PC gaming on a mac? Bootcamp?

[t0yrobo]

There's no good reason not to use bootcamp, graphics acceleration in any virtualization program prety much sucks making lots of games rather difficult to play. Use NTFS for the filesystem like already said also.
The only issue I can think of is that I'm not certain how much RAM Windows can address. From what i recall XP maxes out at either 3 or 4 gigs, while vista, and the x64 version of xp can handle much more. Not that it'd actually cause any problems, Windows would just act like it isn't there.

[Niode]

That's not an issue. He's using a 64bit CPU. He'd just buy/acquire the 64bit version of XP/Vista.

The only issue then is the lack of 64bit compatible drivers. Which is a huge oversight by Apple.

You can install xp/vista 64bit, but the 64bit drivers you would have to find yourself. Most people can get by with the graphics cards/usb chipset/bluetooth etc as they're easy to find. The only problem really is the soundcard in the mac pro. I have no idea what it is, and a quick google couldn't find any drivers or any mention of what it is.

Then again you could always just install 32bit windows and just make do with the 4gb overall RAM limit (this includes video card ram as well). If you have a 256MB video card then windows would only be able to address 3.75GB of RAM and ignore the rest. (this limitation applies to all 32bit operating systems)

[elvis]

(this limitation applies to all 32bit operating systems)

Actually when 32bit Linux is compiled with the "bigmem" option, it can see more than 4GB of RAM (up to 64GB). In recent kernels the option was called "CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G".

It's physically limited to addressing 4GB per process, but it can happily see way more than that overall. Given that Linux has been in use on some rather large servers in it's time, it was an addition that became necessary some years back when people where building whopping big servers and being limited to 32bit builds on certain architectures. That's the same reason why software like Apache for many years spawned child processes per connection rather than running multi-threaded. While more expensive on resources, it meant that overall it could better use large memory systems, as well as overcome limitations of systems by using AMP (Asymmetric Multi Processing) rather than SMP which didn't ever scale well past 2-4 processors, particularly in the dark old days.

Conversely 32bit Windows can only see a maximum of 4GB overall (with other limitations such as the ones you mention above). Additionally it enforces a split of 2GB for the running system, and 2GB for applications. You can change this 2/2 split to a 1/3 split by using a special switch documented here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 24810.aspx

Not as sophisticated as Linux's method of dealing with large memory systems, but that's not unexpected given it's legacy of being a desktop system slowly migrating it's way into the server world (as opposed to Linux's legacy of being a server system slowly migrating its way onto the desktop, which also has its own problems).

[nickfil]

The only issue then is the lack of 64bit compatible drivers. Which is a huge oversight by Apple.
You can install xp/vista 64bit, but the 64bit drivers you would have to find yourself. Most people can get by with the graphics cards/usb chipset/bluetooth etc as they're easy to find. The only problem really is the soundcard in the mac pro. I have no idea what it is, and a quick google couldn't find any drivers or any mention of what it is.

This sounds like a huge hassle over the 32 bit. Most steam games clock in at a recommended 1 or 2GB. Would the difference be negligible or something that i could really see?

[tbeeghly]

3.0 dual quadcore
10 GB of ram
ATI Radeon HD 2600 256MB VRAM

Is that just for pleasure? Or what do you do for a living?

[nickfil]

Is that just for pleasure? Or what do you do for a living?

I color comic books. It is excessive for what i do on it, but i just wanted something that would run for a long long time. Plus I always wanted to learn some motion graphics and maybe some 3-d stuff on my old G5 power pc and was never really able to. It would always freeze up when i started getting going. So its nice to have creative options!

[tbeeghly]

Very cool, what programs are you learning for motion graphics and 3D?

[nickfil]

Very cool, what programs are you learning for motion graphics and 3D?

maya and after effects are the programs i have, but i have no idea what is the standard these days. Things change quick and i haven't been in school since 04

[tbeeghly]

Both are awesome programs. After Effects is the industry standard, so I hear, but there are about a bagillion 3D programs. It all depends what your end product is when choosing a 3D program.

[elvis]

After Effects is the industry standard, so I hear

There is no "industry standard".

I contract to a number of visual effects, film/tv and graphic design companies (as an IT consultant/sysadmin/systems architect, not an artist). Everyone has a large mix of applications from a large mix of vendors, and no two studios are the same.

It's an industry where knowing your basics and being able to adapt are key skills, not specialisation in any one particular application or platform.