Parallels or a PC for Games?

Question

I have an iMac from 2011 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5 / 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3:
I thought that instead of buying a new windows machine that it might be more prudent to get parallels with Win7 or something in order to play the game Wolfenstein from 2009, but I'm not sure if my graphics car will be good enough?
http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=64&game=Wolfenstein
I would also like to play the one just released as well, but am not sure about the 32/64 bit thing. Can the Wolfenstein from 2009 run on Win in 64 bit mode, can I even have Windows in 32 bit on Mavericks, which is 64bit?
I am also unsure if my graphics card (AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB) will work with the new wolfenstein?
Alternatively would it not just be less hassle to get an all-in-one MSI PC machine to play them?
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi Hamper,
You're right, before buying a PC let's try with your iMac: you can use actually Parallels with both Win7 32 bits and Win7 64 bits without problems (I use currently Parallels with OSX 64 bits and Win7 32 bits).
The only difference you will see with using 64bits is that your Win7 will not be limited with 4GB RAM use (the 32 bits version will). Note: think about configuring Parallels to put at least 8GB memory for Win7 to run.
So the best way for you is to get one license from Win7 (32/64 bits, you'll get 2 DVDs in the box), install these two OS on Parallels and see how Wolfenstein 2009 is running. Try the Win7 32 bits first, since this game is likely to be design for 32 bits OS, so it should run better on it. Wolfenstein 2009 will be able to run also on a 64 bits environment, but with lower perfs due to compatibility mode needed to run.
If your framerate is not good enough, you can try to dual boot your iMac with Win7 32 bits or 64 bits (using Bootcamp is nice and easy to implement - Note : for Win 7 32 bits dual boot use Bootcamp v4, for Win 7 64 bits use Bootcamp v5. It avoids the OS virtualization and consequently brings more performance.
Now for newest games it is quite difficult to say if your graphic card will work fine. 512MB is quite light for new games as they recommend at least 1GB Graphic Card. If you focus on Mac Games version, that should be fine, since they are normally optimized for it. For PC Games with heavy needs (FPS / RTS / and everything dealing with anti-aliasing, etc), well, your Graphic card won't enable you to play in "Ultra" settings.
One thing to have in mind, while playing heavy 3D games, keep an eye on the temperature of your components, since the thermal dissipation is the key: meaning that your workstation components will go to high temperature and if the air flow is not enough your performance will decrease to a suitable operating heat level. This is typically the case of laptops and all-in-one workstations, where the output air flow is not enough to evacuate the heat by playing new 3D games, so your framerate drops to the ground. You have pretty nice free widgets for OSX to monitor your components heat level.
And finally if your iMac Graphic Card is not powerful enough to play recent games my advice comes with 2 options:
Option 1: do not play current 3D games;
Option 2: build a Minitower PC config with good fan system, for a cost of 600 to 700$.  You should focus on Graphic Card for a budget of around 150$ (Radeon or nVIDIA chips), it should run all new Games in Good Quality. Before buying a PC Graphic Card, search on internet its benchmarks on games: the memory capacity is sometimes not a good indicator i.e. nVIDIA GT (bad perf) vs GTX (good perf) versions
And by the way, nice iMac you have, enjoy!