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tvfollower · Aug 29, 2003, 01:22 AM

Well, I want to get a PowerBook...

But I'm wondering...

Is Virtual PC really THAT slow? I mean...how slow are we talking? I'd want to use it for some PC programs that have no Mac counterparts...not games, just normal programs.

And could I use Virtual PC to run, say, Visual C++, or would that not work?

Thanks!

geekwagon · Aug 29, 2003, 01:47 AM

I haven't tried Visual Studio, but Access, Visio and Project all run just fine (that's about all I use VPC for.)

On my 17" Powerbook, it runs pretty close to the speed of the old 500MHz Dell that it replaced, other than the video and hard disk (especially writes) being slower.

I have 1GB of RAM in my machine, but I only give VPC 192MB. Visual Studio might need a bit more though.

tvfollower · Aug 29, 2003, 01:57 AM

But aside from Visual Studio's memory requirements, will it work at all? In other words, will it be able to compile and execute programs, even though it isn't a real PC? Is that within Virtual PC's abilities?

Powerbook · Aug 29, 2003, 03:57 AM

Originally posted by tvfollower:
But aside from Visual Studio's memory requirements, will it work at all? In other words, will it be able to compile and execute programs, even though it isn't a real PC? Is that within Virtual PC's abilities?

Yup, no problems. I did the same in university. File exchange etc. worked perfectly.
BUT: Use Win 2000 and save important things often via shared directory to the mac side. It's slower than Win98, but my Win98 emulation chrased twice very brutally: Once it killed the whole Win-partition, the other time corrupted the Mac OS9 disc (I was able to restore, but Win was gone here also).

PB.

geekwagon · Aug 29, 2003, 04:42 AM

Yea, the way Virtual PC works is you install a real Windows OS into a emulated piece of PC hardware. So almost all applications work. I have never found anything that doesn't work, except for applications that require direct access to certain kinds of hardware (like games.)

I haven't even had problems using peripheral devices like USB printers and PDA syncing. It's pretty amazing, actually. Every other emulation I have used, such as VMWare, always has problems with these kinds of things, even though they are running on a x86 processor.

It's even better than a real PC in a lot of ways, in that it tracks your changes in your PC image into a "undo disk" that allows you to roll back changes if things get totally screwed up. Another good use for it is testing installer packages and stuff. You want to be sure there aren't pieces of the package you are testing hanging around for the next time you test the installer.

I also agree that 2k is the best OS option. XP is slower and all the 9x's are really unstable even on real PC hardware.

The Placid Casual · Aug 29, 2003, 05:20 AM

I am sometimes forced to use VPC with Windows 2K.

It is pretty slow, but seems stable(ish), and I am yet to find any reputable PC software that has real problems with it...

I would avoid XP though... slow, slow, slow.

docholiday · Aug 29, 2003, 09:35 AM

Forgive me asking, but couldn't you use a Mac compiler instead of using a program like Visual c++? I do some programming too for school and while the main Windows compiler used is MS Visual C++, I often used the Project Builder (on the apple dev CD) and Codewarrior.

I am going to assume that you need the VirtualPC for more than Visual C++.... but if my assumption is wrong, then seriously consider a Mac program.

my 2 cents,

Doc Holiday

slider · Aug 29, 2003, 10:07 AM

The exceptability depends on what program you are running. I use VPC to run ArcView 3.1 on Win98 and it runs well. Doing some of the data analysis takes a little longer then on a PC, but definately usable.

Eug Wanker · Aug 29, 2003, 10:36 AM

I'm told if you run the VPC image off an external fast hard drive, it's MUCH faster. My guess is it will even run faster off a slow external hard drive - I'll have to try this some time with my Cutie laptop drive.

Plus you need lots of memory of course. ie. something like 768 MB, with half allocated to Windows 2000 in VPC.

Too bad VPC 6 won't run on a G5 though.

tvfollower · Aug 29, 2003, 04:46 PM

I really love XP (over 2000, that is)...

And according to http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/2887 XP is fine...

Is it a matter of how you configure it?

Also, in response to "I am going to assume that you need the VirtualPC for more than Visual C++"...you assumed correct

.

bmhome1 · Aug 29, 2003, 08:39 PM

XP Home CAN run in VPC6 at reasonable speed. The key for XP is to turn off ALL eye-candy and animations, there's alot of control possible under XP. Use the Classic (silver) desktop and folder views. Disable sound, drive restore and any other XP backround running resources you don't need. Keep the drive image as small as possible, don't load with any applications you don't absolutely need.

For VPC in general, allocate 256MB RAM to VPC, have at least that also left running OSX. Turn off all applications other than VPC during use to keep all OSX resouces free for VPC.

Also, when you have XP running well with your apps, duplicate the drive image as an archive if/when your XP develops problems. It's ALOT easier just to trash the drive image and run the archive than a full re-install from scratch.

todrain · Aug 29, 2003, 10:44 PM

VPC runs pretty well on my 1ghz Powerbook. I use it for a few work programs, and Outlook.

HasanDaddy · Aug 30, 2003, 02:32 AM

Slider ---

I'm hoping to use VPC for ArcView as well

you're experiences are pretty good overall?

THANKS!

BTW --- I would use VPC 2000 with Arcview 8

daniel999 · Aug 30, 2003, 09:33 AM

I am using 12" PB... it is very slow depending on what Windows I am using. With Me, its like running on a 233MHz PC. Don't bother trying XP.

wjpjr · Aug 30, 2003, 10:54 AM

Originally posted by daniel999:
I am using 12" PB... it is very slow

Lack of L3 cache on 12" is the problem. VPC specs calls for a L3 for optimum VPC performance. Win2k runs acceptable here on my PB 1GHz SD.

bmhome1 · Aug 30, 2003, 12:15 PM

Out of curiousity I checked the running drive image from external drive theory (never heard that one after years of Connectix Care forums) for speeding up VPC: I ran identical VPC6 drive image clones, both with 256MB RAM allocated, from either the internal Powerbook's 30GB 4200rpm 2MB cache drive against a firewire 400 160GB 7200rpm 8MB cache drive.

Both speeds were very close, with the internal drive actually running the VPC OS slightly faster, both in disk access times and graphics draws. Both drives have plenty of free space.

One would expect the 7200rpm drive to run VPC faster than a 4200rpm drive, if that could affect performance, but it didn't seem to at all.

Phat Bastard · Aug 30, 2003, 02:40 PM

I have tried running Windows XP using VPC 6 on my 12" Powerbook and my 15" iMac...on both it is excruciatingly slow. It's too slow to work with. And I wasn't even running any applications, just browsing through the start menu.

After seeing how slow Windows XP was on my Powerbook, I decided to try it out on my iMac, given that I only have 256 MB on the Powerbook. But even the iMac's 640 MB, and something like 384 MB devoted to VPC, it was still brutally slow.

I was under the assumption that VPC 6 was supposed to be pretty fast. Unless I haven't tweaked it enough, I think VPC is still a few versions away from having reasonable speed with Windows XP.

HasanDaddy · Aug 30, 2003, 04:04 PM

I tried VPC XP in the Apple Store with a 1.25 dual G4

Since its VPC, I don't know if it takes advantage of the dual processor setup?

Anyhoo --- the folks at the Apple Store had only 128 MB devoted to it, and it was HORRIBLY slow!

I shut it down and allocated the maximum amount (500+ MB)........ and after allocating that much, it ran MUCH better --- not as good as a regular PC, but good enough to run most applications I think

Sean Li · Aug 30, 2003, 06:34 PM

As bmhome1 suggested, turning off the eye candy in WinXP makes a big difference. Most applications, other than games, are pretty usable.

HasanDaddy · Aug 30, 2003, 06:59 PM

So what's faster??

VPC with XP, no animations

or VPC with 2k???

Earth Mk. II · Aug 30, 2003, 07:41 PM

Originally posted by HasanDaddy:
Since its VPC, I don't know if it takes

IIRC, VPC will try to use one cpu for the IA-32 emulation, and the other for the video card emulation - but only if VPC is running in full screen mode. Otherwise, it won't use the second CPU at all.

At least... that's what I remember reading on connectix's site a while ago. could have changed, or i could be wrong.

bmhome1 · Aug 30, 2003, 08:00 PM

The general consensus from knowledgeable long-time users is that 2000 is the fastest modern OS for VPC (95 was the fastest of all, but not even USB support).

I don't have 2000 to compare to, but with VPC6.0.1 in 10.2.6, I find XP Home very useable, as long as one takes the trouble to scour the lengthy options XP provides to speed it up for older systems (hello, Apple, are you listening?), have enough RAM (256MB for VPC and 512MB for OSX to avoid page-outs at all costs), turn-off sound, dock integration, and other resource hogs, close all other OSX applications (forget iTunes ripping while running VPC), and not install any unecessary Windows applications (for example, installing Windows Acrobat reader will kill XP's speed, must be a backround polling process, but why would you need to read PDF's in VPC anyways?). The same also works to speed up 98SE, but I find XP actually faster now than 98 in OSX.