MacBook Pro gaming, Bootcamp vs Parallels

Z1080
Member
Posts: 16
Feb 06 5:28 PM
Post #1

Hi I want to get the cheapest MacBook Pro (retina 2015) which is 2.7ghz and 8GB ram (also 128GB SSD)
I'm not buying it for gaming, I'll mostly be using it in my last year of high school and then into University. But occasionally I will play some games. I saw a video which compared gaming in OSX to the same game running on Windows in bootcamp, boot camp was far supperior. But I haven't seen a comparison between boot camp and Parrlels. parallels is far better (in general) since you don't need to reboot and it has many productive features, but is it slower or faster at gaming than bootcamp...

Kevin
Admin
Posts: 456
Feb 07 8:23 AM
Post #2

Hey,

When you run games on top of something like Parallels, your computer first has to run the game, then translate everything the game does into a Mac-readable language. It isn't quite emulation, but there is still a huge performance penalty associated with it.

Boot Camp, in contrast, is just a marketing name given to dual-booting. When you're running Boot Camp, your Mac actually IS a PC. As such, it can take full advantage of the hardware.

Z1080
Member
Posts: 16
Feb 09 3:53 AM
Post #3

Thanks.

Another question...
So if I did run windows 10 in bootcamp, would the SteelSeries Nimbus not work? Would it only work in OSX, or does it still recognise a Mac regardless.

Kevin
Admin
Posts: 456
Feb 10 8:39 PM
Post #4

When you're running Boot Camp, it is as if you built a PC out of the same components your Mac includes. For all intents and purposes, it IS a PC. So no, no MFi controller support.

There may be a 3rd party driver you could use, though. I remember hearing about that, but I haven't tested it myself

alexsky
New Member
Posts: 8
Sep 07 1:12 PM
Post #5

Z1080 wrote:

Hi I want to get the cheapest MacBook Pro (retina 2015) which is 2.7ghz and 8GB ram (also 128GB SSD)
I'm not buying it for gaming, I'll mostly be using it in my last year of high school and then into University while working at https://macbook-repair-dubai.ae/. But occasionally I will play some games. I saw a video which compared gaming in OSX to the same game running on Windows in bootcamp, boot camp was far supperior. But I haven't seen a comparison between boot camp and Parrlels. parallels is far better (in general) since you don't need to reboot and it has many productive features, but is it slower or faster at gaming than bootcamp...

This is amazing.