Is this even possible?

[miss_yt]

As you may remember, I'm planning to get a MacBook Pro after this holiday season, partly to prepare for grad school and also because my current laptop is approaching the end of its natural life span (it's still functional, though, and my mother will get it). The reason I'm going for a Mac, rather than some form of PC, is that the new Macs can run Windows, and, thus, Windows games. For me, being able to play games on my computer is very important.

However, after some consideration (and reading on Slashdot), I've come to the conclusion that I would rather not put Windows on my new computer if I don't have to. That is, if there's a way to make it run Windows or old DOS games without the actual Windows, I would like to know what it is. Isn't there some kind of emulator for Macs that will run PC programs? Or is there some Linux thing that will do it?

Speaking of that, maybe I could put Linux on my new computer instead (or also, how about that?) Since it has Boot Camp, and I won't already have a bunch of valuable data on it when I first get it, I can afford to experiment. Although I would need to do some research on the available distros first. I think if I'm going into information science, having Linux and knowing how it works would be a good idea.

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

There used to be Virtual PC, but microsoft opted to not update it for the Intel Macs, so.

A 3rd-party alternative to Boot Camp is Parallels Desktop, which doesn't require dual-boot, but it still requires a Windows installation. Here is a recent article:

http://www.macworld.com/2006/06/reviews/parallels/index.php

I have no experience with any of these programs, myself.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

I think I've heard of Parallels. It looks pretty good. I'm wondering if it will allow me the relative safety of the Mac OS online, while letting me use Windows programs at the same time.

Of course, I will still have to get Windows to do what I want, but this is a better alternative than Boot Camp. And I plan to put as much RAM in the computer as possible anyway, so I should have no problems running it.

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

Parallels should give you the best of both worlds. Since it exists on the Mac OS partition as a "sandbox", a corrupted Windows install inside it shouldn't be able to break out and kill the Mac OS install (or at least that's what I'm led to understand).

Also, as long as your Windows games don't require Windows XP, installing Windows 2000 might be a help performance-wise.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

The problem is, I think some of my games do require XP. So would it not be "safe" to have XP, or are you saying it would just eat a lot of memory?

Also, I have a basic understanding of how partitioning works - it makes multiple virtual drives on a single disk - but I don't understand the interactions between the files and applications on different sides of the partition. Does it matter which side I keep my PC programs on? Will they have to be in the same drive with the Windows OS or can I just use Windows to run them from wherever without any ill effects?

[plus-c.livejournal.com]

When using Parallels, there's no separate partition for Windows per se...Parallels just marks off a large portion of the hard drive for itself. To Mac OS, the whole thing just looks like a really big program.

You'd be just fine running XP, just that Win2000 doesn't require as much in the way of resources.

[batshua]

If you only want DOS games, there's DOSbox.

[miss-yt.livejournal.com]

I haven't had good luck with DOSbox. This little emulator called VDMSound worked a lot better - it was actually designed to address the sound driver issues that newer machines have with old games, and it does that pretty well (it is also easier to use than DOSbox).

[batshua]

1. Have you tried the latest version of DOSbox? They do update it pretty often.

2. I've not heard of VDMSound. I'll try it out.

3. There are wrappers for DOSbox that mean you don't need to work the command line so much to make the games run. Not sure if this is enough to redeem it for you, though.