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Running Windows games on a Mac Boot CampBoot Camp is a familiar friend for veteran Mac users, a feature made possible by Apple’s switch from Power PC processors to Intel a decade ago. As with a PC, a Mac’s storage can be partitioned; running Boot Camp allows you to have Windows on one part of the drive and OS X on the other, letting you boot into either. But unlike a PC, you can’t simply hop into a BIOS, or pop a Windows installation disk into a USB port to install it.Instead, you have to use Apple’s Boot Camp Assistant tool from within OS X to install Windows. Windows drivers are provided by Apple and before Windows can be installed, you’ll need to download these to a USB hard disk. It’s actually pretty nifty, since it allows you to restore your SSD or hard disk to its previous state with only a single click.You can install Windows 7, 8.1 or the technical preview of Windows 10 on Mac hardware. Here’s, and.If you want to install Windows on an external drive, it’s best to format it with FAT, since Macs can’t write to NTFS drives, and Windows doesn’t work with HFS-formatted disks. Ensure it’s plugged in, and select it at the point in the Boot Camp process where it asks for you to choose a destination.
You’ll be able to boot from it in the same way you would choose any alternative OS on a Mac, by holding down the Option (Alt) key after powering it on.With Windows running on your Mac, you’ll have access to a far better selection of games, and they’ll likely perform better than on OS X. With Sim City on OS X, we had to turn all the graphics details down for smooth performance on the 2013 Retina MacBook Pro we mentioned earlier, but on the same Mac in Windows, the game looked better and ran faster.But there are some things to be aware of with Boot Camp. You can’t install drivers for your video card or chipset from Intel, AMD or Nvidia, so you won’t get any performance updates that come with new driver releases unless Apple releases with new Boot Camp drivers.
Same sort of customization/configuration support as Steam Controllers, including native API support. To play an FPS like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), don't. And invested in an actual gaming mouse (Razer DeathAdder Chroma). Your Guide To Choosing The Best Gadgets For Gaming. .look in this description for all my equipment and settings if you need to know. I also have all the websites for my equipment from amazon.
And with a Retina display, the Windows desktop needs to be run at a higher DPI for everything to look right. That’s not really a problem for web browsing, but it might be when running games.
We had some odd display issues running the Windows version of Civilisation 5, for example, on a Boot Camp partition, which were fixed when we switched to the native OS X code.Once Boot Camp is set up with whatever version of Windows you want, your Mac behaves and functions pretty much like a PC. You shouldn’t have problems running games, as long as you adjust the resolution and detail settings for performance that matches the hardware you have.Wineskin and Virtual MachinesThere are alternatives to Boot Camp if you want to run Windows software on OS X, but both have their limitations for gaming. A virtual machine requires a portion of the Mac’s resources to be dedicated to it, restricting the amount left for the host, and resulting in potentially choppy performance.
With 8GB of memory in your Mac, 4GB for a virtual machine and 4GB for OS X is a good split, but hardly ideal. CPU resources might be easily used up too, affecting performance in both the VM and OS X.There are a few options for virtual machine software. Is free but according to many tests, is the least efficient VM software.isn’t free, but is a long-established name for Mac Virtual Machine software.
It offers a nifty coherence mode where Windows applications appear in their own window on the Mac desktop, and it performs quite well, although you might want to turn off support for Retina displays. It’s possible to run modern 3D games under Parallels, but performance isn’t going to measure up to what you get from Boot Camp. For older or lighter games, though, it should get the job done.Another option is VMWare Fusion, which says it offers access to a Mac’s 3D hardware, but once again, I didn’t have much luck running games in a Fusion virtual machine, bar casual titles. Virtual machines really aren’t designed for gaming, anyway. They’re much better for running word processing software or a Windows email client in OS X.
So for gaming, I’d recommend just sticking with Boot Camp.There’s one more option for running PC games within OS X. Using a collection of open-source software that mimics the Win32 API and Direct X, along with a wrapper that provides a minimal Windows environment to run games in, Wineskin does indeed work, albeit with somewhat reduced performance compared with a Boot Camp Windows installation.
Bonus: it’s free.With the software installed you need to create a wrapper, which is basically a mini virtualised Windows environment. The wrapper creates a folder structure that makes a game think it’s being installed on Windows. You’re faced with the slightly complicated decision of using the right engine for your game, and there are numerous variables to mess about with to improve both compatibility and performance.I didn’t have much luck with it at first, but eventually managed to get Skyrim installed, although it crashed after a few minutes. That doesn’t mean it won’t work on your Mac, or with other games, but mileage is going to vary and you may have to seek help. Handily, there’s a vibrant community sharing tips and techniques to get specific games working.But like a virtual machine, Wineskin won’t give you the very best performance your Mac is capable of either. Once again, our advice is to just use Boot Camp for Windows games. The only disadvantage to going this route is the storage it uses, and the irritation of having to switch between operating systems.Page 4: Running Windows games on a Mac.
Razer's family of mechanical keyboards under the BlackWidow banner are a popular choice for gamers due to the build quality, switches used and satisfaction while in-game. In order to properly set up and configure a Razer keyboard to your liking, you'll need to make full use of Razer's Synapse software, which allows you to alter all manner of things.
Before we crack into this guide — which should work for most Razer keyboards with only a few differences — should you be interested in picking up a new keyboard and are looking to see what Razer has to offer, there are a few options within the BlackWidow family, depending on what you require.
First up we have the BlackWidow Chroma, which sports all the bells and whistles with an insane choice of color for the LED backlighting. This particular keyboard can be purchased with either green or orange Razer switches. Next we have the Razer BlackWidow X Chroma, which strips away the outer shell around the keys to showcase the mechanics underneath. This also makes it much easier to clean.
Both the Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma and BlackWidow X Tournament Edition Chroma are essentially the same as the two keyboards aforementioned, but they do not have the numberpad and are more compact for enhanced mobility and less of a footprint on desks. The Ultimate and X Ultimate are your classic BlackWidow standard keyboards with green backlighting and the BlackWidow Tournament Edition is the most affordable keyboard with no backlighting.
As we noted in our recent guide on how to set up your Razer Naga mouse on Windows, the company's Synapse suite is where you'll be doing most of your customization and configuration for Razer peripherals. This is no different when it comes to keyboards.
Customize
The Customize section of Synapse will let you configure each and every key on your Razer keyboard. You'll be able to select from a drop-down list of pre-defined functions, but you can essentially switch around where keys are located and create new macros. Wish to switch around your 'T' and 'Y' keys? You can do just that.
Should your keyboard also have some macro keys available on the left-hand side, you can use them for advanced programmable functions and macros without losing functionality on other keys. For example, you could program M3 to actually emulate you pressing F+D+R+E+Q+W in quick succession without having to physically hit the corresponding keys.
Just as you would with a Razer mouse, profiles can also contain configurations, lighting and other settings that can be switched out depending on which game you're currently playing.
Lighting
This area of the suite enables owners of capable Razer keyboards to configure lighting controls and options. The choice of settings here depends on which keyboard you've purchased — be it a standard Ultimate BlackWidow or the Chroma. With the latter, you'll be able to choose what color you wish to have beamed into your surroundings, as well as attached patterns. No matter which you go for, everyone will visit this page to change how their peripheral illuminates the darkness.
With the BlackWidow Ultimate, you have the option for pulsating lights or a constant level. The latter can further be configured to be at different brightness levels. (This can also be achieved on the fly by FN + F11/F12.) Lastly, there's the option for the keyboard to shut off its lighting should the display be disconnected/turned off.
Gaming Mode
Gaming mode enables you to disable certain shortcuts and functions when in-game. Things like ALT + F4, ALT + TAB and the Windows key can be disabled from this section of the suite. This should help prevent those accidental moments when you've been returned to the desktop, either by hitting a shortcut or by inadvertently killing the game's process.
The best part about Razer Synapse (and other manufacturer solutions) is how everything is relatively straight forward to use. With your keyboard fully configured, you'll now be able head in-game and take full advantage of the power of mechanical.
RzStats
When you've played a session or few and wish to see just how you're using the keyboard to interact with in-game functions, be sure to check out the Razer Statistics suite. Just like mouse clicks and movements, Razer's software can also track keystrokes and showcase just which keys you're mainly using in any particular session.
It can also reveal how many profile switches you do, what number of macros were deployed and what distance you achieved through key pressing. As we noted in our previous guide, be sure to remember to activate your warranty on your Razer account, which is worth setting up for cloud storage and synchronization of your profiles and configurations.
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Surface Laptop 3 owners reporting cracked screens, Microsoft investigating
A subset of Surface Laptop 3 owners report that their screens have cracked, seemingly through no fault of their own. Microsoft says it is aware of the reports and 'investigating the root cause of the claims.'
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