Nothing will make a Mac with an Intel chip and Bootcamp any more or less able to work with all the various devices out there that run or fail on any other windows box!
It's not about just the processor chip.
I don't mean to be argumentative, but you can be sure neither Apple nor Microsoft put anywher NEAR the investment into making Mac hardware sing under Windows that, say, Dell does with their hardware. In other words, it's not a technical issue but a business issue.
The difference between a system that runs great and one that just runs could be in these details. In the past, video acceleration is an area where one could see these kinds of differences. Windows will run with the "Super VGA" driver, but who'd want to actually use a system that way? Is an nVidia video card the exact same design between a Mac and PC? They didn't used to be.
I don't mean to be argumentative, but you can be sure neither Apple nor Microsoft put anywher NEAR the investment into making Mac hardware sing under Windows that, say, Dell does with their hardware.
Nope I have no idea. But if that argument held much water, then we'd have evidence that Dell machines are easier on their end users than any other PC maker or those who say the love building their own garage built PC's "because they have the control". And no, I haven't spent any time looking to see if the PC makers, be it big companies are individuals, have any more success running the myriad of devices better than another. It would be useful to know if such matrix exist. But I do hear more than the occasional horror stories of incompatibles in hardware on the windows side, and I've heard those who know way more about it than I do say its largely due to the lack of any "standards" if you will in how all this crap gets put together. Something that's lesser an issue with Apple who admittedly controls the entire show (and isn't blameless).
I don't think, and again, this is not based on any science, I admit it, that running Windows on an Apple box is any more or less an issue than any other computer box, Dell or Acer or any other. And we have a lot more users doing this today than years ago thanks to the Intel chip in the Apple box. It might be the opposite!
__________________ Andrew Rodney
Author "Color Management for Photographers" http://www.digitaldog.net
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
The difference between a system that runs great and one that just runs could be in these details. In the past, video acceleration is an area where one could see these kinds of differences. Windows will run with the "Super VGA" driver, but who'd want to actually use a system that way? Is an nVidia video card the exact same design between a Mac and PC? They didn't used to be.
Apparently, you cannot use an off-the-shelf video card in a Mac Pro because off-the-shelf video cards will not function without PC BIOS, and Intel Macs all use EFI. This is clearly a hardware industry recalcitrance problem.
For the few of us who care—keep in mind that the only Mac that supports replaceable video adapters is the Mac Pro—this problem is supremely annoying.
I currently have an NVIDIA 8800 GT in my Mac Pro running under both OS X and Windows XP. So far, it works very well and very quietly. On the XP side, I am using the driver Apple has supplied. I do not know if I can use NVIDIA's future driver updates or whether I will have to wait for Apple to adjust them. I know that the NVIDIA drivers one can download as of a couple weeks ago from the NVIDIA site will not work with my card. In terms of modifications, I doubt that Apple is doing anything other than adjusting the Windows drivers NVIDIA supplies to enable the card to wake up under EFI. Under XP, I would expect the physical performance of this card to match that on any Dell or whatever. Subjectively, the 3D performance of this card is extremely good. I haven't tried any video features on it.
Before I upgraded to the 8800, I was using an ATI X1900 XT under the same conditions. That card—although physically modified for EFI—always worked with whatever XP drivers I downloaded from ATI's site. Too bad it baked itself.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
P.S., People sometimes tout Bootcamp as the way to turn a Mac into a PC, but will there really be good support for Mac hardware in Windows? I doubt seriously that the drivers for all the Mac hardware will be as available/mature as those for true PCs (e.g., Dell). For example, will the video display run as well? Will it offer all the options? Will there be the ability to plug non-mainstream peripherals (say, a video capture device) into the system?
Apple supplies Windows XP and Vista drivers for most of the hardware features of their computers: that's the substance of Boot Camp. Other than EFI (as opposed to BIOS), a Mac is a PC from the Windows point of view. The only other factor is the particular motherboard-related choices that Apple has made for its customers. For example, there are no Macs with PCI slots; they're all PCI Express or PCI Express 2, ruling out sticking any PCI cards in a Mac Pro. So, if you have a Mac Pro running Windows XP, you can probably use any Windows hardware you want provided (1) there's a way to connect it, and (2) it isn't dependent on BIOS.
I would never advocate purchasing a Mac for use as a Windows computer. The facts that you can run Windows on a Mac (through Boot Camp) and/or run Windows through virtualization within OS X are features that provide flexibility for Mac users. (I run XP from time to time in order to use the most recent OmniPage OCR software which isn't available for Mac.)
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Nope I have no idea. But if that argument held much water, then we'd have evidence that Dell machines are easier on their end users...
Well, that's just my point. I have plenty of that evidence. All my career, since I purchased my first Dell '386 33MHz "departmental software build machine" in 1986 I've found Dell high-end workstations to be more stable and to perform better than the other brands sporting similar numbers. Ever since then I've personally used nothing but high-end Dell workstations. It's quite clear Dell DOES get a significant edge by applying system engineering to their high-end gear. I'll stake 22 years of daily experience on that, right up to and including my current Precision 470 running XP x64 that just runs and runs without fault. And you should know that during 19 of that 22 years I managed entire engineering departments running Dell workstations, and we consistently had fewer problems than other departments in the company. I've spent a lifetime justifying the higher price of Dell's workstations to upper management.
And let's not forget Dell's still around and doing well while most of the other manufacturers have come and gone (or merged or whatever).
All that said, it's entirely possible - even likely - that Dell does not do nearly as much system integration/engineering on their low-end models, as the price competition and pressure to get to market immediately with new models in the "consumer" line does not leave as much room for such engineering. My own personal experience with Dell laptops has been such that I'll never buy another.
Well, that's just my point. I have plenty of that evidence. All my career, since I purchased my first Dell '386 33MHz "departmental software build machine" in 1986 I've found Dell high-end workstations to be more stable and to perform better than the other brands sporting similar numbers.
OK, well that speaks to the Dell versus the few units you may have compared at the time (and says nothing about Apple). Its good to know, if for some reason, I ever decide to buy something other than an Apple box (which is about as likely as a sex change operation or getting a Nobel prize in physics)
__________________ Andrew Rodney
Author "Color Management for Photographers" http://www.digitaldog.net
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
For what it's worth, I've been collaborating online quite closely for several months now with an old friend and colleague who has a Mac Pro.
All in all, working all day together online building and testing software, his system faults slightly more often than mine does. This ranges from Skype/Yugma failures to loss of Internet connection (which may have nothing to do with the systems) to the need to reboot because the system is acting flaky. Neither system is fault-prone - we often work for an entire week without a reboot, and we do some pretty intensive stuff for long hours at a time - but I'd say in general his Mac is failing just slightly more often than my PC, and my system arguably gets more of a workout than his, as he's doing module development and I am doing system integration (and so I do more of the testing).
Linear Mode
