Bootcamp: Technical Discussion

[poursoul]

FEAR runs in 1280x900 on ultra high at an avg of 29.8 fps on a macbook pro.

 

That simply COULD NOT be true. Are you certain that soft shadows are turned on?

[rumz]

So I never tried the XOM method as I was waiting for proper video support.

 

My comments on running XP on my MacBook Pro (2.16ghz, 2gb ram, 7200rpm drive, 256mb vram):

 

When I crank it up to 2.16ghz the fan becomes audible. I’ve never really noticed it when running OS X.

 

When I load up a game that uses the 3D card (I just installed Counter-Strike: Source, haven’t tried any other games so far), the thing really starts to make some noise for a laptop. Anyone else finding the same thing? It’s still a lot quieter than my PC w/ 6800GT (which is overclocked and always has a loud fan going), but it’s weird to hear the MacBook make that much noise.

I didn’t note the specific settings in that game— I ran it in widescreen mode @ 1440x900 and most the settings were on high as recommended by the software. I know it doesn’t necessarily tax a card to it’s limit, I just ran the video stress test and it came back with about 60fps.

 

For a laugh— I installed iTunes in XP funny but it starts much faster in XP. I’ve yet to run any other programs on it so far.

 

Audio: perhaps this was an issue with the XOM version too based on what drivers people used, but first, the headphone out is putting out an optical signal all the time. Also, when I plug in headphones, sound continues to play through the speakers as well as the headphones. Any way to fix this?

[Sabr]

Would this work on a normal PC running Mac OS X86?

[poursoul]

No, SABR, because it requires a firmware update to the hardware itself...

 

Maybe there's a talented hacker out there that could disable those hooks and we could have ourselves a nice boot menu

 

P.S. I am currently using my motherboard's built in boot menu and simply choosing the hard drive I wish to boot.

[tux541]

So I never tried the XOM method as I was waiting for proper video support.

 

My comments on running XP on my MacBook Pro (2.16ghz, 2gb ram, 7200rpm drive, 256mb vram):

 

When I crank it up to 2.16ghz the fan becomes audible. I’ve never really noticed it when running OS X.

 

When I load up a game that uses the 3D card (I just installed Counter-Strike: Source, haven’t tried any other games so far), the thing really starts to make some noise for a laptop. Anyone else finding the same thing? It’s still a lot quieter than my PC w/ 6800GT (which is overclocked and always has a loud fan going), but it’s weird to hear the MacBook make that much noise.

I didn’t note the specific settings in that game— I ran it in widescreen mode @ 1440x900 and most the settings were on high as recommended by the software. I know it doesn’t necessarily tax a card to it’s limit, I just ran the video stress test and it came back with about 60fps.

 

For a laugh— I installed iTunes in XP funny but it starts much faster in XP. I’ve yet to run any other programs on it so far.

 

Audio: perhaps this was an issue with the XOM version too based on what drivers people used, but first, the headphone out is putting out an optical signal all the time. Also, when I plug in headphones, sound continues to play through the speakers as well as the headphones. Any way to fix this?

 

 

I'm finding that my Macbook Pro (2.0Ghz, 7200RPM, 1Gig) does tend to make more noise in Windows XP then in Mac OS. Apple explains this in the manual for Boot Camp. Simply put Windows does not have as good of power management as Mac OS X (At least for the Macbook Pro, and I would argue in general). So your going to tend to get more heat, more noise, and less battery life in Windows XP.

 

As far as the audio. Their is no way to switch between heaphone out and internal speakers. That is just not in the drivers (yet). The glowing digital out though is easy to fix. Simply go to Control Panel (Never thought I would say that on a Mac), Click on the Sigmatel Control. It's the farsest tab on the right (I think advanced) and their is an option there to turn SPDIF out on and off.

 

I have yet to try iTunes though inside of Windows XP on a Mac because I am afraid my heart might burst out of my chest.

[Sabr]

No, SABR, because it requires a firmware update to the hardware itself...

 

Maybe there's a talented hacker out there that could disable those hooks and we could have ourselves a nice boot menu

 

P.S. I am currently using my motherboard's built in boot menu and simply choosing the hard drive I wish to boot.

 

Yeah, that's what I do too... Although, it's not a very nice user interface, and I'd prefer something a little more better looking... Oh well, we can't have everything!

[tux541]

hmm just did winxp sp1 on the imac I have here, installed fine but the drivers won't install. and it looks like knoppix 4 boots, so I wonder why debian wouldn't since knoppix is based on debian

 

I've actually gotten openSUSE 10.0 to install, no problem! Until you try and install the boot loader. Then it panics. Grub says it can't find device (hd0,2). I've tried every combination of Grub and Lilo to try and get it to boot but with no luck, I just get a very fast blinking cursor. Anyone else have any luck yet?

[grrOmp]

That simply COULD NOT be true. Are you certain that soft shadows are turned on?

 

 

I can't speak for FEAR (don't own it) but I can say that on my iMac, games have been running MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than they "should."

 

My iMac is a 20" 2ghz core duo, 500gb hd (which I thought was a slow notebook one??), 256mb x1600, 2gig of RAM. I'm usually gaming on a 3.4Ghz P4, 2 gig of RAM, 36gb Raptor HD, X850 XT 256 mb.

 

Everything I've heard and read about the X1600 is that it should fall somewhere around between an X700 and X800 in performance. So slower than my X850. The clock speed on the processor is 1.4 GhZ slower. The hard drive is slower. The RAM is identical. And yet, I've installed three games (EQ2, SimCity4, Battlefield 2) and they're all seriously SMOKING my gaming rig with higher resolutions and most of the effects turned all the way up.

 

I don't get it at all. I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with the Core Duo, but I thought the reason games always stunk on the Mac was because clock speed meant everything to most games? Color me confused, but very happy.

 

Can't wait to see the benchmarks,

 

G

[Altimeter88]

I can't speak for FEAR (don't own it) but I can say that on my iMac, games have been running MUCH MUCH MUCH faster than they "should."

 

Well everyone knows that the components that Apple uses are far superior to anything a PC could ever put out. My buddy who knows all about Macs and had owned them for years was explaining how even his old G3 can render and encode multiple HD streams in "real-time!" when even the fastest and latest P4s can't do that.

LOL

 

Well joking aside, it is good to hear that things are running well in XP with boot camp, I think you will see Apple stock double in the next year because of this move, so I think I am going to drop about $5K on their stock today. I am a long time PC user but just placed my first Mac order last night for a new MacBookPro (2Ghz, 1Gb, 100GB 7200rpm) and I am really excited to get it.

[skyliner34]

If you extract the BootCampAssistant.pkg to a folder using Pacifist

then go inside of it Applications>Utilities and

right click on "Boot Camp Assistant" "Show Package contents"

then navigate to Contents>Resources and you will see "DiskImage.dmg" which you can mount and there is a .exe for windows drivers

 

Thanks

[L EphIno]

That simply COULD NOT be true. Are you certain that soft shadows are turned on?

 

 

Um yeah... Mind telling me why it wouldn't be when people are hitting 60 fps on doom3 with everything on? Quite frankly I thought it would do higher, shoot my workstation hits 95 fps on it. it's not using aa, no point. Don't believe me try it yourself.

[nemattoad]

I don't get it at all. I have a sneaking suspicion it has to do with the Core Duo, but I thought the reason games always stunk on the Mac was because clock speed meant everything to most games? Color me confused, but very happy.

 

It is definetely the core duo. It absolutely destroys the P4s for gaming.

[poursoul]

Um yeah... Mind telling me why it wouldn't be when people are hitting 60 fps on doom3 with everything on? Quite frankly I thought it would do higher, shoot my workstation hits 95 fps on it. it's not using aa, no point. Don't believe me try it yourself.

 

Ok, "evrything turned on" in F.E.A.R. means soft shadows, the Havok 2 physics engine, a MASSIVELY updated particle count per scene, and much higher resolution textures. Now, I have not gamed with a Core Duo processor, and I really don't think it could be that much of a difference over other new full desktop procs, BUT I COULD BE WRONG.

 

Here is a quote from Extreme Tech

 

In general, F.E.A.R. is quite an excellent benchmark. It features a similar level of real-time lighting and shadows as Doom 3, but has far more detailed textures, higher-polygon character models, a much greater use of physics, and a particularly good particle system that is heavily used in the firefights to make clouds of dust and smoke, sparks, etc. The way it works makes it a somewhat more realistic benchmark that the typical timedemo setup. Playing back recorded demos in games typically just spools recorded "snapshot" frame data, without actually running all the game systems (AI, physics, game scripting systems) used when truly playing the game.

 

What a newcommer to gaming like you doesn't understand is that Doom3 is a generation old compared to F.E.A.R. Yes, Doom 3 looks frickin' awsome still, but at the same time F.E.A.R. is taxing you MUCH harder. Please DO NOT just throw numbers around as you hear them on the net.

 

NOW, if you look at actual benchmarks from hardware FASTER than yours (desktop X1600) on your Macbook Pro (Mobile X1600) you will see that that is NOT a realistic number for F.E.A.R.

 

(taken from Firing Squad, many props)

 

 

That is with AA and AF turned off.

 

EDIT: And in response to your AA comment at the end: WTF are you talking about, real gamers use AA when you are below 1600x1200.

[L EphIno]

Ok, "evrything turned on" in F.E.A.R. means soft shadows, the Havok 2 physics engine, a MASSIVELY updated particle count per scene, and much higher resolution textures.

 

Here is a quote from Extreme Tech

What a newcommer to gaming like you doesn't understand is that Doom3 is a generation old compared to F.E.A.R. Yes, Doom 3 looks frickin' awsome still, but at the same time F.E.A.R. is taxing you MUCH harder. Please DO NOT just throw numbers around as you hear them on the net.

 

NOW, if you look at actual benchmarks from hardware FASTER than yours (desktop X1600) on your Macbook Pro (Mobile X1600) you will see that that is NOT a realistic number for F.E.A.R.

 

(taken from Firing Squad, many props)

 

 

That is with AA and AF turned off.

 

Please, for the sake of the internet. Do not talk out of your ass.

 

I don't mean to doubt you at all and yes I know that fear is more taxing, one thing you'll note is the 33 fps on the workstation core that is the same card as the mobile x1600, and it hit 33 fps, I said 29.8, which is indeed slower by 4 fps, next thing is I am using the omega drivers and have disabled the powercore to stop the gpu from under clocking. Your next point about the particle system is correct it's much more taxing but a gamer like you should know that particles are always hardware rendered unless they are sprites, meaning that the video card does not have to calculate textures through software emulation. On top of that you have a processor that can handle the stepped particle system. You'll see in my stats that my desktop uses the x850xt, on 1600x1200 with everything turned on I still get above 24fps and hover around the 30 mark. 1024x768 I'm up at 50, Next thing you should note is that in their test setup they used DDR400 for their ram, and don't try to tell me video games don't depend on ram speed. Don't tell me it's not possible, I ran the test, don't believe me, run it yourself. Next if are not satisfied you can, go here, PC Perspective - ATI Mobile X1600 They have tests on a system VERY similar to my setup, only difference is that I have 256mb of ram on my macbook, and my ram is DDR-667 not 533. You telling me I couldn't pick up a an avg of 3 frames higher a second based on those stats alone? Next if you are curious, I've been hitting about 48fps on the medium settings. Oh and on medium with aa4 on at 36fps.

[poursoul]

Ok, you may notice the caption below the F.E.A.R. benchmark the sentence "CPU and GPU settings at Medium" Which make a HUGE difference. Second you may notice that they are running at 1024x768.

 

You stated:

 

one thing you'll note is the 33 fps on the workstation core that is the same card as the mobile x1600

 

Not true. For every generation ATI and nVidia have gotten thier mobile line from the next lower end part of thier desktop line, and gave it a kick (50 - 100Mhz boost). They simply tout it as thier latest and greatest in the mobile quadrant and the common public eats it up.

 

If you do not understand that, here is a simple flow chart:

 

Desktop X1600 > Mobile X1600 > Desktop X1300 > Mobile X1400 > Mobile X1300

 

I agree with pretty much everything you are saying with the exception of:

 

Next thing you should note is that in their test setup they used DDR400 for their ram, and don't try to tell me video games don't depend on ram speed.

 

RAM speeds and timings only really matter when you are OCing. You should have worded that differently, like "Hey, they're only running on a 400 bus." But that's just the P4M for you. Like I said, this could all just be the Core Duo blowing my mind here

[L EphIno]

Ok, you may notice the caption below the F.E.A.R. benchmark the sentence "CPU and GPU settings at Medium" Which make a HUGE difference. Second you may notice that they are running at 1024x768.

 

You stated:

Not true. For every generation ATI and nVidia have gotten thier mobile line from the next lower end part of thier desktop line, and gave it a kick (50 - 100Mhz boost). They simply tout it as thier latest and greatest in the mobile quadrant and the common public eats it up.

 

If you do not understand that, here is a simple flow chart:

 

Desktop X1600 > Mobile X1600 > Desktop X1300 > Mobile X1400 > Mobile X1300

 

I agree with pretty much everything you are saying with the exception of:

RAM speeds and timings only really matter when you are OCing. You should have worded that differently, like "Hey, they're only running on a 400 bus." But that's just the P4M for you. Like I said, this could all just be the Core Duo blowing my mind here

 

I'm stating same core, same geo pipe and same texture pipe, not disagreeing with you, mobile chips are severally under-clocked to keep down the temp and power consumption, you can double check me here, Mobile or Desktop

 

And maybe if I get risky I'll see if the ati tool from omega will let me over clock up to the core freq. of the desktop 1600. (don't count on me doing it anytime soon, I'm a little worried how hot it runs as it is....) Someone else wants to try, let me know how it goes!

 

But you did get me second guessing my post and I do owe you an apology. Just opened FEAR to double check settings and noticed that soft shadows were not on. With it off, everything else on max, no aa, Min 15 avg 28 max 60. With it on, had a peak of 28. Low 9 Avg. 19 max 28, so I am sorry for overlooking that option. So either I had it shut off, or I miss read the max as the avg. Either way I was wrong.

 

So yes I did miss-state a benchmark, I'm sorry, but if you notice, I've kinda been doing a lot of benching the last day... Considering if you look back in the posts this was my 7th benchmark, it was easy to overlook a setting, you know how it is when you are rushing to get stats to everyone, and next time I won't rush out my stats, like with effects, seems when you release some info prematurely you get hounded for it.

[poursoul]

No problems mate

 

I was refering to your avg. the whole time too, heh

 

EDIT: You know what, this may not be a big thing to some of you but big f****** kudos to L EphIno. I have never seen anyone ever apologise in a forum (especially to me, heh) before. That was very gracious and big of you.

[poursoul]

Everything I've heard and read about the X1600 is that it should fall somewhere around between an X700 and X800 in performance. So slower than my X850. The clock speed on the processor is 1.4 GhZ slower. The hard drive is slower. The RAM is identical. And yet, I've installed three games (EQ2, SimCity4, Battlefield 2) and they're all seriously SMOKING my gaming rig with higher resolutions and most of the effects turned all the way up.

 

I think your gaming rig has something wrong with it. This cannot be true either.

[tazman2]

Got Intel-Imac and did bootcamp everything working great notice a problem with the time and date Mac side is correct windows is not anybody else seen this

[moksha]

It says in the Instruction Manual that the times will be different, it's not a big deal like the video drivers were :-P

[Velvet Nightmare]

My windows partition just randomly died. It's unbootable now, and chkdsk reports that "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems".

 

Sucks because I just installed 20GB of games.

 

That's alright though; I just bumped the partition up another 5GB to allow for at least one more game. I'm thinking about adding World of Warcraft to the list of:

 

Half Life 2

Counter Strike Source

Oblivion

F E A R

Natural Selection

Silent Hill 3

Silent Hill 4: The Room

 

 

Also, word to the wise: Avoid P2P software unless you have a suitible antivirus suite and spyware program. I believe this was part of my downfall the first time; I had put LimeWire and Bearshare on before my protection schemes.

[oscho]

Has anybody tried Boot Camp on a mac mini with a bluetooth keyboard (logitech)?

 

I am unable to press alt key at boot so how do I select the partition I want to boot from?

 

Thanks!

[Neusôs]

I'm thinking about adding World of Warcraft to the list of

 

Velvet, have you had a chance to install (or do you use) Daemon Tools?

For those that are not familiar with Daemon Tools it's basically a disc emulator that allows you to virtually mount disc images in WindowsXP.

[geoman]

Apple has hijacked the Windows logo and made it better!

Another Apple Design success.

[johnniecarcinogen]

Got Intel-Imac and did bootcamp everything working great notice a problem with the time and date Mac side is correct windows is not anybody else seen this

 

I've always had this problem on my 'hackintosh'. Whenever I boot into Windows I have to resync the time.