Playing Poker on the Mac - Dual Boot or use Parallels / VMware?

[thejerkface]

I just got a MacBook Pro, the 17" higher end model with 4GB of RAM. I've set up a BootCamp partition for Vista and use VMware Fusion to access it and run it under OS X.

Before purchasing the MacBook Pro, I was under the impression that there would be no problem running Windows using virtualization software in OS X. However, when trying to play poker through VMware, it is unbearably slow. I can't play more than 3-4 tables and there are system hang ups. Is this common? Is there anything I can do to get it to run faster?

Under VMware settings, I have dedicated 3GB of RAM to the virtual machine. I know Vista supports ReadyBoost. Would installing a flash drive to the Express34 card slot on the MacBook to use with readyboost improve performance? I'm getting really frustrated as I thought everything would run well under VMware. Is there anything I can do to improve performance? Would downgrading to XP make a difference and make things run smoother?


I know there are other posters that use a Mac to play poker and I'm curious what their experience has been.

[doublec]

I use Parallels on a Macbook with 2GB of RAM and it works fine. I can easily run 4 tables. I only have my Parallels VM set to use 512MB of ram.

Try reducing yours from 3GB. It could be that's taking up too much from the Mac OS resulting in a lot of disk paging.

I run XP in the VM - I haven't tried Vista.

[TomHimself]

readyboost doesnt do anything. i think thats what i read

[fringsrache]

i used parallels before and it was way slower than bootcamp.

i am using a macbook 4gb and 8-10 tables + pt + pahud work fine but under win xp.

if i was u, id use XP instead of vista.

[thejerkface]

Yea, I think I may make the switch to XP. Vista is such crap, the only reason I got it was that they sell it for $10 at my school.

If I understand correctly, you can play 8-10 tables under parallels? Or is the 8-10 tables under boot camp? I have no problems playing a bunch of tables under boot camp.

[fringsrache]

8-10 tables under bootcamp. parallels is just too slow.

[thejerkface]

fringsrache,
Do you use an external monitor when using BootCamp? I thought I read somewhere that there were problems doing this under bootcamp.