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.