PLAYING POKER ON A MAC/MACINTOSH

This article will refer you to no download-poker sites available for Mac Users, and as well, discuss VMware and the advantages of running a PC inside your Apple -from a poker perspective.

Most Mac enthusiasts who are also online poker players have had to struggle over the years to find poker sites on which to play. Let's face it - most online poker rooms are made for Microsoft Windows. Mac users missed the heyday of PartyPoker because like so many other sites, they did not have a Mac compatible poker client. The only solution back then was to find downloadable poker client for Mac, but the search for "no download poker" was a stunted one - other than Pacific Poker and PokerRoom.com, very few sites were available. And even on those sites, there were issues for Mac users, such as not being able to see one's bet sizes. Frustrating. It was almost as if the gaming industry had a special prejudice against Mac-ians.

These days, there are quite a few more poker rooms, as companies have begun to realize the potential of the Mac user market.

The following sites have software compatible with your Mac, and have also been reviewed and contacted to arrange specials for NWP members:

These sites include online poker and sports book rooms that are well respected among Internet gaming enthusiasts, and the glitches have certainly been addresses. Still, if you run a Mac, you are well aware that you are limited to these poker sites only, and that a vast world of gaming lies beyond your reach. This is why we recommend running a PC inside your Mac, giving you the best of both worlds.

With the advent of Virtual PC and VMware, no site is off limits to you. Just because you understand the superiority of a Mac, why should you be limited in your poker choices? Until recently, such limitations were the only barrier between Mac owners and the full spectrum of Internet poker. However, VMware has changed all that.

Remember The Matrix? Well the idea that we could be subsisting in a sophisticated digital simulation isn't that hard to fathom when you consider that these days, one man's computer is really running inside another man's computer. As abstruse as this may sound, that's basically what Virtual Machine software does. It fools your OS into thinking it's running on its own hardware, when in actuality, it's cadging from unused CPU cycles and RAM. Since the OS is running on its native platform, no emulation is required; virtualization allows it to run with insignificant cost to your CPU performance. One word about performance: since display and I/O functions are mapped to slightly different components (a window or a virtual partition, for example), they is a slight performance hit. This is a small price to pay however for access to every online poker room, especially considering that your newer Macs are running enough memory to handle this hit with ease, even multi tabling.

A PC inside your Mac

Virtualization is the software technology that makes it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same computer at the same time, increasing the utilization and flexibility of hardware. Multiple virtual machines share hardware resources without interfering with each other so that you can safely run several operating systems and applications at the same time on a single computer. In simple terms, virtualization lets you transform hardware into software. Use software such as VMware ESX Server to transform or "virtualize" the hardware resources of an x86-based computer - including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller - to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a "real" computer.

Microsoft Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems. Virtual PC emulates a standard PC and its associated hardware. Virtual PC emulates a 32-bit Intel Pentium 4 with an Intel 440BX chipset, a standard SVGA VESA graphics card (S3 Trio 64 PCI with 4 MByte Video RAM, adjustable to 16 MByte), a system BIOS from American Megatrends (AMI), a Creative Labs Sound Blaster and a DEC 21041 (DEC 21140 in newer versions) Ethernet network card. The Mac version of Virtual PC uses dynamic recompilation to translate the x86 code used by a standard PC into equivalent PowerPC code used by a Mac.

System requirements: 500MHz Pentium II or better, 128MB RAM, Windows NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003, various Linux distributions

VMware (the VM is for "virtual machine").supplies proprietary virtualization software for x86-compatible computers, including VMware Workstation, VMware Server and VMware Player. VMware software runs on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

The VMware approach to virtualization inserts a thin layer of software directly on the computer hardware or on a host operating system. This software layer creates virtual machines and contains a virtual machine monitor or "hypervisor" that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently so that multiple operating systems can run concurrently on a single physical computer without even knowing it.

VMware Features that might be important to poker players:

• Access PC-only software, files, networks, and devices with your Mac
• Zero-configuration printing; better graphics handling; expanded preferences
• Cut and paste between platforms; share folders and other media between platforms
• Easily shut down virtual PC and re-launch right where it left off
• G5 support; simple, intuitive installation process; use PC and Mac peripherals

Decent virtualization software allows some communication between the host machine (the real one) and the virtual one. If you encounter a bug, you can switch back to the host, correct the code, and send an updated executable back for further testing. This sort of file sharing enables you to open up so much that in the past was hindered by the walls between OS's. Chat on IM with your favorite railers on your Mac, while simultaneously playing Windows-only poker in a companion window. Slip hand histories and files between the two with ease.

So to the inevitable question… How Much?

The initial cost of VMware or similar software is less than $200.00. Microsoft's Virtual PC 2004 (Microsoft; US$129) is well thought of by the Mac-loving poker players we spoke to but most highly recommended was VMware Workstation 4.5 (VMware; US$189 to download, US$199 with packaging).

Both pieces of software come with special drivers optimized for the VM's "hardware" (VM Additions for Virtual PC and VM Tools for VMware). Besides performance boosts, they add extra features that allow you to blur the line a little between VM and host. In a graphical OS like Windows, a new mouse driver enables pointer integration. Instead of letting the VM lock your mouse input, your cursor can glide freely between real computer and virtual.

Remember to make all this this work, you have to have a decent amount of RAM. While you'll probably have enough CPU cycles to spare, you need enough RAM for both operating systems to run comfortably. As long as you have double your comfortable minimum, you should be fine.

A note to our gamer friends: If you were hoping to use VM software to you're your favorite DOS games, we are sad to report that you will probably be disappointed. Tests with a couple random games (Terra Nova: Strike Force Centauri and Gabriel Knight 2) didn't get far beyond their installation. Simpler games ran reasonably, but people solely interested in gaming should try something like DOSBox.

All US Poker Rooms now available for you on MAC.