Bootcamp Or Parallels?

What is everyone's opinion of bootcamp and parallels? Which one is better? What are the downsides to each program?

 

Well, Parallels doesn't support 3D Acceleration, so if you have to run 3D apps, boot camp is the way to go.
Personally, I prefer Parallels much more simply because I do not have to leave the Mac OS X interface. Restarting is annoying and I don't need to run 3D accelerated applications yet, so Parallels is the way for me.

 

Yar.
I'll be using both soon. Parallels for dev programs.
Bootcamp for games.

 

Also Parallels means that you have two operating systems running at once which takes up resources. Boot Camp is all dedicated to Windows so it'll run a bit better.

 

Parallels is very quick, but as mentioned above has no 3D acceleration. So, if you need 3D then go Boot Camp, otherwise Parallels will probably suit you better.

 

I'd add that Parallels has some advantages, such as allowing you to install any windows version, not only XP SP2. Developers may need or want to test Windows 2k or 9x. Also, sometimes you may end up saving space or resources by installing 2k instead of XP, and sometimes you just don't have an SP2 XP CD at hand. You will be probably able to install Vista under Parallels as soon as it is released. Also, Parallels don't have some of the driver quirks like no right clicking that plague Bootcamp.

Of course, if you need 3D acceleration, or simply plan to run Windows alone, Bootcamp is more suited for the task. It should be out of beta by the time Leopard is released.

 

It seems that parallels just released a new beta that allows users to boot windows from the bootcamp partition. With this, you can use the bootcamp partition for both native and virtual use of Windows. They also have some other nifty features such as coherency. I'm not a mac user (yet) but this release of parallels makes my future purchase of a mac even sweater Here is a link to their forums.

 

Do I need to activate parallels before installing windows? Do I need to activate windows once it's installed? And can I run bootcamp if I installed windows via parallels?

 

Yes to all three. Parallels does have a trial version for 14 days i believe, Windows requires activation after 30 days and you can run Parallels and Boot Camp. In fact, Parallels just announced some new support for Boot Camp, but I am sure of the details.

 

Do you have to partition part of your drive in order to install and run parallels?

 

No. Parallels creates a virtual drive file on your HD and uses that as your XP partition.

 

anyone tried to game with the new parallel build 3036? or is it still impossible despite the fact that visual performance was improved?

 

Well, it's 3d still isn't done. While it improved it, I don't believe it's helped for really heavy 3d rendering.
We'll have to wait till the next major update.

 

Would Parallels really be suitable for 3D applications?
Given it's heavy memory usage, 3D applications would really be quite unsuitable to use for it.

Parallels cost money to purchase but Boot Camp is free to download.
I would prefer the Boot Camp, since I don't mind rebooting. I really don't like my notebook to be slowed down by a program rather than a simple reboot to run Windows XP natively.

 

It's memory usage is dependant on how much you want it to use. If you had the proper amount of ram (2 GB), then you can share 1 gig between both OS's, which is enough. Besides, thats not the issue with 3d apps.
the issue is that Parallels cannot currently work with the video card.

Yeah, I currently use bootcamp myself, and I hate it. It's much more a pain to shut down, boot into windows to do a few things, then reboot back into OS X. And Parallels doesn't really slow my machine down. If you only had .5-1 GB of ram, yeah, that would definently be a problem. But thats why we all recommend 2GB if you plan to use Parallels.

FIY I only use Bootcamp to play games. Once Parallels can use the video card, bye bye seperate partition.

 

Interesting indeed.
So once with the appropriate amount of RAM, Parallels would be far better than BootCamp.
Hopefully, Parallel would come up with the solution for the video card issue.

How about for 1gb ram users? I suppose 1gb RAM would be best to use Bootcamp to get the best performance.

 

Yeah, I would say if you had 1 GB, you'd probably want to use bootcamp depending on the apps you were going to run.

 

excuse by lack of knowledege..i am new to this but what are bootcamp and parallels?

 

They are programs to run windows on a Intel Mac. Bootcamp partitions your harddrive into 2 parts: one for OSX and one for Windows XP. Parallels allows you to run windows virtually from OSX directly.

Btw, try google.

 

so im assuming parallels are better? where would you get these?

 

buy it from parallels.com
or was it .org

bootcamp you can d/l from apple.com

 

One isn't better than the other. It all depends on how you want to use windows. Boot Camp is native, meanig you have full integration of your x1600 graphics card, the iSight camera, etc etc. With Parallels, even though you don't need to reboot to start up windows, it hogs memory (be sure to have 2 gb of ram if you want to use Parallels), it doesn't have 3D graphic support yet... and a lot of the things still have to be tweaked. If I want to use AutoCad or play games on my MBP I would definitely use Boot Camp.