XP or 7 on Macbook Pro?

[xAPOCALYPSEx]

My brother has just purchased a macbook pro 13". He is mainly going to use this for school, research, and everything else macs are normally used for. However, he has asked me to use bootcamp so he can be able to also play some games on it. Upon looking at its specs, it looks like its able to play a lot of the games he plays with 4GB DDR3, 2.4GHz p8600, Nvidia 320m. However, what operating system should I advise him to get for gaming? Since it isn't a gaming machine, all the fps will matter. So will I get better FPS on XP or 7? (and 32 bit/64?)

 

[xAPOCALYPSEx]

bump just because

 

[Tamz_msc]

Macs are not for gaming, but still the latest games will run at the monitor's native resolution ant low - medium settings.Older games will probably work with higher settings.The FPS will most likely be around 20- 40 FPS for current games and 30 -60 FPS for older games.The 320M is equivalent to a desktop GT 220 with lower clock speeds, so don't expect much from it.For 4GB ram , 64 bit OS is required, but XP 64 bit is crappy and Windows 7 is the only choice.But the 320M is a DirectX 10.1 card and will work as a DirectX 10.1 card under Windows 7.So only the games supporting DirectX 10,10.1 will work with the 320M.Older games will probably not work well either.So, you are not left with a lot of options in the end as Macs are not really meant for gaming.Only OpenGL games would work under OS X, and given the poor performance(only a third of the FPS under Windows) of such games under OS X due to little progress in developing OpenGL, you are really out of luck.

 

[Silmarunya]

- 64 bit for sure. 32 bit can use 3GB or RAM (usually 2GB RAM and 1GB from the graphics card). 64 bit is the only way to fully use those 4GB or RAM.

- 7 and XP show roughly equal gaming performance. DirectX11 on 7 isn't a benefit as the 320M doesn't support it. So basically, performance will be equal. I'd get 7 as its more pleasant and polished and offers identical speed.

- The above poster is right, a 320M isn't a good gaming GPU. But on a 13" screen, it should be all right. A low resolution means low GPU demands.

 

[ak22]

I had windows XP Home Edition (32bit) on my macbook pro (Until went to reformat and broke the cd) Games worked great they all played well on it: Battlefield 2, C&C 3, COD world at war, DOW II, CS:S, TF2.

This is on the 2.4 GHz 4GM Ram, 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT.

As you have 4GB Ram worth getting a 64 Bit OS as 32 Bit os won't recognise all the ram, My friend has same laptop as yours windows 7 but only plays C&C 3 works great.

 

[xAPOCALYPSEx]

Thanks for all your inputs!
I knew that the macbook as well as all macs aren't made for gaming in any way, but you gave me a little more info into it. I will probably go with XP, as it is much cheaper and doesn't take away much, if any, performance.

 

[ak22]

Try go with 64 Bit Version and Enjoy

 

[pete3867]

I have had both on my mb pro 2.5ghz , 2008 vintage and honestly, I would go with XP , it's a much more versatile os in many ways than 7 , and it seems to sit well in bootcamp