best option for running Windows only game on Mac

L

lewisdw

Registered
I have a Mac mini with OS X 10.4.11 with 1.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 1 GB RAM.

My problem: My daughter really, really wants the Barbie iDesign for her bday, but it's Windows only. It includes software and a USB 'card reader' that is part of the game.

What are my options to get this working on the Mac? Anything like vmware for the Mac? I have a legal copy of XP. I've heard of being able to boot the Intel based Macs into Windows. How is that done/what's needed?

I can get very technical with XP, but I'm a newbie to the Mac and OS X. Any and all help is appreciated.

Wayne
 
With 10.4.11, you can buy:
Parallels
Vmware Fusion
(emulators)

Buy 10.5 w/ bootcamp and boot into Windows

Attempt to use other emulators - Darwine, Crossover, etc. Not the best option.
 
I have Parallels, which works great for everything, normally, but games are still not guaranteed. Parallels and Fusion are still WINE-based and WINE is known to fail when it comes to games (no sound, visual artifacts, etc.). So the best bet for 100% compatibility is Boot Camp. That's if you're serious about getting Windows games to run on the Mac. If you're only playing that one Barbie game, then it's not worth the $129 to get 10.5 (unless you wanted it anyway). It might work fine with Parallels/Fusion, it's just a crapshoot, is all I'm saying.
 
Never used Parallels or Fusion but Boot Camp is great for those far and few boots of windows. Boot camp runs vista great on my macbook. I did it for the same reason. I like some of those 9.99 games at bestbuy and target to waste time at work and 80% of them are windows based. Works great.
 
Definitely Boot Camp. VMWare Fusion doesn't offer accelerated graphics with the Mac Mini's puny 64 MB Integrated graphics. If you had an iMac or MacBook Pro, the game would run fine under VMWare Fusion (as these have graphics cards, Mac Minis don't). I have the same kind of computer as you do and I would recommend installing XP instead of Vista, Vista is so as molasses and takes up way too much hard drive space compared to XP.
 
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