I have a small (10 GB) instance of XP on my MacBook & I use Parallels. It works just fine, although things start to drag if I start opening a bunch of different apps on either side of the OS fence (big surprise). The only chess software I've got installed in XP is Personal Chess Trainer (now called Chessimo), which I think is great. Apart from that, I'm pretty happy with chess a la mac (Shredder 11 + ExaChess).
...I hear that ExaChess 4.0 should be out any time now, btw. :)
Thanks for the quick response, DG. I, too, am very happy with ExaChess, even though after several years I still haven't investigated all its features. But I've seen reviews indicating that its at least as good as ChessBase.
I'm going to look into Personal Chess Trainer. Have you tried Mentor? How does it run on Vista through OS-X? And how does Mentor compare to Personal Chess Trainer? Thanks, again.
I had an install of Chessbase Lite on the XP OS, and I hated it. I was back to ExaChess in a heartbeat, & grateful to have it. Maybe the full version of CB is better, but the software isn't much fun to use.
I used to have a copy of the licensed version of Chess Mentor, but that was a while back... (think Windows 95/98). It's a great program - pretty much the same as the web version here, but not quite as pretty. :-) I've never used Vista.
Chessimo/PCT is quite a bit different from Chess Mentor; it's closer to the Tactics Trainer on this site, in fact. What sets it apart is that it tracks your progress through 1000s of tactical problems and commented endgame problems, and forces a pattern of repetition that is widely thought to help cultivate pattern-recognition in the user. It's a lot of fun to use too. :)
Well, you're making me inclined to go with Parallels and what? Vista now, I guess. I'd rather download a licensed copy of Mentor, I think, than use it only when on line. And I'd like to try Chessimo, those ChessPublishing.com playable e-books, and some of those intriguing-sounding CDs packed with annotated GM games, like one called Magister.
Thanks, again, DG.
Yes, I've heard that about XP versus Vista, but can you still purchase XP from MS? And I've also run into another Forum thread wherein somebody else was touting VMWare Fusion. I wonder how best to compare it with Parallels without downloading them both.
Anybody out there with experience with Fusion?
So far, I have resisted running Windows programs on my Mac via Parallels or anything else. But I'm wondering what I'm missing, chesswise. For example, Mentor's offline program is not available for Mac, so I'd have to subscribe to the online version--which is fine except when I don't have a good signal, which is a lot of the time since I live in rural mountains were we have access only to a dial-up connection.
But there are also great-sounding CDs of annotated games and studies out there. I haven't tried them, but I suspect that even though they are in .pgn format--which work great on my ExaChess program--I won't be able to install them from a CD disk that is probably made for Windows users, right?
And there are some great downloadable e-books on ChessPublishing.com that are "playable" only on Chessbase; I have to use the non-playable .pdf versions.
So, who out there is running Windows chess programs on Mac? And is it really worth the trouble? If so, what program(s) do you recommend to run Windows itself? And which exclusively-Windows chess programs are worth investing in?
(If it matters, I'm running OS-X 10.5.2 on a 2.2GHz MacBook with 2GB RAM and lots of available storage. I currently use the following Mac programs: Sigma Chess 6.1.5 Hiarcs 11.2 MP for analysis and studying opening libraries and ExaChess 3.1.3 for games databases.)
Thanks very much.