Every time I ask a PC audio or video question, there seems to be a chorus of fans suggesting I switch to Mac.
I would potentially be interested in doing this for my personal stuff, but its seems a bit of a pain given that all of my work lives in a windows envronment.
I heard recently, however, that Apple may be responding to users like me in that the new machines will run both windows and Mac? Simultaneously?
Does anyone have any experience with this? That might be the ideal solution for me, as even if Mac does run Office etc, I dont really feel like spending money for the Mac compatible software that I already have.
The lowest priced Macbook Pro has less video memory comparing the top model - 128MB as opposed to 256MB, and it will run only at 1440x900 max resolution. If this is something you don't really care, then yes, by all means invest into more RAM. And, here's the advice on how to save some money on RAM. Buy the configuration with just 1GB and buy an extra 2GB module off Ebay. I bough mine (which is a Apple approved Samsung brand) for just $379 as opposed to Apple's own $750 upgrade to 3GB.
BTW, I don't know if you're following disscusions on Parallels' forum, but there's a new beta 2 3094 built, that supports such cool features like Coherence mode which will basically allow you to run any windows applications right from OSX screen, you can even put them in your dock panel. Also you can run boot strip partion right from Parallels.
I have a MacBook Pro w/Parallels on it and it's working great. I'm a professional web designer, so I needed this flexibility to run both Mac and Windows at the same time, in fact, right now I have OSX, Windows XP and Linux (Fedora 6) running simultaneously. I can switch between them with a single mouse click.
You can allocate as much memory to the 'guest OS' as you like, but there are some limitations, to make sure that the primary OS - OXS can operate smoothly. I have 3 GB of memory, so I allocated 1.5GB to OSX and 1.5Gb to Win XP. I run XP from an external eSATA hard drive, so the speed is great.
It runs very fast, if I didn't know it was a VM (virtual machine), I'd say it runs faster than my native Win XP. The only device that's not working inside Windows (there's still no driver for it) is a built-in iSight camera.
Let me know if you have any other questions and I'll try to answer them.
I seem to remember during the install Parallels asked how much RAM memory I wanted to allocate. My Parallels partition is set at 256 mb. My MAC only has 1 gig of ram.
Actually I am not happy with the ease with which my windows machine gets slow and buggy after surfing the web, and I am not happy with the ease of implementing high end audio or video applications compared to the Mac. Which is why I am asking the question.
More specifically, I was asking about what Vegassears and Tvad are talking about - running both environments simultaneously.
I definitely would not be impressed if I had to reboot to switch between operating systems?!
Does anyone know if you can increase RAM or something so both can be run smoothly and efficiently with multiple tasks in both environments?
I have a MacBook with Parallels installed. Its very cool. Yes, XP can be used like any other program, in its own window. Switching between OS X and XP is a simple as reducing the window. Also with a click of a button OS X with disappear and the screen fills completely with XP.
I though I would give The Apple people a bit more time to run with the new intel processor before jumping into the fold. Not that I have heard any complaints, I just thought it prudent to wait.
My office runs windows and I am a Macintosh user at home. I look forward to the newer system.
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