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hardcat1970 · Sep 20, 2003, 08:58 PM

just read this in macintouch:

"Repboy" has an excellent question about the implications of the new cache system of the updated PowerBook G4 models, which expand Level 2 cache while eliminating Level 3 cache:
The new Aluminum G4 models feature the new MPC7457 processor, which features twice as much L2 cache as the Ti books sported. However, there is no L3 cache on the new Aluminum books, even though the 7457 is capable of using an L3 cache.
_ Previous notes have said the biggest speed change in G4 Macs using VirtualPC is with those that have L3 cache included, due to the way the code for VPC was written.
_ We know that Panther won't support VirtualPC at the present time, but does Apple's removal of L3 cache from the new Aluminum PowerBooks indicate that those who buy the new models and run Jaguar will also suffer a performance hit, compared to a recent Ti book? If someone is planning on using VPC with a PowerBook for business, are they better served using a Ti book instead of a new Aluminum model, or are there changes in the new models that mitigate the loss of the L3 for VPC?

is it true that the new powerbook can't run vpc. I am planning to get a 12", so curious to know.

PeterKG · Sep 20, 2003, 09:02 PM

Originally posted by hardcat1970:
just read this in macintouch:

"Repboy" has an excellent question about the implications of the new cache system of the updated PowerBook G4 models, which expand Level 2 cache while eliminating Level 3 cache:
The new Aluminum G4 models feature the new MPC7457 processor, which features twice as much L2 cache as the Ti books sported. However, there is no L3 cache on the new Aluminum books, even though the 7457 is capable of using an L3 cache.
_ Previous notes have said the biggest speed change in G4 Macs using VirtualPC is with those that have L3 cache included, due to the way the code for VPC was written.
_ We know that Panther won't support VirtualPC at the present time, but does Apple's removal of L3 cache from the new Aluminum PowerBooks indicate that those who buy the new models and run Jaguar will also suffer a performance hit, compared to a recent Ti book? If someone is planning on using VPC with a PowerBook for business, are they better served using a Ti book instead of a new Aluminum model, or are there changes in the new models that mitigate the loss of the L3 for VPC?

is it true that the new powerbook can't run vpc. I am planning to get a 12", so curious to know.

I'm running it on my new 1.25GHz, 15" Powerbook with 1024MB ram. It runs beautifully, and is fast. I'm running XP with
256MB ram dedicated to VPC.

cc_foo · Sep 20, 2003, 09:05 PM

Originally posted by hardcat1970:
just read this in macintouch:

_ We know that Panther won't support VirtualPC at the present time, but does Apple's removal of L3 cache from the new Aluminum

Doesn't VPC work with Panther? That's bad news. Can someone confirm? I know VPC doesn't work with the G5.

geekwagon · Sep 20, 2003, 09:20 PM

Originally posted by cc_foo:
Doesn't VPC work with Panther? That's bad news. Can someone confirm? I know VPC doesn't work with the G5.

VPC works under Panther fine for me.

hardcat1970 · Sep 21, 2003, 12:16 AM

Originally posted by PeterKG:
I'm running it on my new 1.25GHz, 15" Powerbook with 1024MB ram. It runs beautifully, and is fast. I'm running XP with
256MB ram dedicated to VPC.

thanks for the info.

I guess the guy just got a ti book before the announcement, so he made those comments.

flyhigher · Sep 21, 2003, 01:27 AM

SiSoft Sandra is a popular Windows benchmarking utility.

On a 17" 1.33 GHz Powerbook with 1GB RAM with energy saver set to "Maximum Performance", running VPC 6.0.2 with Windows 2000 with 448MB allocated to the PC, running SiSoft Sandra 2001te, I get the following numbers:

Dhrystone ALU: 1494 MIPS
Whetstone FPU: 1010 MFLOPS

For comparison, the utility also shows stock results for various CPUs running this program:

Intel P3 500MHz: 1350, 670
Intel P3 750MHz: 2025, 1005
Intel P4 1.6GHz: 3065, 833/1955
AND Athlon 4 1.33GHz: 3750, 1848

The two Whetstone results for the P4 are for the FPU and SSE2, respectively.

Under emulation, this G4 powerbook beats a 1.6GHz P4 at FPU! As far as I know, VPC 6.0.2 does not use AltiVec. Shame. If it did, it would beat the P4 at emulated vector math as well. Then again, a 1.6GHz P4 PC costs about $200.

HouseSold · Sep 21, 2003, 03:44 AM

Flyhigher

I have the same model as you do with VPC 6.01 Windows 2000.

I only have 512mb until I get a 1gb chip.

I allocated 256 mb to VPC.

It crawls and the fan comes on and stays on while running VPC.

Does your fan come on too?

How does your fan sound to you noise wise?

Does your display brightness periodically vary up and down for no reason while plugged into the power adaptor?

How is your battery life also?

Thanks...

flyhigher · Sep 21, 2003, 06:02 PM

Originally posted by HouseSold:
Flyhigher

It crawls and the fan comes on and stays on while running VPC.

Does your fan come on too?

How does your fan sound to you noise wise?

Does your display brightness periodically vary up and down for no reason while plugged into the power adaptor?

How is your battery life also?

Thanks...

In your situation, 256MB to the PC sounds about right, at least that way OS X has some breathing room. But you *will* see an improvement with 1GB in the machine.

My fan only comes on when it's running something cpu intensive. It stayed on, full blast, during the benchmark, and stopped as soon as it finished. The fan is about as loud as the fan on my old 800 TiBook. It's not as bad as what I've heard on the old 1GHz TiBooks. I don't know if the 17 has one fan or two? The TiBooks had two, and the second one only kicked in when it was really busy. This one sounds like that second fan.

I haven't had any problems with display brightness, but I've heard that there is a light sensor that varies the brightness of the screen and keyboard with ambient light. Haven't had a chance to play with this yet.

So, did you sell your house to buy this thing? :-)

flyhigher · Sep 21, 2003, 06:03 PM

One more thing -- make sure you don't have Classic running in the background. Classic eats CPU cycles. Do a 'top' in the terminal shell while running Classic and you'll see what I mean.

HouseSold · Sep 21, 2003, 10:08 PM

I also went from Ti800 to 17".

Still not sure if I did the right thing.

The 800 was much snappier and the screen was as good and bright as this 17"

The only improvement I really enjoy (besides screen size) is the illuminated keyboard. Watch how many other boring, lack of innovation companies including Sony, copy Apple.

Apple innovates, others imitate.

The sleeve, from Gary at SFBags, (Waterfield) is also classy and functional, a real work of art.

I got my 17" from CDW (formerly Mac/Micro warehouse) they were impeccable with service and overnite delivery. They had over 200 in stock, ready to ship.

I will buy from them again.

Please continue to share your on going discoveries and experiences with all of us.

ul1984 · Sep 22, 2003, 06:27 PM

bump

anyone else has any info on this subject, i would like someone with access to both a 1Ghz Tibook and the new 1Ghz AlBook to compare VPC performance?

Plz i really want to know before buying my new PB.

HouseSold · Sep 28, 2003, 04:52 PM

Virtual PC performance does improve somewhat with more memory (Powerbook 17"1.33). I noticed an improvement with only 512mb added (1gb total).

I also performed the 6.0.2 VPC update which I had previously downloaded (months ago) before it was pulled and everything Connectix was Microsofted.

I still get random kernel panics, sometimes 3 a day with no specific activity, including wake from sleep. These seemed to occur only once fresh out of the box, but increased with 10.2.8 update from 10.2.7 resident OS version. A call to Apple (who tried to blame the memory addition-purchased aftermarket) had no suggestion other than re-install software.
The original call was for a frozen Airport Extreme Base station resuting from the 5.1.3 firmware update.

Apple Hardware test indicate everything is normal.

bcaslis · Sep 28, 2003, 07:48 PM

Originally posted by ul1984:
bump

anyone else has any info on this subject, i would like someone with access to both a 1Ghz Tibook and the new 1Ghz AlBook to compare VPC performance?

Plz i really want to know before buying my new PB.

I haven't done any timed measurements, but VPC 6.1 seems to run about the same speed maybe a little faster on a 15" Al compared to a rev A 17". Definitely faster than a 1GHz Tibook, but VPC is still usually slow.

FYI, get all the memory you can. I wouldn't even bother with this unless I assigned at least 256MB to VPC and had a 512MB system.

Will Brocklebank · Sep 29, 2003, 01:02 PM

HouseSold -

Before you throw the idea of dodgy RAM completely out of the window I too had this problem with a 512 chip that I got from OWC and it took me about 2 months to narrow it down to the ram as hardware test and all the other diagnostics suggested it was fine. I reinstalled the system 3 (THREE!!) times and it still panicked - finally I took the bozo chip out and all was fine.

Cheers - W

MMask · Oct 1, 2003, 07:18 PM

I own a 15" 800 Ti with 1GB with 256 allocated to VPC. I am comfortable with the performance, but want a 12" for better portability. I need VPC (running Authorware 7). What is the perfomance running VPC and XP on the two models.

Any suggestions and ideas?

pamelah · Oct 2, 2003, 01:11 AM

I have a 17" Rev A (1 ghz) powerbook with 1 gig of ram.

I originally ran windows xp on my VPC 6 with all the "eyecandy" turned off. I ended up selling my xp and thought I'd try windows 2000 cuz I had heard it runs better with VPC.

Well sure enough...SOOO much faster...smoother really...xp would really chug and chug....with 2000 it's just so much better...totally usable.

I am using 512mb ram dedicated to it.

I am planning on getting the new 17" 1.33ghz and am hoping VPC 6 runs as well as it does now.

I do have one question though...I thought I read somewhere that it is possible to change the amount of video ram dedicated to VPC?? Last I saw when i was installing it there was only 4mb dedicated to it??!! I would love to get that higher! Anybody know how?

Hope this helped.

pbook7777 · Oct 2, 2003, 01:18 AM

in V6 you can turn the VRAM up to 16MB in the settings box.. Same place where you set the PC's allocated RAM.

I'm running it on a 15/800/1gb, 17/1.33/1gb and 12/867/640 and it's noticably faster but still pretty slow on the 17 vs the 15... All with 512 RAM and 16 VRAM. The 12" is pretty unusable compared to the others...

pamelah · Oct 2, 2003, 01:23 AM

Originally posted by pbook7777:
in V6 you can turn the VRAM up to 16MB in the settings box.. Same place where you set the PC's allocated RAM.

I'm running it on a 15/800/1gb, 17/1.33/1gb and 12/867/640 and it's noticably faster but still pretty slow on the 17 vs the 15... All with 512 RAM and 16 VRAM. The 12" is pretty unusable compared to the others...

oh man...i'm such a dumbass...I didn't even see it there.

thanks