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Post by Kenny Blankenship on Aug 29, 2012 19:44:25 GMT 2
Hello folks  This may or may not have been asked here before, so forgive me if this is old hat, but at the turn of this year I switched to a Macbook from my standard desktop PC, and though I do love my Mac, obviously I've had a problem with running my old Windows games on it - one of them being NASCAR Heat. I've read about, and tried several solutions, one being the Crossover Games program, but it seems to have problems installing stuff, i.e. itll install a mod as a seperate program to NHeat Essentials, and it won't run the mods if you open them directly from the mod folder rather than through NHeat Essentials, if that makes sense. Any computer whizzes here got any idea how I could run NHeat? And annoyingly, it looks like Bootcamp (the feature allowing Windows to be installed and booted on a Mac) doesn't work on OSX, which is what I have  annoyingly. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated folks - I do miss NHeat! |
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Post by DaveO on Aug 29, 2012 20:28:24 GMT 2
Hello folks This may or may not have been asked here before, so forgive me if this is old hat, but at the turn of this year I switched to a Macbook from my standard desktop PC, and though I do love my Mac, obviously I've had a problem with running my old Windows games on it - one of them being NASCAR Heat. I've read about, and tried several solutions, one being the Crossover Games program, but it seems to have problems installing stuff, i.e. itll install a mod as a seperate program to NHeat Essentials, and it won't run the mods if you open them directly from the mod folder rather than through NHeat Essentials, if that makes sense. Any computer whizzes here got any idea how I could run NHeat? And annoyingly, it looks like Bootcamp (the feature allowing Windows to be installed and booted on a Mac) doesn't work on OSX, which is what I have annoyingly. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated folks - I do miss NHeat! Unfortunately the only thing out there to even make a dual boot with windows is with Bootcamp. Plus partition your hd.. If I was you I would just go out to Ebay and pickup up a cheap XP or Win7 refurbished computer. A lot of corporate companies after leasing there laptops or desktops for 6 months, they go back out on the market as refurbished computers. You can get them very cheap now a days.. Plus the computers are like brand new.. ;D |
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Post by Kenny Blankenship on Aug 29, 2012 21:06:01 GMT 2
Actually DaveO I'm wrong - Mac OSX does have Bootcamp, but for some inexplcable reason only supports Windows 7 - XP and Vista are out on a limb  Which is rather puzzling I must say. And annoying, haha! Just having a quick look on ebay, I'm really surprised just how much bang for your buck you can get! And the thing is, I still have my monitor, mouse and keyboard and stuff from my old desktop PC, theyre all just wired into my Macbook when I use it at home. So all I'd need is a tower with motherboard/hard drives etc in there. Thanks for the heads up |
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Post by spike on Aug 29, 2012 22:33:59 GMT 2
Newegg & Tiger Direct also do the off lease/refurbished sales as well A while back I could've had a nice off lease one, dual core processor 4g of ram 512mb vidcard etc..., but didn't have the extra cash as that went to getting the car fixed lol  . |
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Post by DusterLag on Aug 29, 2012 23:37:16 GMT 2
Actually DaveO I'm wrong - Mac OSX does have Bootcamp, but for some inexplcable reason only supports Windows 7 - XP and Vista are out on a limb In fact you can install Windows XP on a Mac, including Bootcamp and OSX. You must have a full version copy of the operating system though. There are several tutorials for doing this on YouTube if you do a search. It will also run very well assuming you have reasonably good processor, memory and graphics processor. |
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Post by DaveO on Aug 29, 2012 23:47:42 GMT 2
Yep Dusters right if you have Win 7 you can run it with the Mac... Yes, there are tutorials out there that will help you.  But remember it's not like a true Windows machine. If you can afford to pickup a cheap tower go that route please it's less headaches in the end if your not computer savy. Don't get me wrong Mac's are awesome. I'm just thinking of the guys out there who are not computer savy that's all.. |
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Post by Kenny Blankenship on Aug 30, 2012 0:04:26 GMT 2
Spike, looks like the refurbished route is definitely the way to go! I have several copies of WinXP, as well as the peripherals - looks like I can get a decent computer, processor setup etc for 100 quid or less! Superb. And if I need to modify bits of it, I built my last computer from scratch so I should be okay to get into the nuts and bolts of it...ish! haha! DusterLag, I never knew that! I gave up hope when I saw the official line that it was Windows 7 only, but I might give it a try...as I said above, I have a few copies of WinXP about. DaveO, I'm thinking that'll probably be the way to go. I like to think I'm pretty computer literate, but to be honest if I can keep my laptop as a work/regular stuff machine and build a desktop PC as a gaming machine and nothing else, I'd prefer that. Money permitting of course Thanks guys for all your advice! With any luck I'll be back racing in NASCAR Heat very soon, be it on my Macbook or on a new PC |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2012 2:05:55 GMT 2
If your looking for a relatively inexpensive graphics card I'd recommend GT240 from nvidia. It doesnt need a power source leading to it (it must draw power from the other connected components i assume), and can run on rather low power source iirc. I have one myself, runs heat like a breeze and even runs LFS full graphics at a consistent 60 fps (capped) www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gt_240_us.html |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2012 3:37:10 GMT 2
if i may interrupt this convo, bmx, u are rite to say that card must draw power from somewhere else. i also wouldnt know where that power will come from but i can tell u that is a bad idea for hardcore gaming. why? ist of all every PSU states its power output. but in reallity the psu only delivers a fraction of what it is rated for. ex: a 250w psu may only send 175w to the motherboard, a 500w psu may send 400w, a 1000w may send 750-800w. the actually amount of power sent is termed the psu's effieciency rating. without rehashing comptia A+ explanation. it is better to go with a vid card that uses its own rail for power. also its best to use a psu with the highest output 1 can afford due to the effiency rating. while i'm glad to hear u recommend nvidia as a choice, i'd prefer that u recommended a sound nvidia card. using a card that doesnt required its own rail is inviting trouble such a system lockups and freezes due to lack of power. again pardon my interruption on this thread, u may now resume as normal
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triz
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Post by triz on Aug 31, 2012 15:53:49 GMT 2
if i may interrupt this convo, bmx, u are rite to say that card must draw power from somewhere else. i also wouldnt know where that power will come from but i can tell u that is a bad idea for hardcore gaming. why? ist of all every PSU states its power output. but in reallity the psu only delivers a fraction of what it is rated for. ex: a 250w psu may only send 175w to the motherboard, a 500w psu may send 400w, a 1000w may send 750-800w. the actually amount of power sent is termed the psu's effieciency rating. without rehashing comptia A+ explanation. it is better to go with a vid card that uses its own rail for power. also its best to use a psu with the highest output 1 can afford due to the effiency rating. while i'm glad to hear u recommend nvidia as a choice, i'd prefer that u recommended a sound nvidia card. using a card that doesnt required its own rail is inviting trouble such a system lockups and freezes due to lack of power. again pardon my interruption on this thread, u may now resume as normal True. A Graphics card without a dedicated connector for external power, draws its power from the motherboard slot itself. Which in turn is fed power through the 24pin power connector on the Motherboard. A graphics card with a dedicated connector for connection to the power supply means that the card will draw an amount of power for which they are not sure that any motherboard can supply. So a direct connection is required. So a graphicscard without a dedicated power connector is one that is at least energy conservative. As for having a beefy powersupply... It is true that a powersupply that runs at 90% capacity will get warmer then one that runs at 50% of its capacity. That generated heat is wasted energy. So if you have a 450Watts power supply, and your motherboard needs 50Watts, your processor 70 Watts, your videocard needs 125Watts and your harddrive 50 Watts plus some other peripheral devices that require maybe 25Watts that means you have a consumption of 320 Watts... thats 320W/450W = 71% load on your PSU... (320Watts consumption by a computer is quite alot for a mid-range pc already, so these figures are hypothetical) So... The amount of power sent to the components is not coupled to what the efficiency is of the PSU... Efficiency is the amount of power the PSU requires to produce 100% output. So: a 500Watts PSU with a factor 0.9 efficiency (0.1 loss which is made up by drawing more power) draws : 500W + (500 x 0.1) = 550W from the wall socket when it's at 100% capacity... Since for the lifespan of a PSU it's better to have more capacity then you need, because the components of the PSU will stay cooler that way. On the other hand buying a 1000Watss PSU when your pc only consumes 200W is a waste too. So my guess is for a mid-range pc to have a 350Watts PSU is fine. For a stable system its good to have a powersupply that has some overcapacity. It all depends on how many Harddrives you have, what the motherboard+processor require and what your videocard needs. Thats pretty much it. Could go even deeper on the matter... For you to choose the right videocard is to pick one that is able to deliver performance for not to big a buck, and if thats an NVidia GT240... go for it... needing an external powerconnection doesnt say anything about its performance, only about what it requires for power. With the newer technologies its possible that a card 5 years ago which needed external power, is out performed by a card nowadays which doesnt need external power. Oh and one more thing... make sure the Motherboard supports PCI-Express... Older PC's(pre 2005) might still have an AGP slot... though that's quite old already. |
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Post by steelshade on Sept 5, 2012 8:25:55 GMT 2
I have xp on a macbook with osx snow leopard... ran heat very well, just partition your hd and use bootcamp. In fact runs better than my new computer for some reason the game stutters on my new win 7 i7 gtx460 computer.
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Post by DaveO on Sept 5, 2012 14:04:07 GMT 2
I have xp on a macbook with osx snow leopard... ran heat very well, just partition your hd and use bootcamp. In fact runs better than my new computer for some reason the game stutters on my new win 7 i7 gtx460 computer. My system runs Win 7 64 bit I7 @ 3.4 GHz, Nvida GeForce GTX 660 and I have NP's running heat or any of the games I enjoy.. No stuttering what so ever. |
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annoyingly. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated folks - I do miss NHeat! 
Which is rather puzzling I must say. And annoying, haha! 
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But remember it's not like a true Windows machine. 
