Did you catch this article last week on slashdot?
"Hardware Virtualization Slower Than Software?"
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/12/2028223
Personally, I own a couple of macs and I wouldn't consider using Parallel desktop, because the apps that would interest me on Windows are 2D or 3D apps and these are the worse kind to use with this. An intel OS X machine requires more than 512 megs of RAM for just doing basic non-multimedia tasks without swapping, so that means you need at least 1 gig before running a concurrent Windows XP (which you need to buy at full price). Also as I mentionned previously, the way these software work is by writing drivers for every piece of hardware because the hosted OS cannot have 'real' access to the harware, these drivers then will share resources with the host OS, at the same level as other apps and not at the kernel or driver level (the drivers are proprietary to Apple). That would be especially nightmarish for 2D applications or applications using DirectDraw and Direct3D which isn't easily remappable to OpenGL. For OpenGL, obivously you'd be be using their driver which will hav!
e limited opengl extensions capabilities and bugs of their own, unless nVidia does something for virtualization. Over here, you can get an OK wintel machine for about the same price as the cost of ram upgrade on the mac, and an OEM version of XP.
Before considering dual booting to run XSI and OS X Shake, I'd consider buying digital fusion which if I'm not mistaken should be a cheaper option.
Also be aware that if you buy an intel mac, you'll quickly realize that most applications are not yet available in Intel version. For example : Adobe, all Midi sequencer except Logic, Office, an many more utilities you're likely to want to use. The PowerPC emuluation is slow and add more to your memory requirement.
> From: kim aldis
>
> Hardware acceleration will appear for sure and it's also
> worth mentioning that hardware virtualization is already available, which
> means, amongst other things, concurrent OS with none of the slow-down that comes with
> hardware virtualization. Parallels, in fact, already supports
> it and just needs for the host processor to support it.
>
> And I don't believe for a minute that no-one's working on
> getting a Mac OS onto a standard PC, never mind how hard it might be, partly
> at least because when the virtualisation revolution comes everyone will want
> guest Mac on their PC hardware, no doubt about it.
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