Dingoden,

It is extremely unlikely that Rome will run under emulation on an iBook. In fact, I'd be shocked if you could run the opening movie. It's not because the iBooks isn't a good computer -- it is -- but rather that Rome depends on a lot of Direct X stuff that does not behave well under emulation. In essence, Rome is oging to want to talk directly to the video acceleration, and Virtual PC's going to cough up blood.

I strongly advise you do what this lemur did -- build a gaming PC to complement your Mac. The Total War series is as responsible as anything for the fact that I now have a PC.

Oh, and if you have an ethical issue with giving any money to Microsoft, just find your neighborhood geek and see if he has an extra copy of Windows 2000 laying about. You know, a legal copy that he isn't using. Because I would never, ever suggest that you obtain a homebrew copy. That would be wrong.