Welcome to Mac OS XP: Hands on with Boot Camp
Today's Shuffle Song:
Weird Science by Oingo Boingo
For those of you who don't surf the tech web or RSS a major news site, Apple announced some fairly significant news today. They're releasing a public beta test of one of the features that will be included in the next release of Mac OS X (codenamed Leopard). For now, they're calling the feature Boot Camp and it allows you to dual-boot Windows XP on Macs that have Intel processors. Many are already speculating that Leopard may also have the ability to run Windows in virtualization along side OS X, and even that said technology may be called Chameleon.
Either way, I'm glad I already have tickets to WWDC.
I've already downloaded Boot Camp and used it to install Windows XP Professional SP2. I thought it may be nice to share the experience for those who are less aggressive about adopting new technology than I am. The experience can be summed up as such: "Wow, that was easy."
I'm a nut about playing video games. I've got an Xbox 360. I've also got several late model PCs that help satisfy my obsession. One is a Dell, and the other two are DIY boxes that I hand-built. Install XP on my MacBook was way easier than doing so on the other PCs. It's not even close. Apple's got a clear guide on their site, but here's an overview of the process:
Weird Science by Oingo Boingo
For those of you who don't surf the tech web or RSS a major news site, Apple announced some fairly significant news today. They're releasing a public beta test of one of the features that will be included in the next release of Mac OS X (codenamed Leopard). For now, they're calling the feature Boot Camp and it allows you to dual-boot Windows XP on Macs that have Intel processors. Many are already speculating that Leopard may also have the ability to run Windows in virtualization along side OS X, and even that said technology may be called Chameleon.
Either way, I'm glad I already have tickets to WWDC.
I've already downloaded Boot Camp and used it to install Windows XP Professional SP2. I thought it may be nice to share the experience for those who are less aggressive about adopting new technology than I am. The experience can be summed up as such: "Wow, that was easy."
I'm a nut about playing video games. I've got an Xbox 360. I've also got several late model PCs that help satisfy my obsession. One is a Dell, and the other two are DIY boxes that I hand-built. Install XP on my MacBook was way easier than doing so on the other PCs. It's not even close. Apple's got a clear guide on their site, but here's an overview of the process:
- Download Boot Camp.
- Install Boot Camp.
- Run Boot Camp Assistant.
- Follow the onscreen instructions.
- Insert a blank CD when promoted to create a driver CD.
- Insert an XP CD when requested.
- Install XP. You'll have to decide between NTFS and FAT32.
- After XP is installed, insert the driver CD to load all the needed drivers.
- Dual-boot to your heart's content.
So far, the only major problem I've seen is that the MacBook has no right-click functionality. That's a bigger problem than you'd think. Contrary to what Apple claims, Bluetooth works fine, at least for me.
Performance is quite good. I ran Second Life and Half Life 2 via Steam. Both run well enough, factoring in that this is a mobile GPU. Of course, CPU performance is great. I'm thrilled because I was thinking about getting a Wintel notebook to game on the go. Now, I don't have to.
posted by Mike McHargue @ 2:32:00 PM
13 Comments:
At 4:59 PM ,
Anonymous said...
I was wondering about how games work with the weird aspect ratio of the screen. What were your experiences like? I assume since you didn't specifically call anything out everything worked fine?
At 5:02 PM ,
Mike McHargue said...
The issues there are like any PC with a wide screen display. Many newer games support different aspect ratios. Most older ones do not.
That means you'll either deal with horizontal stretching or you'll have black bars on the sides of the screen.
At 5:59 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Regarding gaming (or anything else full-screen) on wide screens: Simply go to the driver properties and dissable the option that says "stretch to fill the scree".
This will make full-screen games show up with black bars on the side (and top and bottom if the game runs at low resolutions). note that this option is different depending on your graphics card drivers, but most have this option. I only wish there was an option to "strech while keeping the aspect ration" option...
At 7:21 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Wow. A fellow mac lover and PC gamer. I have self-built pcs around just for gaming too. I play mostly FPS so the Half Life 2 news is good news. I am curious as to which MBP you installed it on, the 1.8ghz or the 2.1ghz?
This will definitely speed up my new laptop purchase. Thanks for the info.
At 7:26 PM ,
Mike McHargue said...
This was on the 1.83 GHz MBP.
At 12:57 PM ,
Simon said...
I have been testing Call of Duty 2, FEAR, and Winning Eleven 9 on the XP (Boot Camp).
One problem is that my Apple wired USB keyboard (came with the iMac Intel) stops working intermittently during the games.
Typically this occurs after the game has loaded a new section, or after you die, and the section restarts. Symptomns include the Caps Lock key staying on permanently, or the keyboard repeats a key continuously i.e. your character keeps on running forward. Solution is to unplug the keyboard and plug back in again. Then it works.
My keyboard has no problems in OS X, so it may be a driver issue. Unfortunately I don't have a standard PC USB keyboard to test out.
At 5:43 PM ,
Anonymous said...
Every time I start XP, it detects the 'USB Human Interface Device' (keyboard) and starts the Hardware Wizard, as if it's never seen the thing before.
In addition to the key repeat or failure to respond in games, I've had the keyboard fail to respond with nothing running but XP, and have had to reboot on two occassions to fix it.
With regard to right-clicking... it works on my machine, but I've found the Mighty Mouse under Windows is sensetive about how it is held. If I hold it crooked, it will only left click.
At 5:34 AM ,
Anonymous said...
I have the same problem with the keyboard. Unplug and re-plug seems to be the fix \, however this quickly becomes very tiresome.
It must be a driver issue bex\cause a $12-00 usb keyboard works fine, except the crappy key feel.
At 1:28 PM ,
Kirmu (Aaron) said...
hey i gt the same problem with you guys too..
i found out that the mighty mouse cant be plugged into the keyboard while using windows, the keyboard will get disconnect often.
however, sometimes the keyboard still misbehaves... during gaming... any driver updates to solve it?
At 3:02 AM ,
Anonymous said...
Same keyboard problem with Intel IMAC. So a regular wintel keyboard fixes the problem? I suspected it might. Cool. I'll keep a lookout for new keyboard drivers. I guess I can't complain much since boot camp is still beta. I've also noticed my clock time when booting windows often gets screwed, or the sounds starts as muted. Anyone else noticed this?
At 3:04 AM ,
jamesand2004 said...
Same keyboard problem with Intel IMAC. So a regular wintel keyboard fixes the problem? I suspected it might. Cool. I'll keep a lookout for new keyboard drivers. I guess I can't complain much since boot camp is still beta. I've also noticed my clock time when booting windows often gets screwed, or the sounds starts as muted. Anyone else noticed this?
At 7:03 PM ,
TeamScottSmith said...
I have two IMACS bought at the same time, and with boot camp and Win XP installed at the same time with the same discs. One of them has the aforementioned keyboard problem, and the other one doesn't.
Weird.
At 2:14 AM ,
Anonymous said...
i have the same key bord thing but the caps lok LED gose on when the kebord stops working. repluging it in fixes it but only for 20min.... so triyed my bros MAC keybord from an old G4 tower (looks the same as mine) and I never get this problem. i ges when they made this driver they were using an old keybord lol.i am gest going to buy a gaming keyboar and manuly ejekt thing(by the way I have an IMAC
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