[flyman]

Hi Everyone,

OK so I'm going to buy a new 15" MBP with a 200GB HD so I'll need to install Windows onto Boot Camp.
In the Windows environment I only intend game with FPS's like COD 2,4, BF2 and Crysis.

This leads to a few questions:

• Given that in the months ahead I intend to either build or buy a dedicated gaming PC, which version of Windows should I install?
  
• Do I need to consider 32 or 64 bit versions?
  
• Should I format the partitions for Mac or FAT32?
  
• What size should I make them?

Any advice would be really appreciated

Cheers
Flyman

[PeopleLikeFrank]

flyman, on March 5th 2008, 04:54 PM, said:

Hi Everyone,

OK so I'm going to buy a new 15" MBP with a 200GB HD so I'll need to install Windows onto Boot Camp.
In the Windows environment I only intend game with FPS's like COD 2,4, BF2 and Crysis.

This leads to a few questions:

• Given that in the months ahead I intend to either build or buy a dedicated gaming PC, which version of Windows should I install?
  
• Do I need to consider 32 or 64 bit versions?
  
• Should I format the partitions for Mac or FAT32?
  
• What size should I make them?

Any advice would be really appreciated

Cheers
Flyman

1. Depends on what you want to do with it. XP is a bit faster, has more mature drivers, but is being caught up to by Vista. I've now got Vista HP x64 on my PC, and it's pretty useable. I can't get it to print over my network, and a couple of programs haven't been updated to work with it. It will at some point be the way to go for games, but not yet. Better DX10 hardware needs to be out, and more games need to support it. Crysis by default supports fancier settings on Vista, but most of those can be achieved with .ini hacks in XP, and those settings are too high for a MBP anyway. You could go either way, but I'd say XP for now.

2. 32GB versions won't give you access to 4GB RAM. If you plan on installing that much and want to use all of it in Windows, then I would reccommend Vista HP x64. The main reason for needing that with gaming is Crysis, which will happily use >2GB. Other than that, you won't need more than 2GB often just for games. If you want to get the most out of Crysis, then a decent PC will do you better anyway.

3. Windows can't see a Mac (HSF) formatted partition at all, so if you want to set aside some space for a Windows install, partition it as NTFS or FAT32. There are some advatages to NTFS, the only disadvantage over FAT32 is that OS X can't write to it (but can read). OS X and Windows can read and write to FAT32, but it's an older filesystem, and has some limitations. I already own a copy of MacDrive, which allows Windows to read and write to Mac discs, so in my case I used NTFS for my XP partition on my MBP. Be aware that MacDrive doesn't work on Vista x64.

4. Minimum about 20GB for the windows install. CoD4 and Crysis clock in at a good 6GB or so, maybe more. XP needs a couple of gigs, and Vista about 6, I think. More than that, depends on whether you want to have a lot of games installed, or plan to get the PC soon (or whether you have any external drives that you can put a Windows partition on).

[Sneaky Snake]

I go for more then a 20 GB windows partition. I currently have a 20 gb partition on my iMac and wish ever so badly I had made it bigger because I can only only install about 3 "new" games max. After that I have to delete one game in order to make room for another. I would also recommend getting the 512 mb graphics card. I'm running CoD 2 on my MBP in windows XP and it runs alright i guess. I'd say its at about a medium good level but I can't crank everything. If you wanna run CoD 4, Crysis etc. with some eye candy turned on your gonna need the 512 mb graphics card.


-Snake

PS: DO NOT buy RAM from the apple store (unless you've got money to burn), they charge you an arm and a leg for it. you could get the same RAM for much cheaper somewhere else, the only problem is that you would have to install it yourself but I'm assuming that you have some experience with that by the looks of your G4, cuz you have some nice aftermarket hardware in there

[Huntn]

I divided my MBP 200 GB hard drive in half, half for Mac and half for Windows. Later I picked up a 250GB external USB drive formatted in Fat32 in anticipation of adding PC games and general backups. Portable hard drives are getting quite small and handily portable these days. It's surprising how fast hard drives can fill up.

[QuantaCat]

Or you can do it like I do: have an external drive for programs/games for XP. There is no real speed hit.


Currently, because I chose the slightly faster HD with 90Gb on my MBP, I gave XP only 12Gbs to play with. (I only wanted it for Bioshock anyway, and I ended up using it for everything else as well)

If there is "drive letter mayhem", you can change the drive letters in some obscure part of XP of which I keep forgetting the name.. HD manager or something? But whatever floats your boat.


On the question of Fat32 or NTFS, I would go for NTFS, since FAT32 only supports files upto 4Gb, Which might be a problem for movies/images/games.

[flyman]

nobody, on March 5th 2008, 05:57 PM, said:

1. Depends on what you want to do with it. XP is a bit faster, has more mature drivers, but is being caught up to by Vista. I've now got Vista HP x64 on my PC, and it's pretty useable. I can't get it to print over my network, and a couple of programs haven't been updated to work with it. It will at some point be the way to go for games, but not yet. Better DX10 hardware needs to be out, and more games need to support it. Crysis by default supports fancier settings on Vista, but most of those can be achieved with .ini hacks in XP, and those settings are too high for a MBP anyway. You could go either way, but I'd say XP for now.

2. 32GB versions won't give you access to 4GB RAM. If you plan on installing that much and want to use all of it in Windows, then I would reccommend Vista HP x64. The main reason for needing that with gaming is Crysis, which will happily use >2GB. Other than that, you won't need more than 2GB often just for games. If you want to get the most out of Crysis, then a decent PC will do you better anyway.

3. Windows can't see a Mac (HSF) formatted partition at all, so if you want to set aside some space for a Windows install, partition it as NTFS or FAT32. There are some advatages to NTFS, the only disadvantage over FAT32 is that OS X can't write to it (but can read). OS X and Windows can read and write to FAT32, but it's an older filesystem, and has some limitations. I already own a copy of MacDrive, which allows Windows to read and write to Mac discs, so in my case I used NTFS for my XP partition on my MBP. Be aware that MacDrive doesn't work on Vista x64.

4. Minimum about 20GB for the windows install. CoD4 and Crysis clock in at a good 6GB or so, maybe more. XP needs a couple of gigs, and Vista about 6, I think. More than that, depends on whether you want to have a lot of games installed, or plan to get the PC soon (or whether you have any external drives that you can put a Windows partition on).

Hi Nobody,

Some excellent advise there.
But just to recap...

• I only intend to have COD4 and BF2 on my laptop and as and when I get my PC I'll add Crysis on that. However I do plan to install 4GB RAM so should I get a 64 Bit version of XP for the MBP and upgrade that to Vista 64 bit when I have my PC?
  
• As for partitioning I may want to transfer data from OS X to Windows so I best format as NTFS and use Mac Drive. As for the size I think I could give over say 30GB as at the moment on my G4 I only have 70GB in total to transfer over to the Mac partition.

Thanks for you help
Flyman

[flyman]

Sneaky Snake, on March 5th 2008, 06:53 PM, said:

I go for more then a 20 GB windows partition. I currently have a 20 gb partition on my iMac and wish ever so badly I had made it bigger because I can only only install about 3 "new" games max. After that I have to delete one game in order to make room for another. I would also recommend getting the 512 mb graphics card. I'm running CoD 2 on my MBP in windows XP and it runs alright i guess. I'd say its at about a medium good level but I can't crank everything. If you wanna run CoD 4, Crysis etc. with some eye candy turned on your gonna need the 512 mb graphics card.
-Snake

PS: DO NOT buy RAM from the apple store (unless you've got money to burn), they charge you an arm and a leg for it. you could get the same RAM for much cheaper somewhere else, the only problem is that you would have to install it yourself but I'm assuming that you have some experience with that by the looks of your G4, cuz you have some nice aftermarket hardware in there

Hi Snake,

I'll probably go for a 30 or maybe 40 GB Windows partition as I only have 70GB to transfer over from my G4.
You mentioned a 512mb graphics card and I'm pretty sure the new MBP comes with that size card installed?!
I definitely wont be going with Apple RAM - I've seen Crucial RAM at a much cheaper price!

Well as for pictiure quality, I'm sure its going to be a lot better than I'm getting with my G4 with its original stock graphics card. Not only that my 21" Diamond Pro has given up as I've lost the Green gun! I'm now going to buy a BenQ FP241W

Thanks for the tips
Flyman

[flyman]

Huntn, on March 6th 2008, 02:10 PM, said:

I divided my MBP 200 GB hard drive in half, half for Mac and half for Windows. Later I picked up a 250GB external USB drive formatted in Fat32 in anticipation of adding PC games and general backups. Portable hard drives are getting quite small and handily portable these days. It's surprising how fast hard drives can fill up.

Hi Huntn,

Just out of interest; on your MBP, what format did you use for the Windows partition?
As it happens I do have a 250GB LaCie external drive that I could use if need be.
If it were formatted as FAT32 could I still back up my Mac partition on the MBP?

Cheers
Flyman

[flyman]

QuantaCat, on March 6th 2008, 02:20 PM, said:

Or you can do it like I do: have an external drive for programs/games for XP. There is no real speed hit.
Currently, because I chose the slightly faster HD with 90Gb on my MBP, I gave XP only 12Gbs to play with. (I only wanted it for Bioshock anyway, and I ended up using it for everything else as well)

If there is "drive letter mayhem", you can change the drive letters in some obscure part of XP of which I keep forgetting the name.. HD manager or something? But whatever floats your boat.
On the question of Fat32 or NTFS, I would go for NTFS, since FAT32 only supports files upto 4Gb, Which might be a problem for movies/images/games.

Hi QuantaCat,

Just a couple of queries:

Quote

Or you can do it like I do: have an external drive for programs/games for XP. There is no real speed hit.
Currently, because I chose the slightly faster HD with 90Gb on my MBP, I gave XP only 12Gbs to play with. (I only wanted it for Bioshock anyway, and I ended up using it for everything else as well)

Are you saying that you chose the 200GB 7200RPM HD?

Quote

If there is "drive letter mayhem", you can change the drive letters in some obscure part of XP of which I keep forgetting the name.. HD manager or something? But whatever floats your boat.

I don't understand this so could you please explain?

Cheers
Flyman

[QuantaCat]

flyman, on March 6th 2008, 11:39 PM, said:

Are you saying that you chose the 200GB 7200RPM

No no, I have a first gen MBP, that means the 7200RPM HD option, was a 90Gb HD. You really don't need 7200RPM, however, unless you want to do *heavy* sound editing/recording.

Quote

I don't understand this so could you please explain?

Drive letter Mayhem. Windows assigns drives a drive letter which make out an address which a program needs to "navigate to" to find its' files and etc. Sometimes, with external drives, it assigns drive letters at random, apparently. If you were to install something on an external drive, and connect it to the 'book in a different order, then it *sometimes* gives it a different drive letter than it *usually* does. If that is the case, you have to go change it in some obscure manager that I have never seen upto the point where I used it to give it a different drive letter. (I have used XP many years before)


Also, if you have MacDrive, you can even use Mac formatted external drives to install stuff to. It really is that simple with macdrive. If you buy it, of course. (theres a demo with license options available)

[flyman]

QuantaCat, on March 6th 2008, 11:47 PM, said:

No no, I have a first gen MBP, that means the 7200RPM HD option, was a 90Gb HD. You really don't need 7200RPM, however, unless you want to do *heavy* sound editing/recording.
Drive letter Mayhem. Windows assigns drives a drive letter which make out an address which a program needs to "navigate to" to find its' files and etc. Sometimes, with external drives, it assigns drive letters at random, apparently. If you were to install something on an external drive, and connect it to the 'book in a different order, then it *sometimes* gives it a different drive letter than it *usually* does. If that is the case, you have to go change it in some obscure manager that I have never seen upto the point where I used it to give it a different drive letter. (I have used XP many years before)
Also, if you have MacDrive, you can even use Mac formatted external drives to install stuff to. It really is that simple with macdrive. If you buy it, of course. (theres a demo with license options available)

Ahhh that all makes sense now!

Thanks for the update

[Sneaky Snake]

flyman, on March 6th 2008, 05:26 PM, said:

You mentioned a 512mb graphics card and I'm pretty sure the new MBP comes with that size card installed?!

2 out of the three configurations come with a 512 mb graphics card, the cheapest model come with a 256 mb graphics card

[flyman]

Sneaky Snake, on March 7th 2008, 12:42 PM, said:

2 out of the three configurations come with a 512 mb graphics card, the cheapest model come with a 256 mb graphics card

Yep! - I know which one I'm going for...bring on the power

[Dark_Archon]

I'd actually recommend ~60GB for Windows. That's what I gave Vista. I'm down to 12 GB free, and I didn't install that many games(Bioshock, X3, The Witcher, Civ 4+BTS, and Arcanum).

[QuantaCat]

Bioshock is 8 gigs, x3 is rather large too, and civ 4 takes up 4 gigs as well.


So yes, you have a *lot* of things installed.

[DrSal]

On personal testing, an external drive connected via FW800 concretely eliminated dropped frames experienced with the internal 5400 RPM drive. If you plan on doing on any intensive gaming (e.g. UT3, NWN2), consider getting at least an internal 7200 rpm drive.

Huntn, on March 6th 2008, 09:10 PM, said:

I divided my MBP 200 GB hard drive in half, half for Mac and half for Windows. Later I picked up a 250GB external USB drive formatted in Fat32 in anticipation of adding PC games and general backups. Portable hard drives are getting quite small and handily portable these days. It's surprising how fast hard drives can fill up.

Why not NTFS? You'd be saving space and NTFS is speed-optimised for larger drive sizes.

[flyman]

Well as things turned out I didnt go with the MBP -Dont ask me why it was just complicated!
You'll might think I'm because instead I bought a Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 quad core with an 8800GT card and 4GB Ram.
Still just going through all the Mac system set up at the moment and doing Windows tonight so hopefully I'll be back up and gaming very soon.
Thanks to everyone for all the advice.

[Huntn]

flyman, on March 6th 2008, 05:32 PM, said:

Hi Huntn,

Just out of interest; on your MBP, what format did you use for the Windows partition?
As it happens I do have a 250GB LaCie external drive that I could use if need be.
If it were formatted as FAT32 could I still back up my Mac partition on the MBP?

Cheers
Flyman

So sorry for the late response. I missed your post. Anyway I used NTFS for the Windows partition, but for the external hard drive I'm using FAT32 so I can interact when running OSX. Yes you can write to a FAT32 partition with your Mac.

[QuantaCat]

Why? the mac pro is the only gaming system, really. The MBP is just OK, and the games look OK, and play OK, but not an explicit gaming system.

[flyman]

QuantaCat, on April 8th 2008, 09:08 AM, said:

Why? the mac pro is the only gaming system, really. The MBP is just OK, and the games look OK, and play OK, but not an explicit gaming system.

Well I suppose the Mac Pro isn't a real gaming machine either but I just love Macs!
On the advice of others on this forum it was suggested that I get a Windows PC for gaming and say a MBP for my Mac work.
Well having investigated the PC route I reckon I would have spent in excess of £1000 upwards + the cost of a 15" MBP and that would have taken me well over budget. Baring in mind I needed to buy a new monitor which has already now set me back close to £500.
So putting all this together I figured it was cheaper to go with a Mac Pro and if necessary buy a dedicated gaming rig in 2-3 years if thats what I need.