We are a group of Simmers using FS9 on PC. Three individuals are interested in joining us, but are Mac operators.I wonder whether FS9 is availbale for MAC. If so , where would be the best place to purchase . I heard of BOOTCAMP, which will allow a Mac (with Intel) to do the job. Any information on the subject will be appreciatedBob.*

Flight Simulator 2004 can't run on a MAC if it could I would have switched along time ago. If FSX was a MAC title performance issues would have been a non issue when it was released. Many of us have long wished FS was compatible with MAC...

Bootcamp allows you to run Windows operating systems on a Mac, and so theoretically you can run FS2004 on on a Mac. I've never actually tried it, but it should work. It partitions your drive and gives you the option to boot as Windows. There may be hardware compatibility issues however, such as getting a joystick to run, although in theory, all that should work too. They would have to fork out for a copy of Windows though.I'm being careful to say 'in theory' here, because in practice things don't always work out that way, for example, I could never get my Mac Powerbook to pick up a wired modem from my PC, even though it actually should have worked, as a result, I had to switch to a wireless transmitter so it could use Airport to connect.Al

I am running FS9 and FSX on a Mac since 2007. I have a bootcamp Windows XP partition on my MacBook Pro and a WD 500GB external hard drive connected through a firewire 800 cable on which I am running FS. FS9 runs very well and FSX runs fairly well on it. No problem with the hardware I am using on it (Elite KingAir Throttle quadrant, Saitek AV8R joystick and TrackIR). We are spending about 4 months per year in Spain and this setup allows me to enjoy Fsim over there. Last year I purchased an Acer Notebook running Vista 32bit with more RAM than my Mac (4GB versus 2GB) and a slightly better graphics card and FS still runs better on the MacBook Pro...Jean-JacquesP.S. There is also an excellent payware called MacDrive that allows you to access your MacOS drive from within Windows.

Jean-Jaques: Bootcamp version of 3.0 and higher also enable you to access the MacOS drive from within Windows.But yeah, as others said, you're best bet is BootCamp. That's what I have been doing for the past year or so, and it works great. You should forget about virtualization apps, because that simply does not work out well. You Mac will become sluggish, the emulated Windows will become sluggish, and FS will become, indeed, sluggish. BootCamp is best.Bootcamp is a free utility Mac users (10.5 and higher) get standard with their Mac. It's Apple's way of giving you Windows when you need it, and it's therefore supported by them. But buy all means: if these people you speak of have trouble, they may send me a PM. Although there is a manual for it, so they can read that on how to install it and such. If they really can't figure out some things, let them send me a PM via this board.Hope that helps.

Jean-Jaques: Bootcamp version of 3.0 and higher also enable you to access the MacOS drive from within Windows.But yeah, as others said, you're best bet is BootCamp. That's what I have been doing for the past year or so, and it works great. You should forget about virtualization apps, because that simply does not work out well. You Mac will become sluggish, the emulated Windows will become sluggish, and FS will become, indeed, sluggish. BootCamp is best.Bootcamp is a free utility Mac users (10.5 and higher) get standard with their Mac. It's Apple's way of giving you Windows when you need it, and it's therefore supported by them. But buy all means: if these people you speak of have trouble, they may send me a PM. Although there is a manual for it, so they can read that on how to install it and such. If they really can't figure out some things, let them send me a PM via this board.Hope that helps.

Hello Benjamin,I never dared to upgrade my bootcamp 2.1 to the 3.0 version that came with Snow Leopard, in fear that the upgrade would ruin my existing WinXP installation, as I did not want to go through the process of FS9/FSX + all my addons re-installation. As I already had MacDrive I did not care too much. Are there other benefits to upgrading Bootcamp?Jean-Jacques

Just happened to see this post....I'm a Mac man & only have a Windows machine for FS9 & it's not as smooth & reliable as OSX. Jayjay - I'll PM you if I may? Might be quicker than logging in here for answers?Cheers,Terry.

Hello Benjamin,I never dared to upgrade my bootcamp 2.1 to the 3.0 version that came with Snow Leopard, in fear that the upgrade would ruin my existing WinXP installation, as I did not want to go through the process of FS9/FSX + all my addons re-installation. As I already had MacDrive I did not care too much. Are there other benefits to upgrading Bootcamp?Jean-Jacques

I'm not sure what the benefits are, but you can probably count on updated drivers and better compatibility between the Apple hardware and drivers. You won't ruin your existing Windows partition, that's for sure. You can safely upgrade. I actually recommend it, indeed because of the better compatibility and such.

Just happened to see this post....I'm a Mac man & only have a Windows machine for FS9 & it's not as smooth & reliable as OSX. Jayjay - I'll PM you if I may? Might be quicker than logging in here for answers?Cheers,Terry.

Terry, yes go ahead and PM me.Jean-Jacques

I'm not sure what the benefits are, but you can probably count on updated drivers and better compatibility between the Apple hardware and drivers. You won't ruin your existing Windows partition, that's for sure. You can safely upgrade. I actually recommend it, indeed because of the better compatibility and such.

Thanks Benjamin, you convinced me to give a try at upgrading.Jean-Jacques

You're welcome, Jean-Jacques :(

You're welcome, Jean-Jacques :(

Hi there,I also run FS9 on my mid-2008 Macbook Pro, and it runs very well under Bootcamp 3.0 and Windows XP 32.Problems (fairly minor) that I have encountered:- the odd sound stutter (maybe once an hour if you're unlucky) that lasts a few second caused by a clash between the wireless network and sound drivers- you will need nHancer if you are using an nVidia card like me to get AA to work properly- computer runs hot and seems fairly reluctant to rev up fans, so I use a utility called "Input Remapper" to rev these up manually - I did this after the computer shut itself off onceApart from that, I have been very happy with its ability to run Windows pretty flawlessly. For some reason Mac laptops have terrible battery life in Windows (about 1 hour, vs. about 4 on Mac OS) and they also run hotter.So all in all, a few annoyances but certainly good news for anyone wanting to play FS.Definitely use Bootcamp 3.0 drivers, they improved a few things for me (e.g. the trackpad scrolling now is just like the Mac OS scrolling, rather than the jerky one with V2.1 and the difficulty in right-clicking using two-fingers on the trackpad).Cheers,Rudy

Regarding the battery: I always thought that's because its Windows... It simply uses more resources than Mac OS does and so the batter life is diminished. My friends' laptop also work for only 1 or 2 hours, 3 if lucky.