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    MacBookPro & Parallels 911!

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by LakerFan, Aug 5, 2007.

  1. LakerFan

    LakerFan Notebook Consultant

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    Ive had the MBP for a few days now and arrived overseas lst night.

    I have two problems:
    1.) I tried installing an old game on parallels, Sid Meirs Pirates, and when I try to play it saids that direct x is not installed. (I have windows xp home edition in parallels.) Now in order for me to game in parallels, do I need to install somekind of extra drivers for either the video card or direct x??
    How can i get a simple 3 year old game to work in parallels?


    2.) I have a camcorder that uses the pro duo card format, does anbody here know anything about how to properly open and play the video in windows parallel? I have a file transfered and cant seem to play it in any of the players (windows media player, win amp, etc.). I dont know much about media compression or etc.
     
    LakerFan, Aug 5, 2007
    #1
  2. Ricey20

    Ricey20 Notebook Guru

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    1. parallels only supports up to directx 7.1 i believe, if the game was made for dx8 or higher it wont work i think. A quick search said Sid Mier's Pirates is directx 9 so your out of luck there. Only way to play it would be boot camp.

    2. Not sure on this one.
     
    Ricey20, Aug 5, 2007
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  3. MYK

    MYK Newbie NBR Reviewer

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    Yeah, you need boot camp for gaming. Parallels is basically a virtual pc in the OSX, it doesn't fully use the notebook's specs. You would alocate part of the ram for it and it won't even fully use your video card.

    PLUS: What Ricey said! :)

    Edit: Boot camp is free and is a joy to use. I allocated 32GB for windows and use it for windows. The rest of the time, I'm on OSX.
     
    MYK, Aug 5, 2007
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  4. masterchef341

    masterchef341 The guy from The Notebook

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    i think the OP was saying that the game is not intensive, and running in parallels is more convenient without necessitating two reboots just to go from os x to the game and then return to the original state. it doesn't matter that you don't fully utilize your system specs if the game is 3 years old and not intensive.

    unfortunately, i don't know enough about the game to make a solid judgment, but i would try forcing an earlier pixel shader render path. you can look up the command to do that.
     
    masterchef341, Aug 5, 2007
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  5. dbam987

    dbam987 wicked-poster

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    Which version of Parallels do you have? Version 3.0 supports DirectX 9. That might be the problem. You could create a Boot Camp partition with Windows XP and be able to use the Mac to its full potential and not have to worry about Parallels not supporting the version of DirectX needed.
     
    dbam987, Aug 5, 2007
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  6. taelrak

    taelrak Lost

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    Also might want to check the settings. I've never used Parallels, but I know that VMWare Fusion makes you actually select the option to use DirectX 8 or something.
     
    taelrak, Aug 5, 2007
    #6