Anyone using bootcamp on a mac?

[aeser]

This weekend my macbook pro crashed several times working on a project in logic, and I've been wanting a windows gaming system again for a while so I've started thinking an over priced mac pro desktop running bootcamp with 2 internal SATA drives might be a nice best of both worlds scenario for me so I can have OSX to work on music with logic and windows to game with (I already have a thunderbolt display) but I'd heard kind of iffy things about running boot camp, so I was wondering if anyone here was running it and if it was working well for them or not so much?

[mafao]

What iffy things did you hear? There are tons of Apple users running Bootcamp every day without any problems at all. It will simply repartition your hard drive and install Windows on a second partition (no current data is lost). When you boot into Windows, its the same thing as having a PC. Windows can run natively on modern Macs.

Do you really need a Mac Pro? The current MacBook Pro (2012, either retina or no) are both faster than the base Mac Pro, cheaper, and will run games reasonably well. You might as well go retina, its a very fast computer and also very mobile. Get an external USB3 or Thunderbolt enclosure and it might work better for your purposes than a Mac Pro.

[nocturnus]

This weekend my macbook pro crashed several times working on a project in logic, and I've been wanting a windows gaming system again for a while so I've started thinking an over priced mac pro desktop running bootcamp with 2 internal SATA drives might be a nice best of both worlds scenario for me so I can have OSX to work on music with logic and windows to game with (I already have a thunderbolt display) but I'd heard kind of iffy things about running boot camp, so I was wondering if anyone here was running it and if it was working well for them or not so much?

I use bootcamp on my mbp for compatibility reasons. The software we use at the hospital is hardly ever compatible with mac.

That said, why would you spend so much money on an apple workstation? You could buy a superior windows system and save €2000.

[Cyanotical]

bootcamp is probably one of the best partitioning software out there, not only does it work the UEFI flawlessly, but it also modifies the W7 image for you, so that you get a custom mac friendly installation of windows

but, you could probably buy a 13/15" macbook pro for music (doesn't need to be powerful, the base model will do) and build a good windows gaming rig for less then a decked out mac pro, which is already several years behind in terms of technology (westmere xeons, 5000 series radeons)

[nevermore]

1. Don't buy a Mac Pro, they're insanely out of date (like, years) and by far the most overpriced out of all the Apple products. I think they received a little bit of update in June but still, it's mostly 2-3 years old hardware. The latest iMac is roughly 1 year old now, if you really want a desktop I'd go for that. (Since you said you already have a Thunderbolt display I'd look into Mac Mini, or buying the latest MacBook Pro and connecting it to your display -- still much better hardware and price than a Mac Pro!)

2. BootCamp works flawlessly. I'm dual booting OSX and Win7 on my iMac and it's perfect. BootCamp does all the work for you + it also gives you the appropriate Windows drivers.

[Shmeckle]

1. Don't buy a Mac Pro, they're insanely out of date (like, years) and by far the most overpriced out of all the Apple products.

Very good point. Attempting to use Bootcamp to game is just a nightmare for a lot of modern games I've found.

[aeser]

What iffy things did you hear?

that it was "buggy", and people complaining lots of things not working right when booted into windows. but you know how people like to talk shit on the internet, so i was looking for some firsthand experience people may have had here.

Do you really need a Mac Pro? The current MacBook Pro (2012, either retina or no) are both faster than the base Mac Pro, cheaper, and will run games reasonably well.

not true, the new retina display mbp's are fast as hell (we just got the fully tricked out one for our new CEO, i installed the entire office suite off the SSD in under 1 minute) but the benchmarks on the xeon in the lowest end mac pro are significantly ahead of even the high end mbp. i also have a macbook pro from april 2011, this is what i'd be upgrading from, and no it does not game reasonably well which is my main problem with it (that and it sweating really hard when i'm working on music and have huge samples open in my sampler like over 1gb in size). the mac pro would rip ass at the studio stuff i run and allow me to boot into windows to game with direct x (which beats the shit out of open gl which is all apple can use). i also planned to upgrade the ram to 32gb and possibly toss some SSD's in it.

You might as well go retina, its a very fast computer and also very mobile. Get an external USB3 or Thunderbolt enclosure and it might work better for your purposes than a Mac Pro.

the mbp becomes an easy bake oven whenever the non-intel CPU graphics kick in which it does the second you launch a game. i love my mbp to death i just want to squeeze more horsepower out of a machine and the mac pro looks appealing for this.

---------- Post added 2012-08-13 at 02:02 PM ----------

That said, why would you spend so much money on an apple workstation? You could buy a superior windows system and save €2000.

i have and use and like both mac and windows, windows is only "superior" for certain things like gaming (hence my wanting it) and businessy functions (which i do at my job). the main thing i do with my computer is make music and for that mac wins and has always won hands down. plus my DAW of choice (logic) is mac only.

---------- Post added 2012-08-13 at 02:05 PM ----------

but, you could probably buy a 13/15" macbook pro for music (doesn't need to be powerful, the base model will do)

music is one of the most demanding things you can do with a computer (along with video editing, and playing newer games) so while you can run some shit with low end base models i have a 2.2ghz quad core i7 macbook pro with 8 gigs of ram and like i said it crashed like 10 times this weekend just because i had studio drummer loaded up in kontakt

---------- Post added 2012-08-13 at 02:09 PM ----------

1. Don't buy a Mac Pro, they're insanely out of date (like, years)

they literally just updated them

and by far the most overpriced out of all the Apple products. I think they received a little bit of update in June but still, it's mostly 2-3 years old hardware.

what exactly in the hardware is 2-3 years old?

i do have my mbp hooked up to the thunderbolt display, that's what i run now


i'm looking for something with more horsepower which the mac pro has and a better video card which the mac pro has, that doesn't catch on fire if i play a game

[Meleti]

that it was "buggy", and people complaining lots of things not working right when booted into windows. but you know how people like to talk shit on the internet, so i was looking for some firsthand experience people may have had here.

There are some issues here and there. When I was using Windows 8 RC on my MBP, the screen brightness didn't automatically adjust like it should (it kept adjusting to minimum brightness). This was solved by disabling a feature in Windows. If you have a rMBP, Windows and windows applications have some minor issues rendering text at your resolution. But for the most part, everything works smooth. Macs and PCs run on mostly identical hardware.

what exactly in the hardware is 2-3 years old?

That would be the processor. Shipped in Q4 2009 originally. There are much better processors out there if you are willing to use a Windows workstation. The last Mac Pro updated changed nothing of consequence.

[Cyanotical]

music is one of the most demanding things you can do with a computer (along with video editing, and playing newer games) so while you can run some shit with low end base models i have a 2.2ghz quad core i7 macbook pro with 8 gigs of ram and like i said it crashed like 10 times this weekend just because i had studio drummer loaded up in kontakt

i hate to break it to you, but music and video are not demanding, certainly more demanding than console port gaming, but nowhere near compute and rendering

also, planned upgrades are not exactly something that is easy to do with Mac, if you really want a power workstation there are other options

[Deleted]

but, you could probably buy a 13/15" macbook pro for music (doesn't need to be powerful, the base model will do) and build a good windows gaming rig for less then a decked out mac pro, which is already several years behind in terms of technology (westmere xeons, 5000 series radeons)

Not really. Of course, it depends on what scale you're working with and so on, but having loads of samples and channels running along with plugins and aux's as well, is demanding.

Wait until the Mac Pro's get updated, since atm they're not that great. And I'm using bootcamp on my Macbook Pro. It's very easy and the only "hassle" is getting some drivers that don't come with bootcamp. Even though the computer is nearly 4 years old (C2D 2,6 gHz with a 9600M and 4 gigs of RAM) it can run Civilization 5 on medium settings without problems.

Also, fellow logic-user

[Meleti]

also, planned upgrades are not exactly something that is easy to do with Mac, if you really want a power workstation there are other options

Actually it is very easy to do with a tower, but we aren't allowed to talk about that here.

[Cyanotical]

Actually it is very easy to do with a tower, but we aren't allowed to talk about that here.

we are allowed to talk about it, as long as it doesn't turn into a flamefest

mac pro towers use specialized ECC memory with an onboard controller, it's not cheap or easy and you cant just use any ram off the shelf, SSD's are probably a bit more forgiving, but even my MBP was picky about what SSD it liked, for some reason the C300 wouldn't work, but a kingston SSDNow would

one thing i would add: I know there is a lot of love for apple within music and video production, but i challenge you to look outside apple, nearly everything you can do on apple can be done on linux, or even windows, if you really want to see what a computer can do, you need to think outside the apple shaped box

[mafao]

not true, the new retina display mbp's are fast as hell (we just got the fully tricked out one for our new CEO, i installed the entire office suite off the SSD in under 1 minute) but the benchmarks on the xeon in the lowest end mac pro are significantly ahead of even the high end mbp. i also have a macbook pro from april 2011, this is what i'd be upgrading from, and no it does not game reasonably well which is my main problem with it (that and it sweating really hard when i'm working on music and have huge samples open in my sampler like over 1gb in size). the mac pro would rip ass at the studio stuff i run and allow me to boot into windows to game with direct x (which beats the shit out of open gl which is all apple can use). i also planned to upgrade the ram to 32gb and possibly toss some SSD's in it.

The Mac Pro Geekbench score is around 11k, similar to the lower-end retina MBP. But I get your point.

they literally just updated them

what exactly in the hardware is 2-3 years old?

The CPUs are still over 2.5 years old...

Maybe a good option would be a used Mac Pro, you can stick a GeForce 680 in there or something like that (works natively).

[vindicatorx]

This weekend my macbook pro crashed several times working on a project in logic, and I've been wanting a windows gaming system again for a while so I've started thinking an over priced mac pro desktop running bootcamp with 2 internal SATA drives might be a nice best of both worlds scenario for me so I can have OSX to work on music with logic and windows to game with (I already have a thunderbolt display) but I'd heard kind of iffy things about running boot camp, so I was wondering if anyone here was running it and if it was working well for them or not so much?

WoW runs fine I can't play BF3 on my MacBook pro as it won't recognize my drivers in order to update them.

[mafao]

one thing i would add: I know there is a lot of love for apple within music and video production, but i challenge you to look outside apple, nearly everything you can do on apple can be done on linux, or even windows, if you really want to see what a computer can do, you need to think outside the apple shaped box

There are no professional applications of that caliber for Linux. Just suggesting that puts a big dent in your credibility...

[Cyanotical]

There are no professional applications of that caliber for Linux. Just suggesting that puts a big dent in your credibility...

google says:

Ardour
Jokosher
Sweep
Rezound
Traverso DAW
Amuc
Linux Multimedia Studio
Audacity
Rosegarden
MusE
Qtractor
Seq24
Renoise
Timidity++
amsynth
Bristol Audio Synthesiser
TerminatorX
Qsynth
ZynAddSubFX
Layer Based Audio Editor
LinuxSampler
SooperLooper
Cheese tracker
Hydrogen
Breakage
Jamin
Ultramixer
Cue Station


it goes on and on, im sure i can find more, one thing about linux, there is always an opensource version of what you want to do, proprietary applications are rare, but Directx is about the only thing not done well in opensource

[aeser]

Wait until the Mac Pro's get updated, since atm they're not that great.

they definitely seem decent and as they were just updated for the first time in a very long time i'm thinking they probably won't get another update for a pretty damn long time now.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

i do have my mbp hooked up to the thunderbolt display, that's what i run now

Thunderbolt display is the same as a mini-display port isn't it?

According to http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

They have either a 2.3 or a 2.6 GHz i7 quadcore, and both $2199 and $2799 models use a GT 650m

[Drunkenvalley]

There are no professional applications of that caliber for Linux. Just suggesting that puts a big dent in your credibility...

You really dent your own credibility by implying the Linux community haven't already made good applications of this kind for their environment. Virtually anyone can contribute to Linux and its applications, so of course it's going to spawn good stuff if you actually care to look.

[aeser]

google says:

Ardour
Jokosher
Sweep
Rezound
Traverso DAW
Amuc
Linux Multimedia Studio
Audacity
Rosegarden
MusE
Qtractor
Seq24
Renoise
Timidity++
amsynth
Bristol Audio Synthesiser
TerminatorX
Qsynth
ZynAddSubFX
Layer Based Audio Editor
LinuxSampler
SooperLooper
Cheese tracker
Hydrogen
Breakage
Jamin
Ultramixer
Cue Station


it goes on and on, im sure i can find more, one thing about linux, there is always an opensource version of what you want to do, proprietary applications are rare, but Directx is about the only thing not done well in opensource

none of those apps hold a candle to native instruments komplete, logic, digital performer, ableton live, cubase, pro tools, etc etc.

yes you can run some shit on linux that will make sound but look at how many producers out there are using linux, and not for no reason.

windows also has FL studio, acid, reaper, etc. that are pc only but i'd take logic and digital performer (even though dp is getting ported to windows any year now) over any of them any day.

where linux/unix/bsd shine is as servers, not as desktops, but as command line servers not running a GUI, extremely efficient, can run for 30 years without a reboot, and just do what they're set up to do like a tank. and like they say, linux is for people who hate windows, bsd is for people who love unix.

i'm an IT manager/sys admin for a biotech company and have been doing it for a living for 16 years now. i've built unix servers, linux desktops, windows machines, an rebuilt countless macs. each platform is best at one thing, but no one platform is the ace of all.

---------- Post added 2012-08-13 at 04:04 PM ----------

Thunderbolt display is the same as a mini-display port isn't it?

According to http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

They have either a 2.3 or a 2.6 GHz i7 quadcore, and both $2199 and $2799 models use a GT 650m

so it looks the same but is not the same, i.e. if you do not have a thunderbolt mac you cannot use thunderbolt things even though they will plug in to the mini display port