FOF2007 in XP on a Dual-Boot Mac?
 

I see from Solecismic's site that FOF2007 will not work in Mac OSX, but has anyone tried downloading and running the demo in XP on a dual-boot Mac? Would the licensing software support this?

I'm currently running the game in XP on my macbook so provided you're asking about using it on XP with bootcamp.

XP is XP. If the hardware can run the OS, it should be able to run FOF2007. I don't think Jim has released a game that requires more than the minimum OS requirements.

Yes, so you *can* play the game in XP via bootcamp. I noticed that you cannot play the game in Parallels so I asked.

Parallels is a virtual machine, right?

Just to back it up I am using it on a bootcamp powerbook as well with no issues. I mean the whole thing about bootcamp is that you are running windows just like any other windows on any other hardware.

Yes and one that you can use from within Mac OSX.

Good to know because I will be purchasing a MacBook in the Spring after Leopard is released and I want to see what games I can run natively in Mac OSX (FM, for example) and which I could run in XP (FOF).

Yeah, but not everything works in a virtual machine 'sandbox' environment. I sometimes forget that it isn't really running on the hardware and isn't that different than when I have played with vmware or virtualpc.

FOF 2007 runs just fine in VMWare so I imagine it would work in Parallels.

The FOF 2007 demo works fine for me in Parallels.

I have a mac, but would like to play FOF, so I guess I'll need to figure out how to use bootcamp. I downloaded it, and have a new version of Windows XP here. What I would appreciate from someone, is step by step instructions on how I should do this. I am just not sure. Thanks

The official guide is here: http://images.apple.com/macosx/bootc...p_Guide_en.pdf

Simple version:
1. Download bootcamp
2. Install bootcamp
3. Run bootcamp
4. Choose how much hard drive space to give to windows.
5. Restart with windows CD in
6. Follow windows installation instructions
7. When restarting hold down the option key to change which HD to boot up

I never read the insallation guide and found it as simple as it could be.

I stand corrected. Jim's site says Virtual PC cannot support the game but it makes no mention of Parallels.

FOF 2007 works in Parallels, though it suffers from slowdowns during screen redraws. It won't be optimal because Parallels only uses one of the cores while Mac controls the other.

Also, depending on how big the game gets as it accumulates data, you might run over the limit you set in your virtual machine. I didn't make mine real big so I'm waiting to see if I run into that problem.

1. I have never noticed any slowdowns with basic 2D graphics like those in FOF. The use of 1 core for basic 2D virtualization is meaningless because it takes so little CPU power that giving it 2 cores would be way more than it needs. Now, if you're running at a high resolution, or doing video, or trying run 2D AutoCAD stuff, then there are slowdowns. Perhaps you haven't installed the Parallels Tools that enhance the graphics capabilities, among other things, or your RAM setting is not optimal. You can try configuring 32bpp mode resolution - it is fastest in Parallels because it goes directly from guest video memory without conversion (according to their support team).

2. You can create an expanding image for your VM so you don't run out of space thanks to an arbitrary limit. Also, you can resize your VM per instructions at their support forum.

hxxp://forums.parallels.com

1. Ok, for whatever reason, the game slows down during redraws on my MacBook Pro. I have the tools installed.

2. I think you are right about this point on second thought.

Assuming you're talking about when you click the next button on player pages, the game slows down during redraws in Windows XP too.