blub212212

Parallels. It runs windows parallel to Mac OS at the same time, allowing me to play games (not Modern Warfare 2, more into Platform RPGS now, like maplestory or Wonderking. heh im such a nerd) Anyways, i was wondering which windows OS was better for my predicament
Windows 7/Vista
or
Windows XP

I probably won't be able to access 7, so its really vista vs. XP

I'm just trying to reduce lag, as the games i want to play will work on Windows XP. I'm just not sure if lag is determined by your COmputer's capabilities or the Operating system. Also Windows XP will take less space on my computer, which will probably reduce lag...i think...

so which would be better?

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abc

Wow, you weren't lying when you said you really have no idea about hardware

What do you mean by "lag?" is it a lack of FPS (frames per second. For an ideal gaming experience you need about 60 images every second to form a smooth video) or is it the actions in the game being delayed by your internet connection? You can use a program called "FRAPs" to display your FPS in live time. Play the game and have one eye on the FPS, take note of what the FPS is when you "lag" and what it is normally. FPS lag is caused by slow hardware and therefore occurs in the same conditions (e.g. very heavy firefights or particularly impressive scenery in a game like Crysis) whilst network lag ("network" being a loose term for "internet") is a bit more random and tends to come in very viscious spikes.

Without knowing anything about your computer or indeed how demanding the games that you're trying to run are, this isn't a great place to start: Running one OS is difficult enough. Having to juggle between tasks and threads for totally different OSs sounds extremely inefficient.

A less convinient but (surely?) far faster and more responsive experience could be had from operating a "dual boot" configuration. Whilst you still have two OSs you are only running one at a time.

__________________
"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

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This is getting repetitive.

blub212212

Yea i wasn't lying.
What i mean by lag is, that if i press a button (let's say heal 500 HP) i will not heal the HP instantly, but after a second or two. I want to heal it instantly, but because of this kind of lag, it takes a while.
I have ran Mac OS (snow leapord i think it is) and Windows XP at the same time. It worked well, because i played a game called Wonderking. I didn't even have lag problems. But my friend tried it with a game that i want to play, Maplestory, and experienced the lag example i just said above. The only real reason I'm using windows on my mac is to play games, so that is why i like parallels and not a dual boot.

So....do you understand what i said? I feel like i confused myself even...

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Dante

I'd imagine running two operating systems at once is sapping most of your CPU, I think dual booting would probably be wiser.

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pantstofry

I'm far from a techie, but i'll second what Dante said, dual booting is probably a better option AFAIK. My dad did that and it worked pretty well for him.

Nibbles

I use Parallels on my Mac and while great for most things and while it can certainly handle relatively simple DirectX 3D games (I have been playing the new Sam & Max games just fine with it), I wouldn't expect it to handle well for anything too heavy.

Even older games such as CS:Source I play on a native WinXP partition.

You will never get the performance that you could from a native OS boot, and the performance in this state is more or less guaranteed based on whatever hardware you have.

Fire up Boot Camp and give it a go.

blub212212

It can handel simple 3d games, so 2d should work? The games i'm interested in are 2d.
Example:


So Let's say I DON'T Use Dual boot. For parallels, what would be the optimum OS version of windows?

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OzballO

I'm assuming you have parallels 5.0? From what I understand Vista was just plain glitchy. If the only reason you are getting this is for older games or games that don't take a lot of demand on your computer i would say go with xp. However, if you want to start playing newer stuff you may need to obtain 7.

Nibbles

If you really need to virtualise it, I would just stick with Windows XP as long as it's supported by the game. No need to go beyond that, and the support for it is likely to be far more mature.

Virtualisation is tricky and performance (or whether something will work at all) does not always correlate directly with your hardware unlike a proper native OS boot.

If, for example the game is trying to implement some effect that is not handled well (or at all) by Parallels, then it will fail, regardless of how much hardware you put behind it.

I had problems with texture rendering on a single episode of Sam & Max in an old version of Parallels but after upgrading, it was fine.... all other episodes of the game ran without issue, it was just this one.

Game support within Parallels and VMware, etc is getting there but is not foolproof regardless of your host platform. This is why on VMware and Parallels, etc websites you will find a list of software and forums discussing whether certain titles are certified to work and if there are any caveats, and gaming is where most virtualisation software falls short - but it is getting better all the time.

abc

I think the problem here stems from the very simple, but as yet too complex to solve, fact that you are taking so many different things (software, OS, hardware) which their designers never even imagined would be used together and as such are coded/programmed/work in such different ways with faaaaaarrrrrrrr to many variables to ever work.

You're asking a 10 year old program to run on 10 year old software to run on 4 year old hardware which was not designed to originally work with your 9 year old OS that you are virtualising in a completely different 9 year old OS.

Unsuprisingly, your hardware is simply crumbling under the complexity.


Bottom line? It's extremely rare that two (computer) things which aren't designed to work together will work together. This particular instance is so complex and so unneccessary to the rest of the world that it's highly unlikely you'll ever have a solution. If it works first time then it'll work, but if it doesn't work first time, chances are it'll never work.


If you want stuff to work near perfectly with minimum hassle, then running it on the hardware & software it was designed for isn't the "better" option. It's the only option.

Therefore in this case dual booting isn't a "better" option. It is the only option for getting it to work well.

__________________
"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

Nibbles

Its more likely to do with the implementation of the virtualisation software. Most stuff regardless of complexity runs at near native speeds due to VMs these days running in Native Execution mode which is pretty smexy stuff. Its when you want to do something unusual that the VM software doesnt know how to handle well, or at all, which is where you usually have problems.

Its funny though to think that something as "simple" as a 2D game will suffer like this whereas one of our customers runs VMware with SQL2000 on Win2K3 handling tens of thousands of transactions a day on a business critical DB running perfectly on hardware no more powerful than a modern gaming box (though obviously enterprise grade hardware). In fact, its been more stable than most of the physical boxes they have performing similar tasks.

OT: not sure where you get the idea OS X 10.6 is a 9 year old OS

blub212212

I have no idea what the last 3 posts said. Well all i got was that if i use parallels, get Windows XP and i should dual boot (even though I won't...)
SO...yeah...

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abc

basically, if the programs you download and try to run don't run/work well, then there is absolutely no hope of you "making" them work by any quick/clever little tips.

If you want 100% garunteed results for gaming, dual boot is the way to go. Dual boot is a bit annoying having to restart everytime you wanna play a game though.

__________________
"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.