Vista on an intel Mac

[carlheinz]

I've heard rumours that the new intel based Mac will be able to handle Vista natively but will not be able to handle an installation of XP.
Anyone know if there's any truth and if so, why not XP?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

hardware doesnt handle software. vista would have to have support for the hardware. if thats the case its because xp is old and vista is new, so it will have the correct drivers.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: JonnyBlaze
hardware doesnt handle software. vista would have to have support for the hardware. if thats the case its because xp is old and vista is new, so it will have the correct drivers.

It's less an issue of drivers (since it's all Intel stuff in there, and the drivers are out there for you), and more of a case of bootloader stuff. It doesn't use a BIOS, but has EFI instead.

 

[ITJunkie]

The bigger question would be why would you want to?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: ITJunkie
The bigger question would be why would you want to?

Why do people dualboot machines now?

 

[Nothinman]

Anyone know if there's any truth and if so, why not XP?

XP doesn't support EFI, but Vista will. Actually the server versions of Windows designed for IA64 already support EFI, but good luck installing them on an Apple machine.

Linux already supports EFI so it'll probably be just like a normal install, although I'm not sure if LILO/GRUB would need patches to work with EFI.

 

[chcarnage]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
XP doesn't support EFI, but Vista will. Actually the server versions of Windows designed for IA64 already support EFI, but good luck installing them on an Apple machine.

Yeah... Good luck trying this on a 32bit CPU

 

[Nothinman]

The 32-bit part is irrelevant, it's the fact that IA64 is a completely different ISA. Intel's other CPUs will never emulate the IA64 instruction set like their EM64T chips emulate IA32.

 

[Mavrick007]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: ITJunkie
The bigger question would be why would you want to?

Why do people dualboot machines now?

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

 

[IlllI]

Text

 

[Nothinman]

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

You can do that now with a Mac and VirtualPC =)

 

[mb]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

You can do that now with a Mac and VirtualPC =)

And lose how much performance?

 

[Wuzup101]

Originally posted by: supafly

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

You can do that now with a Mac and VirtualPC =)

And lose how much performance?

Eh there's only about a 3 million fold performance hit when using VPC... that is unless you're doing something where the graphics card matters... in which case it jumps to a 60 million fold performance hit...

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: Mavrick007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: ITJunkie
The bigger question would be why would you want to?

Why do people dualboot machines now?

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

Then why pay the price for a mac and have to deal with more driver issues than getting the x86 version of OSX when it is released?

 

[remagavon]

Originally posted by: Injury

Originally posted by: Mavrick007

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: ITJunkie
The bigger question would be why would you want to?

Why do people dualboot machines now?

Well, if I could have a Mac and PC all in one machine, it would save buying a separate machine. I could run Linux, Mac OS, and Windows all on the same machine to save space and money. I don't have a Mac currently, but it would be nice to have the option to use it without buying another machine.

Then why pay the price for a mac and have to deal with more driver issues than getting the x86 version of OSX when it is released?

Apple is a hardware company as well as a software company. OSX is never going to be officially released on anything but Apple machines, unless their marketshare takes a nosedive to below 1%, which is highly unlikely to happen given the recent trend of increase.

 

[Nothinman]

Eh there's only about a 3 million fold performance hit when using VPC... that is unless you're doing something where the graphics card matters... in which case it jumps to a 60 million fold performance hit...

On PPC sure, because it has to translate all of the x86 instructions to PPC. But on the Intel version it will be a lot faster since that won't have to happen.

 

[carlheinz]

The reason i woudl like both is purely because I have to use a PC for work and want to use the Mac for home use. I've got VPC now and it's ok, in fact i will almost certainly keep it as it allows me to boot multiple windows OSs at the same time - somehting i coudl never do on a windows box. The problem with VPC is it's always going to be slower than a native boot.
So it seems like i will be able to with the new iMac. Mind you, i'll wait 6 months as the first batch of intel macs are bound to be dogs..

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Eh there's only about a 3 million fold performance hit when using VPC... that is unless you're doing something where the graphics card matters... in which case it jumps to a 60 million fold performance hit...

On PPC sure, because it has to translate all of the x86 instructions to PPC. But on the Intel version it will be a lot faster since that won't have to happen.

Its still emulation

I love my current setup of my Dual G5 PowerMac and just use my PC for gaming

 

[Nothinman]

Its still emulation

Yes and no. Most of the instructions are passed directly to the CPU with no translation or emulation. Have you ever used VMWare? Running Windows inside of VMWare on Linux is fast, sure you need to have decent disk speeds and enough memory to run both OSes at once but the speed inside of the VM is fine for just about anything. Obviously 3D games and crap won't work, but it would be dumb to run them inside of a VM anyway.