Fantasy 7 so don't hold your breath for my results! Looking forward to finishing old projects I never completed on my Dell and Soundforge

Anyone else boot camped yet?

donnydonny · Post by **donnydonny** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 7:02 am

i don't own a mac (yet!) but i just wanted to coin in that i think FF7 on the PC is amazing!

krank · Post by **krank** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:59 am

I did.

It isn't quite spiffy; I'm getting slow-downs and glitches running Live through ASIO but I can't say if that's caused by the Bootcamp mediation or some other incompatibility - I understand that Windows needs to be tweaked a bit and so far haven't mastered it.

The general experience is one of frustration; Windows is a cumbersome and unpleasing experience when coming from OSX.

itook4lefts · Post by **itook4lefts** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:42 am

donnydonny wrote:i don't own a mac (yet!) but i just wanted to coin in that i think FF7 on the PC is amazing!

god i loved that game

muscleandhate · Post by **muscleandhate** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:51 am

I've used windows most of my computing life, thus for me it's back to business as usual. Certainly, it's a disgrace in comparison to OSX, but so far I've been impressed by how well it seems to run on my MacBook.

noisetonepause · Post by **noisetonepause** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 12:11 pm

krank wrote:Bootcamp mediation

All Bootcamp does is make the nice new EFI firmware look like the crappy ancient BIOS firmware so Windows can boot. After it's booted there's no interaction.

fatrabbit · Post by **fatrabbit** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 7:37 pm

This is my favourite version of Windows:

richardl · Post by **richardl** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:40 pm

noisetonepause wrote:
krank wrote:Bootcamp mediation
All Bootcamp does is make the nice new EFI firmware look like the crappy ancient BIOS firmware so Windows can boot. After it's booted there's no interaction.

Watch what you say about my BIOS!!!

stinky · Post by **stinky** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:57 pm

I'm going to be quite honest and say, I love osx, but i'm using mostly windows on my mac. It fuckin rox .

MacBookDJ · Post by **MacBookDJ** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:02 pm

You know, when I bought my Macbook I thought it would be fun to use Windows from time to time, check out some programs/plug-ins that aren't available for Mac, etc. Turns out that everytime I think about installing it, I just don't really want to be bothered. Eh, maybe someday.

kabuki · Post by **kabuki** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:19 pm

I was thinking about installing Parallels on my new rig. It doesn't support Direct X, but does everything else that Bootcamp does, plus:

http://www.parallels.com/landingpage/ma ... VAodAhscig

1. It runs in wondowed mode as well as full screen (Without needing to restart the machine.)
2. Doesn't separate the "partitions" so one can more easily swap file from one OS to the other (audio files)
3. Only costs $80 (versus the $125 for XP alone)... Yes. Parallels comes with XP.

Does anyone know if Reason, Live or any PC VSTs use Direct X?

Justin Thyme · Post by **Justin Thyme** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:26 pm

I've been a long time PC user, but decided to take a shot on a Mac with the MacBook. There are pluses and minuses, as with any options.

For several months, almost all I ran was WinXP, because the majority of the software I was using or wanted ran XP, or non-UB OS X.

Now, about 4-5 months since I got the MacBook, I'm very disappointed at how slowly stuff is in going UB. Yeah, the number of titles is constantly growing....so it's getting better....but there are still tons of things I read about in magazines and then go to look into to find it's XP and/or non-USB. I just expected things to progress faster than it has.

ATM, I have redone my install, and don't have WinXP installed. I think I've found a way to get my core requirements met with a few UB apps.

If I were to do it over, I would not have gone Mac at this time. I think the MacIntel thing is going to be hugely successful and beneficial, but I think it's going to be another year or so until there is a wide enough base of UB apps and plugins to make me comfortable.

krank · Post by **krank** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:52 pm

kabuki wrote:3. Only costs $80 (versus the $125 for XP alone)... Yes. Parallels comes with XP.

Huh?

gomi · Post by **gomi** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 11:00 pm

krank wrote:I did.

It isn't quite spiffy; I'm getting slow-downs and glitches running Live through ASIO but I can't say if that's caused by the Bootcamp mediation or some other incompatibility - I understand that Windows needs to be tweaked a bit and so far haven't mastered it.

The general experience is one of frustration; Windows is a cumbersome and unpleasing experience when coming from OSX.

i installed vista, 20 minutes is all it took to piss me off and annoy me to all ends..

simple tasks that took 2 or 3 steps in xp now take 4-10 steps...

way to go microsloth.

i deleted that virtual machine as quickly as possible.

Justin Thyme · Post by **Justin Thyme** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:00 am

gomi wrote: i installed vista, 20 minutes is all it took to piss me off and annoy me to all ends..

I have no intent on upgrading the desktop to Vista. WinXP seems fine. To my knowledge, there isn't anything inherent in the OS whereby you'll have to upgrade in order to maintain compatibility.