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I am currently running Parallels 7 to use windows applications, however, games do not run efficiently and I heard Bootcamp is better for gaming.

I tried installing bootcamp but soon enough I ran into a problem where the laptop did not turn on as usual (took a few tries before opening the log in page). Hence I quickly deleted it and got parallels instead. That was long ago, and now I want to switch back to bootcamp to play some games.

However, I do not know what things I should look for to successfully install bootcamp.

My rMBP has the following specifications, how much shall I give bootcamp ? or is it decided on it's own ?

  • 2.6 Ghz i7
  • 16GB DDR3 RAM
  • OS X 10.8.2
  • GT 650M 1024MB

Plus, how do I ensure that I do not run into problems when using Bootcamp ? Is Bootcamp worth it ? What problems might I face when using Bootcamp ?

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I've never run into any issues like that using Bootcamp. Bootcamp allows you to natively boot into Windows instead of OSX, so it gets all of your resources. All the processor cores, all the RAM, and the entire graphics card. The only decision you have to make is how big your partition has to be for Windows.

How much space you assign to Windows depends on how much stuff you plan on putting in your Windows installation. Windows 7 itself takes close to 16 GB of hard drive space. You'll want plenty more for game installations, Windows Updates, and other things.

Unfortunately this decision has to be made upfront, and changing the size later down the road isn't straight forward (though possible). You can repartition the drive, but the Windows NTFS partition is not going to expand to use the unallocated disk space. That usually requires booting into another linux OS and extending the partition. This in itself has always been somewhat risky. If you do end up having to resize partitions, backup both OSX and Windows completely.

I've had little to no problems using Bootcamp. Perhaps it's matured more since you last used it. The only problem I run into is Windows will only ever see the discrete GPU, so the battery doesn't last terribly long.

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What about removal of the partition ? Is it straightforward ? Or does it leave some unremovable fragments in the system ? – Render Dec 29 '12 at 12:14
@Render All you need to do is boot into OSX and nuke the partition. Windows is entirely self contained in that partition, and OSX really doesn't even know or care that it is there, or ever was. – vcsjones Dec 30 '12 at 5:08
thank you for replying :) – Render Dec 31 '12 at 9:48

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