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Windows on Intel Macs - Yes or No?
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:09 PM
from the will-they-or-won't-they dept.
from the will-they-or-won't-they dept.
With the announcement of the Intel chip based MacBook, the door is now open for running the Windows OS on Macintosh hardware, right? jaypatrick writes "BetaNews reports that along with the announcement of the first Intel based Macs yesterday, many users have rejoiced in being able to dual-boot both Mac OS X and Windows. Unfortunately, this is not the case; due to Apple's use of the extensible firmware interface (EFI) rather than BIOS, current Windows releases will not run on the systems." I guess not. But, wait... Big Z writes "Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice-president of worldwide product marketing, said in an interview Tuesday that the company won't sell or support Windows itself, but also hasn't done anything to preclude people from loading Windows onto the machines themselves." I think someone actually trying it out is the only way this is going to get straightened out.
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Probably not and here's why ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The benefits of a port might be because of cheaper or easier to find hardware capable of running something that it wasn't meant to but is very useful to users. I don't think this is the case in putting Windows on an Intel Mac because Intel Macs are cheaper than what I can piece together in PC x86 form. Don't get me wrong, Macs are nice machines but they're not exactly easy to upgrade or fix on your own.
I'm sure someone will port the extended firmware interface to run Windows through a virtual layer (if it needs it) but this can only introduce Windows running as fast or slower than the speed it could run at without EFI.
For this reason, I doubt people are going to find much use using the port since it's a) cheaper to piece their own machine together and leave the specs up to themselves and b) Windows will probably run slower.
Yeah, there might be someone out there bragging about running Windows on an Intel Mac but he's probably the rare Window's equivalent to the guy with a penguin displayed on his microwave's LCD.
Run slower?? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not like the BIOS is a processor architecture. I highly doubt that any work required to make Windows XP work with EFI will not drastically, or even noticably affect the speed of the machine.
GRUB already works with EFI, and GRUB can launch Windows... From my experience, WindowsXP has pretty much ignored anything about the hardware that the bios has told it (I've disabled HDs, but windows sees them, etc). Could it be possible that GRUB could be installed on a Mac and used to load Windows?
Otherwise both WinXP 64 and Vista support EFI... one could always wait for Vista or illegally grab a beta...
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Re:Run slower?? (Score:5, Informative)
GRUB already works with EFI, and GRUB can launch Windows... From my experience, WindowsXP has pretty much ignored anything about the hardware that the bios has told it (I've disabled HDs, but windows sees them, etc). Could it be possible that GRUB could be installed on a Mac and used to load Windows?
I haven't seen Apple's EFI implementation, but the EFI spec says it takes over the duties of a bootloader and can be used by itself to boot from different partitions. There are defined codes for all the Windows filesystems. I don't even see why you'd need GRUB at all.
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Re:Run slower?? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Probably not and here's why ... (Score:5, Informative)
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Agree, this will not be not a common occurance (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to run Windows on Mac hardware, it would first be necessary to buy Mac hardware, which isn't cheap. (The value proposition of Macs is a separate issue). Then, you have to look at the OSX interface goodness and decide that you want Windows instead. After that, you have to do whatever porting is necessary and install Windows. All this to get cool hardware running a not-so-cool OS. I mean, Apple is the BMW of computers and Wintel is the Ford. Are you really going to buy a 3 series and stick an Escort engine in it?
If and when Windows supports booting without a BIOS, I can see some folks having dual-boot Apple hardware. Especially folks who want Apple's nicely designed hardware but still want to run Windows games.
But an out-and-out port seems unlikely.
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It is nice if you like to anthropomorphise our PC (Score:5, Funny)
I placed a Windows 95 CD in viewing distance of my linux machines and they never gave me troubles since. MS, ensuring your hardware behaves for two decades and counting.
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Re:Agree, this will not be not a common occurance (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Agree, this will not be not a common occurance (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it looks like since 2004 or so.
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It's a lot simpler than that. (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Probably not and here's why ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the problem from your angle, you're right. As a Mac user who needs to occasionally run Windows, I think you miss the point. It's not about cost as much as convenience and quality of experience. Many Mac users are in the same boat. We need to run some Windows program but would love the opportunity to get in and out of Windows as quickly as possible without extra computers or the molasses speed of emulation.
When I get my new Macbook, I will still need to run Windows and certainly won't want to drag around a second notebook. I run VirtualPC now and am very much looking forward to being able to run Windows natively. Remember that over half of all Mac sold are laptops.
You are also forgetting that many Mac owners don't want to run some pieced together kludge box any more than most people who are proud of their cars want to drive some pieced together junk pile, faster, cheaper or not. Performance and cost aren't the issues as much as the elegance of the solution.
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Re:Probably not and here's why ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The benefits of a port might be because of cheaper or easier to find hardware capable of running something that it wasn't meant to but is very useful to users. I don't think this is the case in putting Windows on an Intel Mac because Intel Macs are cheaper than what I can piece together in PC x86 form. Don't get me wrong, Macs are nice machines but they're not exactly easy to upgrade or fix on your own.
Windows will run on EFI eventually (some versions do now). EFI supports BIOS compatible partitions. The
Re:Probably not and here's why ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or then again, I can buy 3 Mac Minis for the price of the new iMac too....if you're using lesser hardware you can use ANYTHING you want to make it seem cheaper. Now that it's all Intel, let's compare apples to apples now!
Come on...two systems with 20" widescreen screens that are cheaper than one iMac.
We'll wait...
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WineOSX86 (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the Wine on OS X86 has huge potential; the whole dual-boot thing, while interesting, is a kludge. If you want to run Windows applications -- which is assumedly the only reason anyone would want to run Windows on a Mac anyway (you're not doing it for the OS, or you wouldn't have gotten the Mac in the first place, right?) -- let's just work on a way to run Windows applications from within Mac OS X. We're already partway there with Wine/Cedega. Granted it's buggy and doesn't always work, but you have to give them credit for being pretty slick. Depending on which application is being used, sometimes people claim performance that's better than Windows.
I have no idea of how the actual underpinnings of Wine works, other than it does some very high-level emulation and virtualization (much higher than, say, VPC), but the WineHQ is open source, and in theory it should be able to be ported to OS X86 now. Can anyone familiar with WineHQ comment on what would need to be done, or how big an effort would be required?
To me, that would be pretty close to the perfect solution. A compatibility environment for running Windows applications without rebooting into (or even buying) Windows, and without the performance overhead of emulation or translation (however it is how you define Virtual PC).
TransGaming doesn't seem as though they have the resources or interest to do it, which I think is a mistake because there could be a big market for a Windows gaming emulator on Macintosh, but they seem to be totally occupied with maintainance and improvement on the Linux-x86 side. So it seems as though the WineHQ project would be the logical port choice.
Thoughts?
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Re:WineOSX86 (Score:5, Informative)
The project:
http://darwine.opendarwin.org/ [opendarwin.org]
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Windows on Intel Mac? Answer: Yes (Score:5, Informative)
Windows XP would directly boot and install on the Developer Transition Kit platform because it was just a standard Intel motherboard and processor, and also used a standard Intel BIOS [appleintelfaq.com].
However, the shipping Intel-based Macs use EFI [intel.com] (Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]), Intel's "next generation of BIOS". (more info [apple.com])
Windows XP 32-bit does not currently support EFI for booting. Windows XP 64-bit does, but Intel Core Duo is not a 64-bit chip. Now, there are a bunch of other variables, such as whether or not Apple's current EFI implementation offers BIOS backward-compatibility, and so on, but it's clear that regardless, EFI is the future, and it's only a matter of time before the PC world at large transitions to EFI. Further, Windows Vista does support EFI. See here [google.com] for Microsoft's presentations on EFI, particularly the first two links.
That said, dual booting is intensely annoying anyway, and the really interesting thing will be able to just run Windows (or some other x86 OS) and Mac OS X side-by-side.
What we will *definitely* see are "Virtual PC"-like programs that let you run Windows alongside OS X (in a Window, or taking over the screen, etc., with a hotkey to flip back and forth, for example).
It's important to note this will NOT be emulation: Windows (or other x86 OS) will run at essentially the native speed of the underlying hardware (with certain exceptions). There could even be direct access to video, with support for things like DirectX.
vmware already has a version for Mac OS X in development, and Microsoft has already announced [eweek.com] they will be developing a version of Virtual PC for Intel-based Macs that one can only presume will be a virtual machine. Then there are things like QEMU, Xen, etc. The Darwin/Mac OS X version of WINE, DarWINE, has even been working under betas of Mac OS X for Intel. Now that Intel Macs are shipping, it will only be a matter of weeks/months before we have several options for running Windows itself, and/or Windows applications at essentially the native speed of the underlying hardware.
And since Intel Core Duo [intel.com] also supports [wikipedia.org] Intel's VT hardware virtualization, the possibilities of future virtual machine technology are even more interesting. But the bottom line is that Apple is again leading the way with the adoption of technologies like EFI and ExpressCard [expresscard.org]. Naturally, it will take a little while for Windows to catch up.
Re:Windows on Intel Mac? Answer: Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
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EFI has a BIOS-emulation layer (Score:5, Informative)
It's gonna happen. But I'm not interested in that--I'm interested in someone taking advantage of the hardware virtualization in the Core Duos and letting me run Windows in a window on an OS X desktop with no performance hit. Screw dual-booting.
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Re:EFI has a BIOS-emulation layer (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh, one more thing... (Score:5, Informative)
I also emailed Transgaming about Cedega, but so far they still have nothing useful [transgaming.com] to say.
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Re:Windows on Intel Mac? Answer: Yes YOU JEST? (Score:5, Informative)
Intel Core Duo is not a 64-bit processor, and does not not support EM64T (x86-64).
The next generation [wikipedia.org] of all of Intel's processors [intel.com] will indeed be 64-bit.
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Re:For VMs, avoid Virtual PC (Score:3, Insightful)
One box... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One box... (Score:5, Funny)
Empty your wallet.
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Apple should support this. (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's in Apples best interest to allow Windows on their hardware for two reasons. 1st, people who are apprehensive about switching to Mac could do so slowly with a dual boot setup. 2nd, Apple could sell more hardware this way as it would appeal to Windows users.
http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]Re:Apple should support this. (Score:5, Insightful)
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OS X + Windows + Linux.... (Score:3, Insightful)
But unless I can tri-boot the big-3 (or more to the point, VM them), we're all gonna have to keep the Windows XP boxen around for Development (read: games). This is not acceptable, PC's are just too loud and power hungry.
Apple knows this, so does everyone else. By the time they ship, the "problem" will be solved.
Re:OS X + Windows + Linux.... (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly do you suggest that the PC hardware found in the new Apple computers will remedy this situation?
Legacy Bios Support (Score:5, Informative)
However 64 bit windows and Longhorn both do / will support EFI so that is always a option (although the current intel chips in the macs are 32bit I believe).
I eagerly await (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I eagerly await (Score:5, Funny)
The Blue Screen of Death?
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Games (Score:5, Interesting)
That was never the issue. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:That was never the issue. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you actually want to write a 3D engine along the lines of Doom or Unreal, this won't work. Differences in pipeline architechture mean writing a whole lot of redundant code. Otherwise, get ready for some ugly benchmark numbers. In the academic world, 50 fps or 20 fps makes no difference. Commercial game developers don't have that luxury.
Now imagine what that code would look like if instead of just compensating for minor differences in the OpenGL pathway, you were running on a whole different CPU. By the way, some of the important parts of a 3D engine are still hand-coded in assembly. Will x86 assembly work on PPC?
Bottom line, the idea that game companies should write for OpenGL and then just recompile for MacOS is completely ludicrous.
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Re:That was never the issue. (Score:4, Informative)
SSE1/2/3-optimized math stuff maybe? Those 4x4-matrices fit nicely in SSE.
"You do realize there are full featured, portable, open source 3d engines out there right?"
Yes, and NO ONE of them is an AAA-production option. The _best_ engines are commercial ones. There is no Opensource engine able to keep up with Unreal3. Maybe in 3 years, but Epic will have realtime raytracing engines by then. Most opensource 3dengines lack decent toolchains. A toolchain means more than just some exporters. By toolchains I mean stuff like UnrealEd or the shader builder shown in some Unreal3 screenshots. A full-featured, state-of-the-art opensource GAME engine (i.e. not just graphics) just does not exist. Period. Many try to write one, no one succeeded yet.
"So anyone can go ahead and see that making a portable 3D engine isn't any harder than making a non-portable 3D engine."
Hahahaha. How funny. Once you get to the point of writing a GOOD engine you will see that you are wrong. I don't mean OpenGL initialization, you can get away with SDL for this one. (But, there are pbuffers, which are platform-dependent; they still need to be supported since FBOs are quite new and not supported everywhere yet.) Next: sound? OpenAL has some serious performance issues with Ogg playback (the UT2004 linux devs didn't like this), so you may be forced so switch to something else, again the best libraries are commercial ones (FMOD, BASS...). SDL input is very basic, you may be in need of more (libraries like OpenInput and OIS aren't very well documented). Also, platform issues like shared object handling, compiler handling, compiler quirks on each platform etc. won't make life easier. In Windows Visual C will be used almost certainly (sorry MinGW devs), so you cannot get away with a win32 gcc. Also, in Mac you still have the endianness problem (until they finish switching to Intel).
And, you forget that Direct3D has a VERY good documentation, tons of samples, both covering even state of the art stuff like PRT and HDR. Microsofts XNA program result in a D3D game be very easy to port to the XBox - another BIG plus. Sony is going for OpenGL ES + Cg, but this OpenGL is quite different from the one you use.
As the GP said, an OpenGL pendant to the Direct3D SDK is missing (yes, I know the D3D SDK is no standalone package). Also, Direct3DX is a wonderful Direct3D utility library, I miss something comparable in OpenGL. Last but not least, if OpenGL does not get superbuffers and geometry shaders/programs soon, Direct3D 10 will again lead.
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I still don't understand why you would want to. (Score:3, Insightful)
Honestly, what's the draw to this? Back in the mid 90's I understood it completely with windows/linux. Linux didn't provide what most people needed to be productive back then, and costs were prohibitive to have dual machines for most of the people that were interested in linux at the time.
Now we have a high end (and high priced) peice of hardware, that runs an operating system that provides everything you need to be productive, and it's polished as heck. So why would you want to dual boot to anything? You can get the performance out of many other peices of hardware for cheaper if you want to run windows.
Re:I still don't understand why you would want to. (Score:3, Insightful)
The draw is simple (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue with dual booting is that I have some software that simply does not exist for OSX and likely never will. The software is rather performance intensive and so virtualization is not a viable solution. Thus the need to dual boot. Eventually I hope to move completely away from using Windows at all, but for now, sometimes I have to use it.
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Why? No, seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
OS X is superior for Web surfing, Document creation, Multimedia and personal file and web serving.
Now I know that there are legitimate uses for Windows (CAD, games, etc) but why would you want to dual boot? A cheap windows machine can be made by your local shop for 400 bucks.
Get a KVM switch and you've got two dedicated machines you can use at the same time.
For space (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm not even in the majority of computer users who use portables.
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EFI emulates BIOS (Score:3, Interesting)
I would do this, here's why... (Score:3, Informative)
Apple is still a hardware company, and if I can use the MacBook all the time instead of this POS Dell I've got, then I'm still happy regardless of what OS is on the screen.
Which Hack first XP on Mac, or OSX on generic PC? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah I know OSX on generics has been done, but to keep the race fair lets make it official shipping OSX which is suppossed to be harder to hack.
Personally I am interested in a new dual booting machine and would prefer the windows on Mac option as that probably needs less hacking to get it to work and will likely be more stable.
XP == No ... Vista == Maybe (Score:5, Informative)
EFI doesn't provide any of the BIOS interfaces natively. It also boots up in 32-bit protected mode, which the XP loader can't use.
Any EFI system that can also boot OS from current PCs (XP/DOS/Linux) carries an extra component called the "compatability support module" (CSM). This overlays the BIOS interface onto some EFI implementations, but this is only licensed from a few BIOS vendors.
Apple doesn't need the CSM code to boot OSX, so it's not on their platforms.
No CSM
Vista might work, because it has a native EFI install mode
So Vista would only be viable if (a) Apple makes a 64-bit MacIntelTosh, or (b) Microsoft makes a 32-bit EFI/UEFI version of Vista.
Important Point! (Score:4, Informative)
However, keep in mind that these systems are Vanderpool enabled. The intel core duo processor has VT (vanderpool features).
What does this mean?
Side by side independant OS virtualization utilizing Xen. Including Windows.
http://www.xensource.com/news/pr030105.html [xensource.com]
At a minimum, you can have EFI Linux and EFI OS X running side by side.
Then you can run XP or Vista or DOS or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in Qemu or VMware or whatever on Linux, or on Virtual PC on OS X.
Re:Oh the possibilities.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Apple Tax? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Mac users are loyal (Score:5, Interesting)
Mmmh.. I dont think Mac users will migrate. Why would they do that?
It's not about migration. I'm a Mac person, but my graduate program requires a couple of Windows-only programs. At least 75% of my time is spent on programs with Mac versions available (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc), but due that other 25% (for Rhino and AutoCAD), I can't use a Mac. So right now I'm on a Windows-only machine, and have to suffer through Windows 100% of the time. If I could get a Mac running Rhino and AutoCAD at full speed, and could use OS X for all other programs, do you understand how wonderful that would be? It's not about games, and I'm not looking to escape from OS X to Windows, I'm desperately trying to get back to Macs.
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Re:Well testing has shown... (Score:3, Insightful)
They were only designed for testing that software compiled for the Intel processors would run successfully without any endian or data-type related errors, and nothing else. They were NOT i
Re:EFI vs OpenFirmware (Score:4, Funny)
The fact that I can't use my 23 year old floppies and keyboard really bothers me.
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