[coolmacdude]

The new version of RealPC in dev by FWB plans to offer full hardware graphics acceleration so it will be compatible with most all PC games. Performance would be close to what you would get with the same graphics card on an actual PC. If they succeed this product could remove one of the major limitations of the Mac platform.

[bousozoku]

If they succeed well enough, it could conclude all development of games for the Mac platform.

However, I wouldn't get my hopes up. It may allow you to run PC games, but it's unlikely to allow you to run them well.

[cdrgonzo20]

I hate to be a naysayer, but there's not friggin way they can pull it off anywhere near acceptable speed. Don't get your hopes up, even if they could tap all of the performance of the 3d card, they still can't make a G4 more than a pentium 2 with emulation.

[Gul Banana]

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility. It's feasible, if they've got some REALLY good people working on it.

[coolmacdude]

If they succeed well enough, it could conclude all development of games for the Mac platform.[/B]

I don't think so. Even if it's good, it still wouldn't be as good as OS X native games. As others have said, its really not possible for emulation to equal hardware speed.

[nobitacu]

Yea... I rather have games that are made for mac os x.

Ming

[mac freak]

Buy hey --
Maybe we could finally get some Mac Half-life action, eh?

[11011001]

if I can play some C&C Red Alert I am happy.. but VPC allready suits those purposes

[edddeduck]

GFX hardware acceleration does not equal a fast emulation speed.

And also chipset file system and OS emulation will drag the performance down. Half-Life would be playable (maybe), but don't try playing anything that new.

i.e. Command and Conquer Generals

Cheers Edwin

[SteevAK]

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
The new version of RealPC in dev by FWB plans to offer full hardware graphics acceleration so it will be compatible with most all PC games. Performance would be close to what you would get with the same graphics card on an actual PC. If they succeed this product could remove one of the major limitations of the Mac platform.

I'll believe it when I see it...though that would be sweet.

[OwlBoy]

Neato.

-Owl

[bousozoku]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Buy hey --
Maybe we could finally get some Mac Half-life action, eh?

I think you'll be lucky to get Quarter-Life, if not Eighth-Life action.

[coolmacdude]

Originally posted by 11011001:
if I can play some C&C Red Alert I am happy.. but VPC allready suits those purposes

VPC doesn't work with Red Alert for me. I'm running XP Pro so that could be it, but I'm not going to switch to something older just for that.

[mac freak]

I think you'll be lucky to get Quarter-Life, if not Eighth-Life action.

I don't get it...

[Liquidity X]

refering to weak performace of half life on a pc emulator on mac, bad joke btw.

[Adam Betts]

Originally posted by Liquidity X:
refering to weak performace of half life on a pc emulator on mac, bad joke btw.

I think its a funny joke. I actually chuckled at that one

[SteevAK]

Originally posted by coolmacdude:
VPC doesn't work with Red Alert for me. I'm running XP Pro so that could be it, but I'm not going to switch to something older just for that.

Yeah, the original Red Alert can't run on any NT OS. Has to be DOS. Red Alert is one of 2 PC games I've ever bought (the other being Half-life).

[theory]

I hate to break it to you guys but a the major problem
with emulating PC games on the mac isn't the graphic card
but it's the CPU. No matter how fast the emulator is the
emulated CPU will be at least 3 times slower than the actual
machine because you will need around three real instructions
for your mac to emulate one instruction on the PC (atleast
two for finding out which instruction to use and one
for actually executing that instruction). So unless you
are talking about games that need 300Mhz x86 or slower
you will not be able to play it.

Sorry

[mac freak]

Theory --

According to the DirectX Diagnostic program, my DP450 equalled a 444MHZ Pentium MMX under VPC 4 (in OS 9, meaning only one processor, a.k.a. half my computer, was being used). Thus, if VPC was truly an SMP app under OS X, I should theoretically get at least 750-850 MHz, which is just dandy for low/mid settings on older (and even some newer) games. And this is on a machine that will be 3 years old in less than 3 months. If we could access the video hardware, HL would be fine at crappy settings.

[superfula]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Theory --

According to the DirectX Diagnostic program, my DP450 equalled a 444MHZ Pentium MMX under VPC 4 (in OS 9, meaning only one processor, a.k.a. half my computer, was being used). Thus, if VPC was truly an SMP app under OS X, I should theoretically get at least 750-850 MHz, which is just dandy for low/mid settings on older (and even some newer) games. And this is on a machine that will be 3 years old in less than 3 months. If we could access the video hardware, HL would be fine at crappy settings.

Not quite. On my current dual 1.25 in osx, vpc feels no faster than a 400mhz pentium. It's quite a bit slower than my roomates 600mhz p3

[juanvaldes]

Originally posted by mac freak:
Theory --

According to the DirectX Diagnostic program, my DP450 equalled a 444MHZ Pentium MMX under VPC 4 (in OS 9, meaning only one processor, a.k.a. half my computer, was being used). Thus, if VPC was truly an SMP app under OS X, I should theoretically get at least 750-850 MHz, which is just dandy for low/mid settings on older (and even some newer) games. And this is on a machine that will be 3 years old in less than 3 months. If we could access the video hardware, HL would be fine at crappy settings.

no. VPC can only use ONE processor for the main emulation thread, it can NOT combine the processors like that. You will see small improvment over a single 450 becuase other things can be put on the other CPU (not to mention the any other apps).

Those apps are not worth much with testing emulation speeds, it will change over time. My old 450DP would range from a 133P1 to a 450P3 depending on the phase of the moon.

[freakboy2]

yeah, you guys are smoking dope. even using the 3d hardware on the video cards most games will remain unplayable. in case you guys didn't notice on the pc side, most games are getting SLOWER not faster as cpu's cycle up.

Coders are getting lazier and relying on fast hardware/sound subsustems to make up the difference. Plus they are just putting more press on the CPU than before for physics and stuff like that.

I really seriously doubt that Counterstrike would be playable even on the highest end mac under emulation. Even if it was kind of playable, it would have stutters and fidgets.

So give it up.. buy a pc if you want to play the best games.

fb

[theory]

Why doesn't some one run some benchmarks on VPC?
I ran some nemch marks on VPC 3.0 a while ago and what I got was
that 600Mhz G3 iMac with 512MB had the same overall performance
as 166 pentium MMX.

[thefamousmred]

VPC actualy does a fantastic job of emulating a Pentium CPU. On my 1ghz Powerbook, VPC6 emulates about a 500-550mhz CPU. Unfortunately, the CPU isn't the only part of the computer it has to emulate. VPC has fairly slow disk and video subsystems, which makes the overall emulation feel much slower. The CPU emulation itself is fantastic.

I'm looking forward to the new version of RealPC; if FWB can make good of their promise of better graphics emulation it could give VPC a run for its money.

[beb]

I think RealPC gpu/cpu performance will probably beat VirtualPC hands down -at least this version. MS may have some tricks up their sleeves for the next VPC.

As far as actual RealPC gaming speed is concerned, you folks on the G3 or slower G4s are probably out of luck. Also, at least an 32Mb AGP graphics card would also likely be a requirement.

Using Half Life as the standard, it would probably require a DP 533Mhz G4 and a Radeon of some sort to possibly get it up at least at a 640 x 480 20-25fps sustained playable state.

What interests me is how well it works on the current top of the line DP 1.4 Ghz with a 64mb graphics card -I'm hoping for something that'll fly at least 800x600 at 40fps or more. I really wonder how well it'll work on a 970 system.

Yet the point is kinda moot -by the time they finish the thing, Valve will probably open source the Half Life code. And that was the only game I liked on the PC anyway.

This is all conjecture... so take with a grain of salt.

[nforcer]

I think RealPC reborn with an emphasis on performance for games is great way for it to differentiate itself between the now dominant but "standard" VirtualPC. FWB sure has an ambitious goal, and I hope they can pull it off. But I'm not going to keep my hopes up. Connectix seems to have much more experience than FWB with emulation (they have been developing VPC longer, and also worked on other emulators, such as the Virtual Mac Gamestation or whatever it was called) and if the best they can give us is VPC in the state it is now, then I'm skepitcal that FWB can do much better.

[voodoo]

Originally posted by bousozoku:
I think you'll be lucky to get Quarter-Life, if not Eighth-Life action.

lmao

[Lizard7]

Sorry guys, but I am quite skeptical... real pc had windows support for voodoo cards years ago... and apparently it didn't work all that well overall since cpu performance is still essential for playing games.

But if FWB pulls off something amazing more power to them.

[theory]

Originally posted by thefamousmred:
VPC actualy does a fantastic job of emulating a Pentium CPU. On my 1ghz Powerbook, VPC6 emulates about a 500-550mhz CPU.

Could you tell us how you tell us how you know it emulates 500-550mhz
CPU so we can test it for our selves or are you just saying it feels
that way.

[thefamousmred]

Originally posted by theory:
Could you tell us how you tell us how you know it emulates 500-550mhz
CPU so we can test it for our selves or are you just saying it feels
that way.

Sure. I'm a programmer. I do this for a living. My programs - the ones that aren't graphics/disk intensive - run at just over 1/2 the speed they run on my 1ghz PIII. If a task took 1:00 on the PC, it would take maybe 1:55 on under VPC.

But you don't have to take my word for it. There are about a zillion benchmark programs out there that will show you the same results. Start with SiSoft's Sandra, which reports that my powerbook running VPC is a bit faster than a 500mhz PIII for floating point operations and a bit slower than a 500mhz PIII for integer operations. Other benchmark programs report a 530-550Mhz PIII.

[DrBoar]

This could be fantastic news for those games that does not require leading edge CPU and GPU performance.

the last good non jet fighter flight simulator for tha mac was Hellcats in 1992 or was it 1991? On the PC side we have at least 3 generation of Microsoft products ( I tried out the first one on a Pentium 166 and Voodoo 1 card years ago) All these flight sims have requirements in the 400-800 MHz Pentium range or so they are quite feasable for the current high end dual G4s

It will never lead to parity in framerate of DOOM III and other demanding games but for many other games this can be very good news.

[elmer]

I used to play Starcraft on a 266 Mhz Pentium II, I'm sure lot's of old games would work ok. Switchers might appreciate it

[cdrgonzo20]

I will eat my hat if you can play games at a respectable clip under emulation... The only rules are that the game must have been made in the last two years, be made by a large name publisher, require 3d acceleration, and is not shareware... If you can play a game that meets these criteria i'll post a video of me eating a hat...

thats how rediculous it is to think this is going to happen... if its not, i'll eat my words.

[bousozoku]

If I run dxdiag (the DirectX diagnostics) in Win98SE using VPC 5.x on my dual 800, I get a Pentium with MMX running at ~533 MHz.