WinXP on MacBook Pro

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
For those who have Boot Camped their MacBook Pros, what is the best file system to use with WinXP, FAT32 or NTFS? Pros and cons? Mainly using WinXP for games and no web browsing nor email.



Thank you,

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    FAT32 limits you to 31 GB or less on your windows partition, but it lets you read and write to your windows partition from OS X.



    NTFS doesn't have a space limit; this is good if you have a lot of windows games you want installed at once. The downside is that you can only read the windows partition in OS X.



    It's just a matter of how big you want your Windows partition to be.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John French View Post


    FAT32 limits you to 31 GB or less on your windows partition, but it lets you read and write to your windows partition from OS X.



    NTFS doesn't have a space limit; this is good if you have a lot of windows games you want installed at once. The downside is that you can only read the windows partition in OS X.



    It's just a matter of how big you want your Windows partition to be.







    Not just that, if you use FAT32 you can copy files from windows partition to apple without the need to boot up windows and copy onto a usb stick. In NTFS you can't do that, you cant access Windows partition at all.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    Um, yeah. That's what I said.
  • Reply 4 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John French View Post


    Um, yeah. That's what I said.



    Oh sorry mate, didn't read it carefully.
  • Reply 5 of 10
    ssassa Posts: 47member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by alex2016g View Post


    Not just that, if you use FAT32 you can copy files from windows partition to apple without the need to boot up windows and copy onto a usb stick. In NTFS you can't do that, you cant access Windows partition at all.



    You can READ NTFS in MacOS, but officially you can't WRITE to NTFS, which is really pathetic considering that FAT32 is increasingly becoming inpractical (eg. 4GB file limits, poor performance on large partitions, etc.). Using NTFS-3G and MacFUSE one can theoretically write to NTFS partitions, but I have found that using MacFUSE is hit and miss. Sometimes the volume still remains locked (unwriteable) even after it is installed for no clear reason.



    NTFS write support was on my wishlist for OS 10.5 and it remains on my list for 10.6. If Apple added both Exchange support and official NTFS write support I would imagine that a lot of people's interest in MacOS would increase considerably.
  • Reply 6 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by John French View Post


    It's just a matter of how big you want your Windows partition to be.



    NTFS is a lot faster than FAT32, and a lot more error-resistant.
  • Reply 7 of 10
    bbwibbwi Posts: 812member
    FAT 32 is going away. You should only use NTFS
  • Reply 8 of 10
    Thanks for the responses. I tried NTFS first, but the game I'm running is quite old and didn't run, so I reformatted the partition as FAT32, installed WinXP Service Pack 2, installed the game and it runs well (the cutscenes, however, are heavily obscured by large, black pixels). I think it might be a video driver issue?



    The partition is only 20 GB. The game doesn't take much space. It's Dark Forces 2 Jedi: Knight. It seems the further back I go the better the games get. Next on my wish list is X-Wing and Tie Fighter.



    I'd like to house most of the PC games on a separate drive. Would this be a problem? I have a 1 TB MyBook drive. Could I partition that and create a NTFS or FAT32 volume to house all the games?
  • Reply 9 of 10
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrJedi View Post


    Thanks for the responses. I tried NTFS first, but the game I'm running is quite old and didn't run, so I reformatted the partition as FAT32, installed WinXP Service Pack 2, installed the game and it runs well (the cutscenes, however, are heavily obscured by large, black pixels). I think it might be a video driver issue?



    The partition is only 20 GB. The game doesn't take much space. It's Dark Forces 2 Jedi: Knight. It seems the further back I go the better the games get. Next on my wish list is X-Wing and Tie Fighter.



    I'd like to house most of the PC games on a separate drive. Would this be a problem? I have a 1 TB MyBook drive. Could I partition that and create a NTFS or FAT32 volume to house all the games?



    In theory you could, but I'm not sure how those old games will work being housed on an external drive.
  • Reply 10 of 10
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,310moderator
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrJedi View Post


    Thanks for the responses. I tried NTFS first, but the game I'm running is quite old and didn't run, so I reformatted the partition as FAT32, installed WinXP Service Pack 2, installed the game and it runs well (the cutscenes, however, are heavily obscured by large, black pixels). I think it might be a video driver issue?



    It could be a codec issue or maybe to do with compatibility mode. Sometimes you have to open properties on the executable and set the compatibility to Win98 for old games. Occasionally it's your display bit-depth. Older games can require just 256 color output.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrJedi View Post


    The partition is only 20 GB. The game doesn't take much space. It's Dark Forces 2 Jedi: Knight. It seems the further back I go the better the games get. Next on my wish list is X-Wing and Tie Fighter.



    Put this one on the list:



    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IETt6yqLnr4



    Rebel Assault 2. It's like playing through a small movie.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DrJedi View Post


    I'd like to house most of the PC games on a separate drive. Would this be a problem? I have a 1 TB MyBook drive. Could I partition that and create a NTFS or FAT32 volume to house all the games?



    For some games it is, as they are hardcoded to look on the C\ drive for files. You don't have to install them all at the same time though. Another thing you can try is running these games under programs like DosBox, Crossover or even Parallels/VMWare so you don't have to reboot into Windows.



    Crossover uses the Mac hard drive so you should never run out of space. The compatibility isn't always great though.



    On the subject of FAT32 vs NTFS, I went for FAT32 and it's been fine for a long time but after 10-12 months, it has started to get slower writing to it and takes a bit of time to mount at startup (5-10 seconds or so after everything else). NTFS would be the better option but until Apple enable writing to it, I'll stick with FAT32 and put up with the minor performance issues.
Sign In or Register to comment.