I'm buying a computer for work and PSO2 and I'd need some advices please!

[Fry_Heit]

Hey there!

My computer is very old and I really need a new one. It'll have to main purposes : work (mainly drawing) and PSO/PSU/PSO2.

Thing is I'd really love to buy a Mac even though PSO2 isn't planned for that system.

This is when I heard that you could run Windows on a Mac!... Is that true? What are the limits? Any trap? I know there are a lot of topics on that subject on PSOWorld already, but I wanted an up-to-date answer since I'm to play PSO2 on it...

Thank you very much!

[Rashiid]

I personally do not know, but I'd ask a mod to maybe move this to the PSO2 forums as I'm sure the people that frequent that would know much more than us Off-Topic-ers.

Maybe this can help: http://www.pso-world.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187525

[CupOfCoffee]

You can indeed run Windows on a Mac. All you need is a copy of Windows you can install on it and enough hard drive space to accommodate a Windows partition (and the games, stuff, etc you'll want to have over there). You can boot into either OSX or Windows, so it's pretty handy for when you want to do something that's only possible (or just easier) on one operating system than the other. I have a mid-2010 i5 MacBook Pro that I run Windows on for gaming, and it's pretty slick for a laptop setup. (Runs a little hot in Windows, but nothing's melted yet.)

There are plenty of guides out there that explain how to set up a Boot Camp partition in greater detail, but it's a pretty self-explanitory process that I don't recall being overly difficult. The only warning I would give you is that you'll get a lot more bang for your buck, performance wise, going with a PC over a Mac. If you prefer OSX or have other reasons for wanting a Mac and don't mind paying the "Apple premium," then by all means, go for it--but they're pretty well outclassed by PC setups when it comes to gaming.

[Fry_Heit]

Thank you very much to both of you!

The PSO2 topic sure was interesting even though it didn't reply to my questions. Then again it was full of nice stuff ;).

Your reply was very... thorough! It did raise one question though : do I have good reasons for buying a Mac? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I hear around me and from my own experience, Macs are less likely to "die" quickly than a PC . And even though they are less powerful, they use their "power" more effectively - or do they?

I wanted to buy a Mac to work on big pictures and play PSO2 without having to worry about changing anything in a year. I want to buy something that will last, and it seemed to me that Mac was the better choice for that... Am I fooling myself?

Thank you again for your reply!

[str898mustang]

Thank you very much to both of you!

The PSO2 topic sure was interesting even though it didn't reply to my questions. Then again it was full of nice stuff ;).

Your reply was very... thorough! It did raise one question though : do I have good reasons for buying a Mac? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I hear around me and from my own experience, Macs are less likely to "die" quickly than a PC . And even though they are less powerful, they use their "power" more effectively - or do they?

I wanted to buy a Mac to work on big pictures and play PSO2 without having to worry about changing anything in a year. I want to buy something that will last, and it seemed to me that Mac was the better choice for that... Am I fooling myself?

Thank you again for your reply!


It really depends on the PC/Mac. A friend of mine had a Mac(dunno the model) and it had to have repairs and was only 3 years old. She never moved the MAC or nothing and it ended costing her around $300. I had an old Gateway PC that I got back in 2003 and never had a problem with it. If I still had it, it would running good as new(it got stolen from my apartment).

[Powder Keg]

If you plan on running windows either way, I'd say you're better off just getting a PC. The problem with Macs are that you can't upgrade them yourself (if at all, you don't want to get scammed by apple), so if you needed a faster processor, more memory, or a better vidya card, or either of them went kaput....with a Mac you'd be SOL.

[CupOfCoffee]

I wanted to buy a Mac to work on big pictures and play PSO2 without having to worry about changing anything in a year. I want to buy something that will last, and it seemed to me that Mac was the better choice for that... Am I fooling myself?

Thank you again for your reply!

That sounds like a fine reason to me. I've had a number of different MacBooks and MB Pros over the years (got them through my major when I was an undergrad) and the only problems I've ever had with any of them were accidental stuff that was my fault--most notably a bad coffee-on-keyboard spill that fried almost every internal component, haha. The laptop Macs also have really good battery life. It's usually between five and nine hours, depending on your screen brightness and what kinds of programs you're running.

On top of being pretty durable and unlikely to get bloated up with spyware (since there isn't nearly as much out there that's written for OSX), Apple also has the most hilariously forgiving customer support of all time (in my experience, anyway). When I spilled that coffee and totally destroyed my computer, I brought it into them and the guy was like, "Well, you don't have Apple Care... but you've had it less than a year, and you've probably thought about getting Apple Care, right? Anyway, since everything that needs to be replaced is going to come to about $1400 in repairs, which is pretty outrageous, I think we'll throw you a freebie and just cover it, free of charge." They've also given me new displays (which are $500) and top cases (which is the aluminum/keyboard/track pad part, at $200) for free after a few incidents in which the computer may or may not have been dropped, haha. In total, the free repairs and replacements I've gotten from Apple have ended up totaling well over the original cost of my computer, and all I had to do was bring it to the Apple Store and say, "Yo, I broke this. Sad face."

Not sure that type of thing would happen everywhere or if the store Madison, WI is just above and beyond, but in general I think their customer service is pretty damn good.

[McLaughlin]

Thank you very much to both of you!

The PSO2 topic sure was interesting even though it didn't reply to my questions. Then again it was full of nice stuff ;).

Your reply was very... thorough! It did raise one question though : do I have good reasons for buying a Mac? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I hear around me and from my own experience, Macs are less likely to "die" quickly than a PC . And even though they are less powerful, they use their "power" more effectively - or do they?

I wanted to buy a Mac to work on big pictures and play PSO2 without having to worry about changing anything in a year. I want to buy something that will last, and it seemed to me that Mac was the better choice for that... Am I fooling myself?

Thank you again for your reply!

I'd say that's a myth. If you take care of it, your PC (or Mac) will probably outlast the usefulness of its parts.

The reason I most often see for people wanting Macs is for multimedia editing, but honestly, I think there's some equally good software out there for Windows. I think it comes down to which OS you prefer, and since you need to boot into Windows to play games anyway, I don't see why you'd pay more for the same machine.