"VMware Fusion, Parallels or bootcamp?"

Apple/Mac/iPod

↑ Back to Apple/Mac/iPod

+ log in to reply

Poster	Message
Carlo 27 Oct '08 13:27:44	Are you using any of these and can you give me your impressions of how you are finding the experience? The solutions would be for a non-technical person, who still (might) need to use Word, Excel, etc. The other alternatives are Office 2008 for mac, or even throwing that all away, and just stick to iWork and take whatever losses there are. I don't think OpenOffice is on the table TBH. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 27 Oct '08 13:29:24	I use SUN's VMBox. Best of the VM solutions I've used so far. Parallels is a bug-raddled crashy piece of filth and Bootcamp's a bit twee now. Pretty much full compatibility using VMBox for the stuff you're talking about. All you need is a copy of the OS you need to use, and the applications. VMbox is free (go search on the Sun website for it) send message \| log in to reply!
Carlo 27 Oct '08 13:30:24	Never heard of it. Thanks for the heads up PJ send message \| log in to reply!
RedboX 27 Oct '08 13:30:33	If you want to play games, its boot camp, otherwise the people I know currently favour VMware over Parallels (tho it was the otherway around last year). The cool thing about either is you can use your bootcamp parition, tho when I was trying it out this weekend I seemed to be going through a never ending cycle of having to re-activate Windows XP everytime I switched from one to the other. send message \| log in to reply!
Carlo 27 Oct '08 13:36:40	PJMaybe, have you got a link? I'm having trouble locating it. Got it: VirtualBox Link Edited by Carlo at 13:38:41 27-10-2008 send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 27 Oct '08 13:38:52	Would help if I got the flippin' name right VirtualBox That's the wiki page but there are download links at the bottom. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 27 Oct '08 13:39:26	Worth mentioning that the Windows version of the above is also blimmin' great. In fact I'm running Windows 95 as a retro gaming platform on it at home on Vista. send message \| log in to reply!
[maven] 27 Oct '08 13:43:17	Fusion works fine for me; agree that Parallels was a buggy pile of wank (and their upgrade 'policy' to Version 3 pissed me off majorly). send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 27 Oct '08 13:45:50	Too true. Fusion's alright but I've got a pretty good thing going with Vbox for now and since the mac's just had a rebuild I'm a bit "fwightened" about trying anything else out on it for the time being. send message \| log in to reply!
thrawn 27 Oct '08 13:58:52	I use Fusion for Windows and Linux and it's brilliant. Highly recommend it. Although, I haven't tried the Sun VirtualBox. Might have to have a play with that. send message \| log in to reply!
Carlo 27 Oct '08 14:01:56	I'm downloading the Windows version for it now as it seems like I can run OSX on it. Actually, to have OSX as a client, the host has to be OSX :( Gits! Thanks for the recommendations guys! Edited by Carlo at 14:10:43 27-10-2008 send message \| log in to reply!
LeD 27 Oct '08 14:05:31	I'm running Vista via Bootcamp. The experience is perfect. It basically shows up my MacBook for what it is: a PC, with a Nvidia graphic chip, Intel proc, and Realtek sound chip! send message \| log in to reply!
Jeepers 27 Oct '08 14:07:20	Bootcamp is 100% perfect for me as well. If you just want the Office suite, I'd go for Office 2008 (or even 2004, which is what I use). Other than being Office, it runs fine on my iMac. send message \| log in to reply!
SmoothMartin 27 Oct '08 14:07:49	Carlo wrote: I'm downloading the Windows version for it now as it seems like I can run OSX on it. Thanks for the recommendations guys! Don't think you can run OS X as anything other than a host. send message \| log in to reply!
Carlo 27 Oct '08 14:21:12	LeD wrote: I'm running Vista via Bootcamp. The experience is perfect. Hardly 'perfect'. You're using Vista, which is shit. send message \| log in to reply!
LeD 27 Oct '08 14:23:08	Carlo wrote: LeD wrote: I'm running Vista via Bootcamp. The experience is perfect. Hardly 'perfect'. You're using Vista, which is shit. No it's not. Never had a problem with it. You can obviously install WinXP SP2 via Bootcamp, if you prefer. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 27 Oct '08 14:25:05	SmoothMartin wrote: Carlo wrote: I'm downloading the Windows version for it now as it seems like I can run OSX on it. Thanks for the recommendations guys! Don't think you can run OS X as anything other than a host. This. I've tried running OSX on VMBox and it doesn't want to know. Could be a chipset issue perhaps. send message \| log in to reply!
Carlo 27 Oct '08 16:36:08	PJ, the VirtualBox is F**king QUICK on Windows! Jesus Christ! Why have Sun not made a big deal out of this, it's amazing! Thanks for pointing it out to me! send message \| log in to reply!
adamworthy 28 Oct '08 01:26:10	I'm using VMware Fusion, it's good if your mac is powerful enough to run 2 + os's at once. send message \| log in to reply!
SirScratchalot 28 Oct '08 05:48:15	Fusion seems a lot faster than parallels to me after using Parallels, but this is just since the 2.0 upgrade. I'm sure Parallels will soon retaliate. Anyway, I run Fusion of a boot camp partition, meaning that if something really dosen't work I can always go pure windows, while still being able to run it alongside OSx. Works very well, and even has quite good 3D performance now. But if all you need is office, that VirtualBox thingymajig seemed... well.. FREE! send message \| log in to reply!
ecosse_011172 28 Oct '08 06:28:20	I prefer the Mac version of office to the Windows one, I'd just use that. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 28 Oct '08 08:12:44	/agrees Office 2008 is a very slick product on Mac. In fact I couldn't go back now, not to using a PC. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 28 Oct '08 08:14:19	Carlo wrote: PJ, the VirtualBox is F**king QUICK on Windows! Jesus Christ! Why have Sun not made a big deal out of this, it's amazing! Thanks for pointing it out to me! No prob. It is indeed very quick, and if you've got a meaty machine it'll more than make use of a fast processor and plenty of RAM to give you a smooth VM experience. It's ridiculously good at running older OSes too so if you're (like me) a bit of a retro head, it's a brilliant solution for running stuff like Windows 98 for those old PC games. Only thing it can't do (yet) is replicate 3D acceleration. If someone ever builds a 3DFX / Glide Emulator into it I'll be in hog heaven. send message \| log in to reply!
Pooley 30 Oct '08 17:12:48	VirtualBox is really good. I've now got XP running on it, full screen, and the performance is excellent. All I need to do now is update it, install Visio, and I can then use my Air as my main machine. Folder shares took a bit of working out, but I've now got drive X: mapped to my OSX home directory. What an amazing piece of free software. edit: Oh, and installing the Guest Additions is a must. Makes fullscreen and mouse gestures much better. Edited by Pooley at 17:14:16 30-10-2008 send message \| log in to reply!
Jeepers 30 Oct '08 17:15:38	I've been doing some work with Sun and their thin client machines - the speed of their virtualisation over network is incredible. It's a fancy bit of coding. send message \| log in to reply!
pjmaybe 30 Oct '08 17:17:14	Sure is. Brilliant for virtual servers too. send message \| log in to reply!
famous_roy 17 Sep '09 10:41:28	Want to get Fusion or Parallels so I cans tart gaming it up on my Mac (plus use Visual Web developer and other bits). Which should I go for? I notice on the vmWare site they don't mention Windows 7 compatibility.. which I definitely need. send message \| log in to reply!
[maven] 17 Sep '09 10:52:17	For gaming, I'd still go Bootcamp. For anything else, I'm still fond of Fusion. send message \| log in to reply!
famous_roy 17 Sep '09 11:00:16	Bootcamp is cool, it's just the complete bolloxocity (may not be a word) of holding option every time I start the Mac and the whole back and forth nonsense. Can VirtualBox users confirm that it can launch windows shizzle from the dock? send message \| log in to reply!

↑ Back to Apple/Mac/iPod

+ log in to reply

There are currently 45 registered users online.

Platforms: Xbox 360 PlayStation 3 Wii PC Nintendo DS PSP iPhone Retro

Highlights: Darwinia+ Heavy Rain Final Fantasy XIII Battlefield: Bad Company 2 BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger Napoleon: Total War Supreme Commander 2

"VMware Fusion, Parallels or bootcamp?"

Apple/Mac/iPod

Statistics

About Eurogamer

The Network