Cabel.Cabel.

Boot Camp First Look: Half Life 2 Video + More

Boot Camp
By now, I'm sure all of you have already discovered and absorbed all there is to know about today's new Boot Camp Public Beta — Apple's official solution for truly dual-booting native Windows XP on any Intel Mac.

Upon hearing about Boot Camp here at Panic Labs, we immediately and excitedly downloaded, installed, and documented, and by "we" I mean "me, while everybody else in the office did actual work". Here's what I found.

Boot Camp is basically comprised of three separate pieces, like so much delicious neopolitan ice cream. First, a friendly installer (dropped in Applications/Utilities/) that helps you easily repartition your hard drive without having to reformat (a feature I'm hoping will sneak into Leopard's Disk Utility). Second, a CD-ROM of native Windows drivers for Intel Mac hardware (burned by said installer). Third, a brand new firmware for all Intel machines that will now happily boot and run any legacy BIOS-based Intel boot CD. Take these three pieces, roll them together and sprinkle them with a little cardamom, and you have a declicious and amazing multi-platform pie. Yes, pie and ice cream. Mmm.

After you've made your driver disk and repartitioned your drive, you simply boot the Windows XP SP2 install CD, just like you would on a PC. This process isn't very noteworthy, and is in fact really soul-crushingly long, so instead I'll just drop in some pictures here, and we can all share a good chuckle about the "most secure version of Internet Explorer to date". (Technically correct, I suppose!)


Once installation is complete: you've got Windows.

What next? First, you'll need to install the many drivers from the Boot Camp-generated CD, which happens automatically. Windows gripes about the Mobility Radeon driver not being "logo tested", but, like any good Windows user, you'll hit continue anyway. Once that driver installation is complete — and after the obligatory reboot — you'll probably notice a whole lot of new tray icons. One of those — the display-looking one — is unique and actually from Apple, as it controls the brightness of the LCD display.

There are a few more surprises in Control Panels. First, Apple has created their own Windows port of the venerable Startup Disk, which makes it very easy to switch back to Mac OS X booting without having to use the ol' Option key. You might also notice a weird SigmaTel Audio control panel for the built-in audio hardware: I only point this out because it contains this stunning piece of user interface design that we all sat back and admired for a few minutes. Arctic Tundra Groupbox! Jack Needs Attention.

Other than these bits and pieces, it's basically just Windows on a Mac, y'know?

Wait — what am I saying? It's Windows, running on a Macintosh. Seriously: whoah. It's like taking a freaky-bus ride to surreal-town while wearing rainbow-dipped trip-o-glasses, but it's also genuinely exciting. Look at it this way: if I keep a crappy PC around the office for one or two tasks (checking websites in IE and MAME management, basically) — and I'm a Macintosh software developer — then I can only imagine there are a lot of people out there in the world with their one or two PC hang-ons that find this software as exciting as I do.

Basically, there will only be one brand of computer in the world that will run both Windows and Mac OS X: a Macintosh.

Nice.

Anyway, this is all well and good, but I know you only care about one thing. And that's really the entire purpose of this post. So how about we both stop pretending to care about all this blah-blah and just get right to it?

"Cabel," you ask, "how well does Half Life 2 run on an Intel iMac?"

Shockingly well. And I bring video proof, filmed right off our Intel iMac screen!


(And here's a lower quality YouTube mirror for those of you with Quicktime trouble.)

It's in my nature to be generally Apple-excited, but still I must say: hooray, Apple. If this is but a sweet, sweet taste of Leopard — eww — then August can't come soon enough.

125 Comments:

Apple makes fast Windows PCs. My 1.5 GHz mini feels extraordinarily fast in Windows.
Blogger Ricky Romero 4/06/2006 1:41 AM  
Blogger Peter Hosey 4/06/2006 1:49 AM  
Ummm, maybe I'm too old for stuff like that. All of this "Macs can Windows, too" sounds pretty scary to me. Guess, you'll have to pry my PPC from my cold fingers...
Anonymous Martin 4/06/2006 2:01 AM  
Intel Mac become really great hardware for gamer like me :D Thanks Apple!!
Blogger Kenichi Yoshida 4/06/2006 2:22 AM  
Cabel, thats awesome dude... I completey been waiting for someone to post something like this :)

I have only been 'thinking' about moving up to the intel mac (macbookpro).. but have yet to find enough reasons to upgrade. I'm moving to London in August, so i'll (hopefully) be picking up one in the States when i go through.

I used to be a both mac and windows user, but until late last year, after getting about half way through HL2, but PC burnt itself out - the cpu and motherboard were toast. So could never finish the game. I have thought about selling the game as i dont use it.. but now im keeping it!

woohoo, cheers again for your post and awesome video!

fingers crossed that Adobe bring out their creative suite sooner than later.
Anonymous Marksy 4/06/2006 2:23 AM  
Really awesome!
Your report and Apple. :)
Anonymous Noby 4/06/2006 2:26 AM  
Great report. I really need a MacBook Pro now.
Blogger Olly 4/06/2006 5:35 AM  
You forgot something REALLY important in that video; zoom out and prove that it indeed is an iMac... (Yes, I see the little cam on top of the monitor, but that isn't enough). ZOOM and PROVE.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 5:49 AM  
What's with the strangge ram number?
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 5:52 AM  
Cabel, the Quicktime plug-in that you use doesn't play nicely with the RSS feed; the article cuts off from the point of the movie insertion. There's also no indication that there's a movie in the article either, though I'm not sure how that would work with RSS--is there some kind of placeholder protocol?

http://syndicated.livejournal.com/cabelpanic/2518.html
Anonymous Isilya 4/06/2006 5:57 AM  
As a long timer gamer but also a long time Mac user, this is a glorious day. I haven't had a Windows PC in years and have been getting my gaming fix on the Xbox. I've been struggling with whether or not to a 360 since I'd really like to play Oblivion. And Civ IV.

Well, last month I got a MacBook Pro. But with all the reports of stores finally getting 360s in stock this week I've been very very tempted.

But then yesterday happened.

So on trip to Besy Buy last night and some time loading while watching Amzing Race and Lost, I tried Civ IV first. Worked perfect. Then Oblivion. Also worked great with all graphics on "high." I only played Oblivion for a few fifteen minutes, so I am still inside. There is a good chance frame rates will start to chug once I get outside with long draw distances and lots of foilage... but so far I am a very happy camper!
Blogger Six Sider 4/06/2006 6:00 AM  
Jack needs attention! Jack needs attention! Quick! Give him a biscuit!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 8:13 AM  
the strange ram number is because the video is sharing the system ram.

great video, can't believe the other commenter wants you to "zoom out and prove it" lame. it is obviously an imac, if you had one you would have already done it by now.

great job, awesome video!
Anonymous Ken 4/06/2006 8:15 AM  
Cabel, how does HL2 run on Parallels' VM? Can you install the Apple drivers in a Parallels VM?

Thanks!
Anonymous Beau Hartshorne 4/06/2006 9:27 AM  
That is really cool. I would love to see some benchmarks comparing say UT2k4 running under Mac OS X to the same running under Windows on the same hardware.
Blogger Twist 4/06/2006 9:28 AM  
Thanks, like many people I have been very anxious for someone to post HL2 or Counter-strike running on an Intel Mac. I salute you sir.
Anonymous Dan Kordik 4/06/2006 9:37 AM  
"Arctic Tundra Groupbox! Jack Needs Attention." Oh man was that funny. A great afternoon laugh there. I hope the "Jack Needs Attention" catches on in some capacity on the internet. Thanks for your work with this. I knew my next computer would be a Mac, but now I know my parent's and my friend's next computers will be Macs as well.
Anonymous Alexander Micek 4/06/2006 9:52 AM  
So Apple makes (awesome) Macs and now makes fantastic PCs. I never thought I'd see the day, but this day is schweet. As much as I love my DP Power Mac (and I do!), I'd love one of those there fancy Intel Macs with their Windows support - it drives me mad how I have to boot up my noisy old PC whenever I have to use 3D Studio Max.

I think that Jack is the king of the Arctic Tundra. Ice floe, nowhere to go. How the hell did that piece of GUI awfulness get past any type of quality control?
Blogger Si 4/06/2006 9:58 AM  
Thanks Cabel, yet another awesome review. I've been wanting to see how HL2 runs on Mac hardware, sweet. Time to buy an intel iMac!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 10:19 AM  
"Basically, there will only be one brand of computer in the world that will run both Windows and Mac OS X: a Macintosh."

That, and any other x86 hardware that can run patched OS X. One brand of computer.
Anonymous Dave 4/06/2006 10:46 AM  
Cabel, A lot of people are afraid that being able to run Windows on a Mac will be a disincentive for developers to continue developing for the OS X. As a developer do you see this as a risk for Apple? Thanks for the post.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 11:22 AM  
If this is but a sweet, sweet taste of Leopard — eww — then August can't come soon enough.

In Leopard you will be able to fast-user-switch between Windows and Mac OS X.

"Woup, woup, here is Mac, here is Windows" -- I already see Steve doing this.
Anonymous Wolfgang Ante 4/06/2006 11:43 AM  
Impressive!
Anonymous Duncan 4/06/2006 12:07 PM  
Oh I'm DEFINITLEY getting an Intel Mac now!
Blogger Dan Nugent 4/06/2006 1:19 PM  
Cabel, great post. You don't have to wait until Leopard for dynamic disk partitioning. Type the following in your 10.4.6 Terminal window:

diskutil resizeVolume

Enjoy!

David Weiss
Blogger David Weiss 4/06/2006 1:29 PM  
That's really awesome. I can't believe it, I can finally play new PC games on the Mac!
That Half-Life 2 video was quite incredible.
Anonymous Bassam 4/06/2006 1:41 PM  
Great. Any heating issues? Will the iMac fans run normally under Windows? Games are pretty demanding.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 1:41 PM  
How about showing us a video capture of a section of the game that's -not- been covered in a demo video.

There was a video of Dog floating around last year or the year before, that, as far as I can remember, is frame for frame, what you just showed us.
Anonymous Mike L 4/06/2006 2:49 PM  
MikeL: While this sequence of Half-Life 2 is largely pre-scripted, this video is of me, sitting at our Intel desk, playing Half Life 2 in absolute 100% real time. It's not a demo or a movie, it's astronomically impossible that it frame-by-frame exact-matches anything at all — it's me playing with a mouse and a keyboard. I have a feeling that no matter what I post, some people will never "believe", so you'll have to take my word (or ask anyone else here at Panic) before we fall into a dangerous spiral of conspiracy theories, grassy Intel knolls, and additional videos (which means more work :)).

Beau: I tried out Parallel's VM today, and it's certainly not for games. There's no 3D hardware acceleration, for example, in their virtualized video driver. It'll probably be good for light Windows tasks -- in fact it's really fast for general use -- but not yet for full on game action. (Plus the interface is really wonky.)
Blogger Cabel 4/06/2006 2:59 PM  
ok, maybe I'm just not with it, or maybe the significance of this just completely escapes me, but....you're posting about a game, that was written to run in windows, on an x86, actually running....in windows....on an x86?
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 3:27 PM  
...on a Mac! :)
Blogger Cabel 4/06/2006 3:30 PM  
yes, it's a mac, but it's processors instruction set, so far as I am aware, is *exactly* the same as in non-mac x86 machines.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 3:33 PM  
You're right, of course — it is "just a PC" under the hood, albeit a very nicely packaged and spec'd one.

I think the video is interesting to Mac guys for a few reasons. One, it shows us the 3D graphics performance of the dual-core Intel iMacs when running Windows, something that hasn't been seen before, and it proves that fairly high-demand games run quite well. Two, it shows that the Boot Camp technology, well, actually works. And three, it's all about the shock value: those of us who have owned only Macintoshes for oh so very long, can now run all of those games we could never run before — it may be "just a PC", but this is kind of a mind-bender for us, so give us a moment or two. :)
Blogger Cabel 4/06/2006 3:45 PM  
I wonder how well it will run once I finally get that RAM upgrade for my 17inch model. It's still taking a lot of time to set in that I'm playing Morrowind...on my Mac!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 4:04 PM  
Well looking at HL2 Video, it really makes me want to definetly save up money to buy an Intel iMac, but i suggest to wait, REMEMBER, THIS IS A BETA, its not a Definite release!!!!!, i'm telling all my mates to wait until Leopard comes out!!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 4:12 PM  
Cabel, nice specs? On the CPU, chassis, memory, and monitor maybe. But Apple was close to scraping the bottom of the barrel on the NIC and sound cards. They could of at least put in a proper Intel or 3COM NIC instead of that buggy Marvell piece.

Jobs, add an Intel NIC, a decent new sound card from Creative, a fanless *NVIDIA* card (instead of ATI with its asstastic windows-drivers), 1GB of RAM and price everything under a grand, I'll buy it immediately.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 5:56 PM  
What I like about this is it demonstrates how easy it's going to be to port Windows games to Intel Macs, now that the hardware is essentially the same. Since most games write their own in-game UI from scratch anyway, it's just a matter of rewriting the code to launch the thing (assuming they're not DirectX-only, that is). Can't wait for HL3 Mac...
Anonymous dc 4/06/2006 6:04 PM  
Cabel, nice specs? On the CPU, chassis, memory, and monitor maybe. But Apple was close to scraping the bottom of the barrel on the NIC and sound cards. They could of at least put in a proper Intel or 3COM NIC instead of that buggy Marvell piece.

Jobs, add an Intel NIC, a decent new sound card from Creative, a fanless *NVIDIA* card (instead of ATI with its asstastic windows-drivers), 1GB of RAM and price everything under a grand, I'll buy it immediately.


Looks like you'll never be getting a Mac, you're not the target audience.
Anonymous Jay Contonio 4/06/2006 6:19 PM  
It's great to consider how Apple's marketshare has already been on the rise, and to ponder what that will mean for them now.

They're not going to hit 30% or anything, but suddenly it's not insane to think they could hit 5% and then 10%.

As for cheap machines: Apple has never bothered themselves with razor thin margins. Now they'll be making enough money from the mid and high end to be able to ignore the low end.
Anonymous Jon 4/06/2006 6:50 PM  
To the Greek philosopher Anonymous who was wondering what all the fuss is about, because the MacBook Pro is just a PC, you're right.

Except it has no BIOS.

bot
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 7:10 PM  
Cabel,
man we think alike. The first thing I installed on my mbp was steam, it was a long download that kept me wondering, how will it play. I haven't had too much time other than to bootup the console and fire up one of the city 17 levels. So much fun.

I tried out Parallel's as well. Too many options these days for the intel mac owners I tell ya. It needs some work, but man it was a fast install, and it is quite speedy. Wanting sound support. Definitely not game worthy though. Need to start preloading Sin Episodes. Doesn't come out til next month but hopefully my Brain Age will be close to 20 by then....


rock..
Anonymous psychoboogie 4/06/2006 7:28 PM  
Any chance dual monitor support can be done in Windows?
Blogger Jason Prini 4/06/2006 7:48 PM  
Excellent!! Thans for posting the clip (I just finished HL2 for he second time :)

Did you try any other non Source Steam games - Day of Defeat in particular? That is still about the only online game I play. Would love to know if that one works :)

Great job - this so frigging rocks!!!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/06/2006 9:21 PM  
lol dongs
Anonymous twentynine 4/06/2006 11:51 PM  
Cabel, just a huge thank-you for the great article and video.

This is the best thing Apple has ever done in my opinion -- I've been waiting for ever to bring my MS Project home and on the road without needing to give up my Mac (not to mention Half Life 2).

Fast-user switching between Mac OS & Windows would be pure icing, and being able to copy and paste from each would be sprinkles.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 12:01 AM  
Now all I need is somebody to try this on a 15" MacBookPro and I have all the excuses I need.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 3:01 AM  
What specs does your imac have?
RAM, CPU and Graphics card to be able to run Half life 2 that awesome...?
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 3:50 AM  
Well this has made me go and sell my eMac and buy a new Intel Imac 20 incher,

http://www.apple.com/uk/imac

Got it for about £1k, time to load on Half life 2 and Unreal,

Thanks Caleb for the video ;) .

- Reece
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 5:10 AM  
Well thanks for the info, now all the Mac users can play games on the compuetrs (Mac's)
But hell, i dont see the point of emulating it if you can get a better PC (in terms of hardwarre) for a much cheaper price than a mac. Really that confuses me unless if the people have no cash. Although i agree Windows aint the best, they are the leaders and emulating them is prety useless on a MAc since it will still have the bugs Windows has which is running on a PC. Although i do reckon that a lot of the Mac buyers are misinformed.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 8:32 AM  
That's the point. It's not being emulated. It's an Intel machine, and Windows is booting directly off the machine. So, take it back what you said about Mac users being uninformed. Do it. I'm waiting...
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 9:10 AM  
"But hell, i dont see the point of emulating it if you can get a better PC (in terms of hardwarre) for a much cheaper price than a mac."

If all you want is games, buy a (non-Apple) Windows machine. This appeals greatly to those who love the excellent UI and stability of a Mac, but also either like to play all those games you can't get for Mac, or have one or two Windows programs they have to use (such as narrowly focused Windows-only business apps).
Anonymous Strider 4/07/2006 9:25 AM  
i have a pc that i use solely for gaming, my powerbook is for everything else. i wouldn't want that to change - a dedicated games machine is a fun thing to have. however, the ability to be on the move with a future intel powerbook and be able to play the odd windows game while traveling is a very appealing thing! thanks for sharing that video.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 11:45 AM  
Six Sider, can you elaborate on your experience playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion on an iMac? Have you ran into any problems? What other games have you tried? Anyone try IL2 Sturmovik yet?

Cabel, thank you for the post/video!
Anonymous Smon Griffee 4/07/2006 3:02 PM  
I just think it's absolutely hilarious that the only reason a Mac user gets excited about running Windows XP is for playing games. We wouldn't even need Windows to run games if Microsoft hadn't sold out the standards organizations and pushed DirectX down everyone's throats. I digress. I've been all-Mac since 2001 and I have to say by far the greatest excitement about Windows XP on Mac that I have read is for Windows to serve as a game host. And of course all those pesky CAD folks. .`)
Anonymous Anonymous 4/07/2006 8:01 PM  
I have one question. What is the texture/model quality etc set to? All max? All min?
Anonymous Se[BBB]e 4/09/2006 10:11 AM  
Gotta love the screenshots of appearance and IE security during the install. Golden.
Anonymous carlmmii 4/09/2006 6:14 PM  
Okay, now I must buy a intel mac.
Blogger G. Chandler 4/10/2006 7:45 AM  
thnx for the vid of HL2 although when you think about it a video of MAC OS X should technically have more OMG factor
it's really still just PC GAMING
i'm still waiting for the day where you will be able to game on a mac
Anonymous Anonymous 4/10/2006 11:11 AM  
Weeelll..... Okay, I admit. i mainly want it for Access developing and testing websites. I don't game. :)
Anonymous Strider 4/10/2006 10:09 PM  
I didn't know anything about Half Life 2. In looking at the video... my god man... it appears to be nothing more than yet another first person shooter. Prettier graphics, but still just a FPS. How can people still get excited about that?
Blogger public_sjj 4/11/2006 11:04 AM  
It's a good game if you like that kind of thing (which I do). I will be checking back for sure looking for a response on the Oblivion question. If that can run well, that will probably be the largest draw for me.
But the game isn't what we're excited about, anyway. It's what it's running on. The smoothness just about knocked me out of my chair.
Now I know what I must do.
*searches couch cushions for change*

(Not saying I'll get rid of my old macs! My Apple II, Classic and LC have their own dedicated shelf, and I still love them. But I think it's time to see if anyone can give my mirror door G4 a good home...)
Blogger All Your Lost Socks 4/11/2006 3:33 PM  
I saw two hiccups in the Half-Life 2 movie!
One in the beginning after walking out the door and one just after the "dog" throws the car wreck. :P
Anonymous a Martin 4/11/2006 3:54 PM  
Not trying to be rude or rush you but you said you would be posting a third look on the nintendo ds soon just wondering

hope its the best one yet
Anonymous Chandler 4/11/2006 4:54 PM  
I'm a current powerbook G4 1.67Mhz owner. But for the price of a MacBook Pro I can get two Lenovo Core Duo Laptops... I mean Apple's pricing is simply too expensive to make Windows users flock to Apple PC's. Now if people were already thinking about buying an Apple I guess this leaves no reason not to, but I myself am certainly not rushing out to buy another mac. If I want to spend money I'm gonna just buy another Windows PC and use my Mac for Mac stuff.
Anonymous Pete 4/11/2006 8:31 PM  
To "DC", who wrote:

What I like about this is it demonstrates how easy it's going to be to port Windows games to Intel Macs, now that the hardware is essentially the same. Since most games write their own in-game UI from scratch anyway, it's just a matter of rewriting the code to launch the thing (assuming they're not DirectX-only, that is).

Sorry DC, it doesn't work at all like that. The hardware may be "essentially the same" but the most important thing -- the OS -- is most definitely not.

A VERY large part of any game porting job is dealing with cross platform issues, including innumerable endianess bug-hunts (remembering here that games also still have to run on Motorola chips for commerical reasons), compiler/IDE differences, API conversions, OS assumptions, etc.

Also, many games are indeed tied very tightly to MS technologies (and this situation is getting worse). This costs a LOT of time and a LOT of money to work around, re-engineer or reverse-engineer.

Simply put, if it were as easy as writing for Intel hardware, we would have seen a lot of PC ports already, since the release of the Macintels. And we haven't.

In fact, far from making it easy, I think the smart money is on PC->Mac ports dwindling in number. Given the history of porting to the Mac it is very safe to assume that many PC-centric game companies (i.e. almost everyone) will look at the cost of doing a port and then say "In the interests of providing a better customer experience we advise our customers to install WindowsXP on their Macs.."

Bank on it. :(
Anonymous Anonymous 4/11/2006 9:04 PM  
I don't get it. I've been running Windows on my Thinkpad for years. What's the big deal?
Anonymous Anonymous 4/12/2006 8:39 AM  
I don't get it. I've been running Windows on my Thinkpad for years. What's the big deal?
Anonymous Anonymous 4/12/2006 8:39 AM  
I'm playing HL2 on a MacBook Pro right now and it not only looks great, but plays great too. I haven't tried to max out the settings *too* hard, but it looks fantastic. It also recognizes the native resolution of the MacBook Pro screen, so there isn't any blurring or stretching.
Anonymous Todd Dominey 4/12/2006 8:41 AM  
Man, I can't wait for the new Intel PowerMacs so that I run all of my favorite, never-purchased comptuer games on that baby.

Thanks for posting videos of all of your awesome gadgets, by the way.
Anonymous Bobby Andersen 4/12/2006 5:28 PM  
"I don't get it. I've been running Windows on my Thinkpad for years. What's the big deal?"

...and you've been running OS X on your Thinkpad too, right?
Blogger Glenn Sugden 4/14/2006 2:28 AM  
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Blogger Glenn Sugden 4/14/2006 2:28 AM  
Posted by public_sjj:
I didn't know anything about Half Life 2. In looking at the video... my god man... it appears to be nothing more than yet another first person shooter. Prettier graphics, but still just a FPS. How can people still get excited about that?


You're juding the game after looking at a 3 minute video? Jeeze.
Anonymous Anonymous 4/15/2006 5:29 AM  
So, how long is it going to be until we can run OSX on a PC?
Blogger Mooinakan 4/16/2006 11:07 AM  
Thanks for the video. I'm considering getting a new iMac myself, and I was wondering what system specs you had getting HL2 to run so well
Anonymous Anonymous 4/16/2006 10:48 PM  
"Apple makes fast Windows PCs. My 1.5 GHz mini feels extraordinarily fast in Windows."

except that Apple sells them highly overpriced,

"So, how long is it going to be until we can run OSX on a PC?"

http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Installation_Guides
Anonymous Anonymous 4/17/2006 3:47 AM  
We are not going to be able to run OSX on PC. OSX funding comes from the mac hardware line. You essentially pay a little more for mac computer systems because your also paying for the development of OSX.

Anyways. The next step may be fast user switching between windows and mac. But why not just start up the Win32 API on another partion and run it directly from within OSX? hmmmmm... now that would be sweeeettt as pie. lol

Only thing im concerned about and why i would not install OSX on Mac is the amount of viruses and backdoors you open your nice mac hardware up to.

Apart from this. yeh apple has done a killer job. nice one guys. i think they have exceeded everyones expectaions.
Anonymous flamedia 4/17/2006 2:17 PM  
so, lets say I've got a copy of itunes on OS X and Windows, on the same machine. Could they use the same audio library location?
Blogger Chuck 4/19/2006 11:53 AM  
no
Anonymous Anonymous 4/21/2006 5:00 PM  
Hogg, yes, as long as both locations were on a partition both machines could use. such as fat32 or something.

also, i'd like to add... IT'S HIDEOUS!!!! not hl2 tho, obviously...
Anonymous Anonymous 4/24/2006 1:22 PM  
I was waiting for this to happen.
Great!
Looks good.
Thanx.

Mattnh
Anonymous Anonymous 4/25/2006 4:32 AM  
I noticed one comment regarding running this on a MacBook Pro. Anyone else tried running games or able to compare HL2 between the iMac and MacBooks?

Basically I'm thinking about buying a MacBook to replace my iBook G4 and I've not seen a great deal about the gaming performance (I'd kill for a few videos).

Keep up the good work Cabel!
Anonymous Mike S 4/28/2006 4:34 AM  
I just ordered a new iMac...

2 gigs of ram
500 gig hd
and a 256mb x1600


this video was a huge boo-ya for me!

Thanks a ton!!
Anonymous Anonymous 4/29/2006 5:42 PM  
nice, this video brings good news, but i'd like to know what the specs are on the mac you're using. can you please say so i know what to expect from my mac?
Anonymous Anonymous 5/08/2006 4:34 PM  
Holy Smoke!
Very Impressive video! :P
Anonymous bentong 5/11/2006 6:58 PM  
Right click on a Mac?

Can it be done?

Sorry if this seems like a stupid question, but a lot of review sites have posts on the lack of right click on the MacBooks.

MacBooks have a single button on the mousepad, but can you use a USB mouse with two or more buttons with a MacBook (using Windows or Mac OS)?

(yes... I'm a Windows user who is seriously considering getting a MacBook).

-Bobby

ps. Thanks for the HL2 video!
Anonymous Anonymous 5/18/2006 1:52 AM  
I run XP Media Center, 1GB ram, x1600 Mobility 256MB, 100GB 5400rpm disk, 2Ghz Core Duo and get the same as he does in the video on my MBP.
Anonymous Anonymous 5/24/2006 5:51 AM  
Bobby, yes, you can right-click on a Mac, as long as you've got a mouse with two buttons. It's fully supported in OS X, as well as in Windows with Boot Camp. Scroll wheels work, too.

-Mike
Anonymous Anonymous 5/31/2006 5:38 PM  
Also even if you don't have 2 mouse buttons the single button mice or trackpads on the laptops you can hold control down and click and that's a right click. No reason not to grab your favorite USB mouse and use that though
Anonymous Anonymous 6/01/2006 11:17 AM  
Hey Cabel, just dropping a line,
i'm actually buying a iMac Intel in like 2 weeks so i am really exicited, as write now my computer lags when i was trying too... make a blog. Kinda sad really.

You also convinced me to get a DS lite, which i love more than ...love itself?

I went to an EB games and downloaded Meteos and some golf game, and i must say i was incredibly exicited with how easy it worked. Great stuff. Hopefully that will be how the WiiConnect24 thing from nintendo works. That would be cool huh?
Anonymous Andrei 6/19/2006 10:31 PM  
can anyone post info on how Oblivion plays on the mac?
that is they thing which will sway me.
please
Anonymous benn 7/06/2006 9:35 AM  
Incredible!! Can't wait to show this to my pro-windows friends who wouldn't believe me when I've been saying that Macs are the best. Who would disagree about that now? Macs have everything! Thanks a lot Apple for the Inter macs, and Cabel for this video!
Anonymous Anonymous 7/06/2006 12:50 PM  
Hey Caleb, great video. I've been considering the purchase of a mac for some time now and I think the thought of being able to play games like Half Life 2 has me sold. I just have one question: how much video memory did your setup have when you recorded this vid?
Anonymous Anonymous 7/17/2006 3:49 PM  
If you have a three button mouse then you can right-click all you want. You can scroll too :) The built in track-pad is limited in this regards, but then again a track-pad is not a good solution for games.

The truth is while I do appreciate this solution to getting Half-Life 2 running a Mac I would appreciate a native solution. I don't want to have to reboot into Windows - its not why I chose an Apple. It would also be cool if they open sourced the original Half-Life so someone could actually make it run on the Mac.
Anonymous Andre 7/18/2006 6:15 PM  
If it runs HL 2 maybe it'll run HALO 2 for vista. It should since the xbox hardware is from 2001. But if a mac version came out I would still buy it.
Anonymous Anonymous 7/21/2006 6:02 AM  
How I do downloading this... How? I don't know how to do it... Please tell me how!
Anonymous Anonymous 7/23/2006 4:29 PM  
wow, if this is how well HL2 runs without video drivers then we can expect out of this world performance when they do. I saw another post of HL2 running on a mac book pro but it didnt run anywhere as well, like unplayably bad..hmm I guess he might have had his settings on v.high.
Blogger jayasinme 8/04/2006 6:41 AM  
I am debating betwen getting an iMac and a Mac Book, the mobility of the macbook would be a blessing, but i am not sure if it would have a good performance running windows games, anybody have tried to run a windows game using bootcamp on a macbook? i just cant figure the weak video card it sports giving any decent framerate.

Please, if anybody has any info, it would be greatly apreciated.
Anonymous ArkaneKoder 8/08/2006 1:16 PM  
Hi Cabel,

nice work!

framerate seems pretty solid, but what resolution/graphic settings are you running?

I'm looking to ugrade from my shite pc to an imac next upgrade (labor day they say), so I'd love to get all the details - thanks!
Anonymous phloe 8/25/2006 6:53 AM  
WOW - enough said, macs will now rule the world as people finally realise there is no need for microsoft!

I always put off getting a G5 in the hope that one day they would manage to run HL2 on mac, finally that day is here!! horay!
Anonymous Tim 9/30/2006 5:31 AM  
Hi I use PCs but wouldnt mind a mac. My barrier is that I teach video and editing to communities and NGOs around the world ( http//:www.insightshare.org ) No point teaching i-movie if they are going to use PCs when Im gone (in Africa there are v.few macs). So whilst it may seem absurd, I will need to run some simple editing programme like Pinnacle Studio 8 on a mac on the XP platform. Will it work??
Blogger jbuzz 10/02/2006 3:05 AM  
you made me buy a MacPro.

play to Oblivion is really fast and cool !!

cheers !
Anonymous Anonymous 10/23/2006 4:44 AM  
You know, PC users have ben able to run osx on thier computers natively since OSX came out, I personally have started with panther, now i duel boot between Tiger and XP on my p4 intell machine and my AMD 64 machine. Mac people, dont be naive, i like macs as much as the next guy, but a PC is by no means behind the game on this one. (Just becauset there isnt a program advertized doesnt mean nerds give up on something, especially when I can build 2 great comps for the price of one mac)
Anonymous Anonymous 10/25/2006 8:10 AM  
Hi, I just installed DOD through steam on my MacMini 1.66ghz 2 gb ram and after the Valve splash screen, the DOD screen says "Loading..." in the corner. After that goes away my screen goes black, but yet I can still move my mouse around and here the clicks when I move it over a menu option. I can also click them. What is the deal? Anybody else running into this problem? I assume it must be with the video card driver.
Anonymous Cody Dildy 11/03/2006 11:22 AM  
Well I got it working, but Multiplayer DOD:Source is laggy as hell on my Mac Mini! Even on the lowest settings. Apple needs to come out with a new driver.
Anonymous Cody Dildy 11/04/2006 9:24 AM  
Well, nobody answered my question and I went ahead and bought my macbook, I installed boot camp and got my crappy Pinnacle editing programme going, it all ran like a dream absolutely no problems editng on a mac as if it was a pc, which is a good test I think, didnt even crash. Whats more I managed to get some nasty virus on my XP system just like the real think...great!! How can I run OSX on my PC, Im sick of XP, just the start up screen makes my heart sink these days...
Anonymous Anonymous 11/19/2006 11:18 AM  
I recently bought a 20" iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz 1GB X1600 128 MB 250 GB HDD

I ordered windows Xp from newegg.com, and I will soon be playing Splinter Cell Chaos theory, Battlefield 2, Day of Defeat: Source, SiN: Episode 1, Half Life 2, and Oblivion, along with Unreal Tournament 2004.

Needless to say, I am extremely pleased. Never have I ever been happier with any piece of technology than I am with my iMac.

Bravo, Apple. I applaud thee.

Bravo.
Anonymous John 12/11/2006 11:42 AM  
You guys speak of the Intel iMac 's running Boot Camp....dumb question...Can I assume the desktop Mac Pro run it as well? I'm a windows user who WAS a Mac user that switched in 2000 for PC games mainly. I'm considering going back to Mac and Boot Camp has peaked my interest as to running XP (thus PC games) on a Mac but still a little gun-shy about doing it. I'm looking for more real world info and more "modern games"; i.e not UT or Halflife but games like Battlefield 2, 2142 or racing games like GTR2 or GT Legends...has anyone tried them? Is their a game list somewhere that people have tried and rated how well they run etc....??

TIA
Anonymous K dude 1/04/2007 7:47 PM  
so i tried boot camp on my macbook...but...windows would not recognize the mini-dvi...i only need windows for a couple of windows based presentation programs...this is a stinky problem...any help would be great...i checked the mac site and it said it may be the mini-dvi to vga adapter...whatever...it sucks and i need help...thanks
Blogger baja 1/21/2007 2:41 PM  
Do you know that the actual bootcamp is just a beta program? Every 28 days you will have to reinstall windows. Check it out at apple.com/bootcamp.
Anonymous Anonymous 1/27/2007 1:20 PM  
I see nothing about 28 day restrictions there
Anonymous Anonymous 2/02/2007 4:05 PM  
Cody Dildy how did you solve your black screen problem? im having the same problems
Anonymous Anonymous 2/10/2007 5:39 AM  
Porbably a stupid question but can you install bootcamp on an external harddrive along with windows xp and then use it from there. My macbook only has the 60g hd and I would like to leave as much room as possible. Thanks in advance.
Anonymous Anonymous 2/11/2007 11:12 AM  
which resolution and other video settings were you using? what are the system specs? what framerates did you get? plz tell me
Anonymous Anonymous 7/13/2007 9:36 AM  
i just bought a macbook pro, with the new nvidia card, ect. Now i have installed boot camp and windows. should i install the latest xp drivers for the video card?
Anonymous Anonymous 7/17/2007 7:55 PM  
Wow...that cool...

I am thinking of getting a Macbook pro and i was wondering if i could run high end game like HL2. this concise me that the Macbook pro can be a all-in-one computer!!!

Thanks for the clip!
Anonymous Anonymous 8/08/2007 12:15 PM  
Macs aren't the only computers capable of running Mac OS and Windows together. There's a way to do it on a PC too. (It's against Apple's license terms, but possible)
Anonymous Anonymous 8/11/2007 11:16 AM  
I am going to buy an i mac soon and finally be rid of the crappy dell that is plaguing my desk. I have but one question. How does gaming (yes I love games!) compare on a Mac using boot camp, rather than a windows?
Can I play Oblivion?
Anonymous Anonymous 9/17/2007 12:16 AM  
Which version of XP do you use? I've heard that XP home doesn't support multiple processors. Does this include the Core 2 Duo? I'd like to save the $100 and not get pro, but not if it's going to sacrifice performance.
Anonymous Anonymous 11/13/2007 7:47 PM  
Just purchased an Imac 24" 2.8ghz extreme - sweet machine - never used a Mac before so I have a lot to learn. Can't wait to use bootcamp to install xp and run HL


Coool
Anonymous Anonymous 11/15/2007 6:05 PM  
I'm having the same black screen problems on my iMac. Right in the thicke of Call of Duty 4 I'll get this black screen, still be able to shoot/get shot, hear explosions and all and I can't SEE.

It's horribly annoying. IF anyone gets a solution, e-mail me.

k.a.calhoun@gmail.com
Blogger Kyle 11/22/2007 12:12 AM  
Anyone had any luck getting Halo 2 to run on a macbook pro w bootcamp?
Anonymous Anonymous 11/29/2007 11:17 PM  
You can run most windows games on mac os x without bootcamp or windows. there's a compatibility layer called wine. crossover is a good version. i run all the half life 1/2 games at native speeds on my macbook without a copy of windows
Anonymous Anonymous 4/27/2008 12:14 PM  
Just used bootcamp to convert a bunch of Macs to PC's, after a Mac enthusiast decided that despite *all* their application being MS, that they should use Macs with parallels desktop, which was pretty unstable.

I have to say though, the xpsp3 performance under bootcamp(g5 dual core , 1gb)is superb - seems much better than a similarly specced PC.

They do look pretty as well.
Anonymous Anonymous 5/17/2008 1:51 PM  
Just like to add that it seems very unfair to refer to the windows install as "soul crushngly long" - it was a damn site faster than the leopard install.
Anonymous Anonymous 5/17/2008 1:53 PM  
Mac has everything? Not everything...

Yeah, I'm a Windows XP SP3 user, but I know that Mac can use windows... How about Linux (for those people that get free OS's)?

Mac can have Partial compatibility with linux at the best.

Oh, and WINE is great, but there are some bugs within WINE
Anonymous Anonymous 7/22/2008 11:57 AM  

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Name:Cabel Maxfield Sasser
Job:Co-Founder, Panic Inc.
Location:Portland, OR
Email: