Bearing in mind that an "Applemac" can, I believe, also operate under Windows would I still be able to download and install PMDG aircraft?And, if so, would the graphics be improved?Cliff Harris

I would think if you can run windows and FSX on a Applemac then PMDG aircrafts should work too.Though why would you think the graphics could be improved? Apple macs arn't aymore powerful and its using software that wasn't designed for it.

I would think if you can run windows and FSX on a Applemac then PMDG aircrafts should work too.Though why would you think the graphics could be improved? Apple macs arn't aymore powerful and its using software that wasn't designed for it.

I asked about the graphics as friends who use Applemacs all, without exception, comment on excellent their graphics.Cliff Harris

PMDG will work on "Applemac". I've been using my 747-400X on iMac for few weeks before I changed computers. It worked well without any problems. I did not notice any difference in graphics comparing to my new PC.Cheers

Uh a macbook uses mobile graphics, but I think a regular imac is about the same graphics except they are not the mobile version. FSX should work on them fine, but they are the exact same thing as a pc.

I asked about the graphics as friends who use Applemacs all, without exception, comment on excellent their graphics.Cliff Harris

Just another pointless Apple myth... Apple is using the same video cards from ATI and NVIDIA as anyone else.

Just another pointless Apple myth... Apple is using the same video cards from ATI and NVIDIA as anyone else.

Yup, and usually older ones too. Al

Apple, when it builds its computers, has one huge benefit, and one huge downside:1) The downside is simple: because Apple makes and designs the computers so that they are hardly upgradeable, you have to choose what you need or want right at the beginning, and there is no way back. There is no easy swapping of whatever. A hardware upgrade means buying a new computer all together2) The benefit might be a little more obscure: because Apple makes both OS and computer, the OS is finely tuned to perform as best as possible on the given hardware. Of course, if you buy a Mac, you should keep in mind what you want to end up doing with it, meaning you don't buy a Mac Mini when you want to edit lots of videos, and you do not buy a Mac pro when you only want to surf the web and write Word documents.I think the benefit is worth more than the downside, though. This is simply because when I buy my Mac, I know there won't be incompatibilities of any kind regarding hardware, and I'll know the OS is made to run on the given hardware, which greatly eases my life. Fact is, Mac OS X uses less resources to do the same things as Windows, meaning that less hardware is needed to do the same things Windows needs better hardware for. This is no great excuse to put lesser hardware in a Mac, of course, but I guess that's just the way it is...@Cliff, here is my golden advice: Only buy a Mac if you want to use Mac OS X, otherwise you have no reason pouring out the cash to get a Mac. These machines are expensive, and frankly, you can often get much better hardware for less money of you buy a Windows machine. This probably begs the question "Why do I use a Mac then if that's how I think about them?" Well, it's easy: I want to use Mac OS X for all my "serious" stuff (work, university, etc) and Windows for games. So, I buy a Mac and get the best from both worlds. I mean, I personally like Mac better than Windows, but Windows has all the games written for it. So I use BootCamp and be happy.EDIT: By the way, "Applemac" is not one word, it's two words: Apple Mac.

Benjamin, I would tend to agree with you on most counts. I personally don't like the way OSX works, so I avoid it. However, in response to your "Benefit", Using 2 different versions of Windows (XP Media, XP Pro 64bit and W7) over 5 years, I have had maybe 1 driver conflict which took 15 minutes to rectify. However, I can understand where you are coming from, and it is a legitimate benefit, but in my mind is not worth the extra expense of getting a mac.

Benjamin, I would tend to agree with you on most counts. I personally don't like the way OSX works, so I avoid it. However, in response to your "Benefit", Using 2 different versions of Windows (XP Media, XP Pro 64bit and W7) over 5 years, I have had maybe 1 driver conflict which took 15 minutes to rectify. However, I can understand where you are coming from, and it is a legitimate benefit, but in my mind is not worth the extra expense of getting a mac.

Uh I wouldn't start this one...to each own his opinions. This is asking for an argument.

There is no Mac that can equal a top of the line gaming PC for 3D game performance, plain and simple. They're always 1 or 2 generations behind on both the CPU and video card.I love my Macbook, but I play games and do FS on my PC...

Apple, when it builds its computers, has one huge benefit, and one huge downside:1) The downside is simple: because Apple makes and designs the computers so that they are hardly upgradeable, you have to choose what you need or want right at the beginning, and there is no way back. There is no easy swapping of whatever. A hardware upgrade means buying a new computer all together2) The benefit might be a little more obscure: because Apple makes both OS and computer, the OS is finely tuned to perform as best as possible on the given hardware. Of course, if you buy a Mac, you should keep in mind what you want to end up doing with it, meaning you don't buy a Mac Mini when you want to edit lots of videos, and you do not buy a Mac pro when you only want to surf the web and write Word documents.I think the benefit is worth more than the downside, though. This is simply because when I buy my Mac, I know there won't be incompatibilities of any kind regarding hardware, and I'll know the OS is made to run on the given hardware, which greatly eases my life. Fact is, Mac OS X uses less resources to do the same things as Windows, meaning that less hardware is needed to do the same things Windows needs better hardware for. This is no great excuse to put lesser hardware in a Mac, of course, but I guess that's just the way it is...@Cliff, here is my golden advice: Only buy a Mac if you want to use Mac OS X, otherwise you have no reason pouring out the cash to get a Mac. These machines are expensive, and frankly, you can often get much better hardware for less money of you buy a Windows machine. This probably begs the question "Why do I use a Mac then if that's how I think about them?" Well, it's easy: I want to use Mac OS X for all my "serious" stuff (work, university, etc) and Windows for games. So, I buy a Mac and get the best from both worlds. I mean, I personally like Mac better than Windows, but Windows has all the games written for it. So I use BootCamp and be happy.EDIT: By the way, "Applemac" is not one word, it's two words: Apple Mac.

Benjamin; thank you. Your comments make sense and I appreciate the time you

There is no Mac that can equal a top of the line gaming PC for 3D game performance, plain and simple. They're always 1 or 2 generations behind on both the CPU and video card.I love my Macbook, but I play games and do FS on my PC...

+1 right here...I'm in the exact same boat as you. I even usually reply on this forum on my mac which is what I'm doing right now.

To be honest, I have also never had any driver conflicts on Windows. Still, I think the benefit Apple has from making both the OS and the computer still stands: they can make a computer to suit the OS. They made the OS, they know what it needs adn they give it what it needs. This is the ultimate power of making both the OS and the computer: nobody else will know better than Apple what hardware to give to Mac OS X to be sure it can do what you want it to do. They made it, they know it. Windows is built to support a wide range of hardware from as many vendors and this can lead to problems, because the OS might not be as finely tuned to all these different hardware vendors' products. Apple has a limited range of hardware it puts in its computers, and so it doesn't need to make sure the OS runs with many hardware products. I think this is a huge benfit, because it makes for a more solid and finely tuned end product.Ryan says it all in his two lines, and I agree fully with him. I don't do it myself, using my Mac also for gaming, mostly because I do not want to spend the extra money for another computer. Instead, I just get the Mac I want, and use it for gaming (see also the very last paragraph). I am prepared to spend the extra money to get the Mac I want, which tends to be a powerful affairn (for Mac standards, anywhere).

Benjamin; thank you. Your comments make sense and I appreciate the time you’ve given me.May I ask you to enlarge on your thoughts bearing the following in mind?1. The downside of not being upgradable would, I assume, fall away as I’m considering a 15” laptop rather than a desktop.2. My experience operating PC’s has been fraught with problems. The prospect of having computer less problem prone is therefore a real temptationThe purpose would be to have a mobile machine to share between my wife and me. It would be used for e-mails, surfing the Web, Games, a Windows Budget program, photography and Flight Simulation. 3. Presumably using the inbuilt “Apple Mac” (two words!) “Bootcamp” offers the best of both worlds?4. Apple claim their graphics to be superior to that of PC’s. However surely that depends on the specs of each machine?Cliff Harris

1. Indeed: the upgradeability of any Windows laptop is as much as a Mac laptop, so upgradeability is a non-issue in your case.2. I'll tell you what my experience is with Macs and PCs: My Macs have, in 16 years, died only once on me. A couple of weeks ago, the motherboard of my laptop suddenly broke down. It was repaired for about 150 Euros, however. My one and only PC was put together rather shitely, and it broke down within half a year. After that, the computer worked fine, but it was an unnecessary hurdle I had to pass.To be perfectly honest, I think I simply had bad luck with my PC, but I can not deny the fact that, after 2 years of using both Mac and Windows on this very same laptop, Mac OS X has never crashed and runs at about the same speed as when I bought the laptop, and Windows has already been installed twice. It always became so slow that I was tired of it and did a reinstall, just so the OS would be speedy again. This is also my ultimate problem with Windows: I feel I have to do more maintenance with Windows than with Mac OS X, be it Windows XP or Vista. Plus, I feel that Windows has to many steps to do the same thing that requires less steps in Mac OS X. HOWEVER: I am not saying Mac OS X is perfect! MAc OS X has stuff that I would have wanted to see differently, and there are things that certainly have been put together rather stupidly. One of the things I dislike about Mac OS X is the very poor gaming support: The drivers used in Mac OS X are inferior to those used in Windows, meaning Windows sports far better performance in games. That said, Windows uses more resources than Mac OS X does, and so many stuff that I do on Mac OS X are more "fluid", work quicker and work more reliably. In my experience (yes, in my experience, many people might have a different experience), Mac OS X simply performs better overall and is more reliable.3. Boot Camp has always worked like a dream for me. Setting it up is very easy and you get a nice manual in case you are confused. Boot Camp is great. Setting up Windows, from then on, is a no brainer and most of what really has to be done is automatic. You can install XP, Vista or 7, in 32 bit or 64 bit, whatever you want. I personally think Boot Camp enables you to indeed have the best of both worlds. You can have Mac OS X for the "serious" stuff and Windows for the gaming. However, as was already discussed, ultimate gaming should be done on a Windows machine and you shouldn't expect too much from gaming on a Mac, be it using Mac OS X or Windows. FS would probably work, but it's entirely up to what laptop model you choose and what FS you want to use. FS2004 runs perfectly on the middle line Macbook pros, but I do not dare to say if FSX will run well (with good graphics) on whatever Macbook pro. What do you have in mind, exactly for your FS?4. Well, with "graphics" Apple means imaging programs and video editing, not necessarily gaming. These work very well on a Mac, because Macs are geared towards this kind of graphics processing. It also depends for a large part on the hardware, but the also the drivers and the way the OS handles these things. fact is that Mac OS X's drivers work better for video and photography and less for gaming. The fact that Mac OS X uses less resources than Windows does also helps a bunch. So, there is some truth to what Apple has, but it's not universal: gaming is not good on Mac OS X, and I dare say it'll take some time until this is corrected!If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I will say this again, though: Dig deep in your heart and ask yourself the question: "Am I wanting to buy a Mac for the OS, or for any other reason? if the answer is "any other reason", I think you should probably reconsider. Go to an Apple Store and play around with the Macs there. Ask the staff; they are usually friendly and will try to help you out as much as they can. if you know people that use Macs intensively, ask them if you can use their Mac for a bit. Use it for some word processing, for some video editing. Perhaps ask them for a "tour" of the computer. Macs are, as I said, expensive, so think a lot before you buy one, and make sure you're comfortable with the OS. Do not buy a Mac for the hardware, because you can get the same at HP, probably even better for less money. Macs are about liking the OS, first and foremost.

Assuming you've got a Mac with dedicated graphics card (i.e. not onboard), you'll be able to run FS well enough. I own an early 2008 Macbook Pro with WXP SP3 and it works very well. I haven't run FSX much yet - my computer may be a little dated for it, but I'll be giving it a go when the PMDG 737NG V2 comes out. With default aircraft and high settings, I can get close to 30fps in many situations. Don't know how it will be with a complex add-on/lots of AI traffic though.Cheers,Rudy