I finally broke down and bought a Macbook Pro. After many debates the flexibility, OS options, and weight turned me to the light 
The first thing I did upon setup was install Parallels 3.0 w/ Windows XP in Coherence mode (which means XP windows appear just like Mac windows - meaning independantly movable/etc. instead of the old Virtual Machine-in-a-box modes which were ugly).
All the useful data (for those who care) after the break. Benchmarks, bugs, and decision-points…
After the normal routine of getting apps installed into the OS, I decided to benchmark the Virtual Machine performance against my main dev machine (to see if I needed to run in Boot Camp - dual booting - and lose the beautiful integration, but gain needed performance). My main test (which has guided laptop purchases for the last 3 years for me) has been full recompile of the PwlMMO Client-side application (all C++ code, which the compiler can optimize with multi-core CPUs). I remember a series of old tests where I went from ~25min down to 15min on a subset of this by upgrading my laptop. 10 min savings/test was worth the cost/effort.
So here I am again with the same test (though a slightly larger compile project now). Here are the results:
- Desktop Pentium D 2.80GHz (dual-core), 2GB RAM, XP SP 2, External USB2 7200rpm disk, Visual Studio C++ Express 2005 SP1 - full compile time 11:40
- Desktop Pentium D 2.80GHz (dual-core), 2GB RAM, XP SP 2, Internal 7200rpm disk, Visual Studio C++ Express 2005 SP1 - full compile time 11:47 (this is surprising, I thought for sure the internal drive would help a fair bit!)
- Macbook Pro (Santa Rosa chipset) Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz (dual-core), 2GB RAM, Mac OSX 10.4.10 + XP SP2 (under Parallels Virtual Machine, Coherence Mode), Internal 5400rpm disk, Visual Studio C++ Express 2005 SP1 - full compile time 7:17
This leaves me quite pleased! There is a lot more testing to do (including OpenGL performance of the laptops 8600 GT mobile nvidia chip which looks nice) but the seamless OS integration really works. Apple and Parallels are certainly to be commended on an excellent set of hardware and software.
When I was looking at laptops my main criteria were:
- Higher resolution screen (my current Toshiba is 1280×800 which is too low, I’ve had and LOVED 1600×1200 on 15″ screens - especially for all the text in code work)
- Weight < 6lbs - lighter = better for travel (my current Toshiba is 5.96lbs - my real threshold - I’ve had 6+ lb 17″ units and they killed my shoulder and made travel ackward)
- Fast CPU - 2.2GHz or up - things like compiles/After Effects/etc. really benefit from this stuff
- Fast Graphics - 8600 nvidia, GT preferrable - this takes performance over the mediocre level which I need for Game/MMO/Visual Simulation work, oh and 256MB Video RAM minimum too
- LED screen if possible - need to have the latest gadget - better colour, better battery life - all goodness!
- Blu-ray or HD-DVD reader/writer if possible (but unlikely to be found with all other specs, low priority at the moment)
The Mac also gives me a nice UI, Unix (which I miss from the old days of SGIs), and full Windows performance (even if I needed to Dual-boot). I went for the glossy screen even though I’d love to be able to work in slightly brighter locales at times. I ran the same image/slideshows on both screens in the Apple Store and could notice the contrast benefits/difference - glossy won out.
I am wondering about things like 7200rpm drive and 4GB RAM - I’ll give those a little time before I explore them more fully. 2GB seems ok for now but I haven’t started any image/video work yet.
4 comments ↓
What is the compile time on XP running in dual boot mode?
Fair enough question but that requires a lot more reinstall time than I’ve had yet so be patient
ALSO: I have noted that the hardware 3d support that they claim isn’t all that great (read: buggy). While I can run the PwlMMO Client (that I compile) it does not display everything properly in full-screen mode. However the OpenGL driver responds in such a way that the app thinks it should run in full-screen. I’ll have to dig in a little more. If it could run in windowed mode I think this would ‘work’ for debugging but certainly lacks for real 3d work (avg I’d say is about 2-10fps).
Ok, I have the answer:
4. Macbook Pro (Santa Rosa chipset) Core 2 Duo 2.40GHz (dual-core), 2GB RAM, Win XP SP2 (dual-boot), Internal 5400rpm disk, Visual Studio C++ Express 2005 SP1 - full compile time 4:30
This is unbelievable but very nice performance. It puts the virtual memory version to a little shame but still very nice overall.
Ah some more notes for those contemplating MacBook Pros for their OSX/Windows lovin’…
Keyboard:
- the Fn key (for special Functions like brightening the screen/muting audio/etc.) is RIGHT where I’m used to the Ctrl key being on all my PC keyboards. This means a lot of errors when looking to hit Ctrl-C,V,X for copy/paste/cut
- there is no Backspace key, ONLY a Delete key, and in Windows this single Delete key performs as though it were Backspace!
- there is only an Alt key on the LEFT side of the keyboard so if you like one on both sides, too bad
I’m getting used to these issues but the Fn one is the most common error I hit that is really annoying me. I suspect I’ll get an external keyboard to save grief.
Feedback:
Most laptops have a bunch of lights to show you power/battery/hard disk activity/etc. On the MBP you get a light on the power connector, but NO feedback of hard disk activity. When coding/debugging/waiting for the machine, it is often useful to quickly visualize if it is bound by disk activity. This is not so readily visible on the Mac. It keeps the machine looking ‘clean’ but less functional for my needs.
Wireless:
The MBP has 802.11n which is nice, and I have a linksys ‘N’ router. But all is not happy in this world and the Mac can freeze up if I use wireless (after about 1-3min). It seens ‘N’ is not yet a full standard and the router uses the Draft 1 spec while the Mac uses Draft 2. There are some incompatibilities. Time to flash the memory on the router…hope it works.
Leave a Comment