[yuliang]

Does any lucky (or rich) persons in here own a dual Ghz G4 and run VPC? How's the performance on that machine? Is it usable at all? I will hold off buying another Mac until PowerMacs can run Windows XP/2000 Pro close to 500 Mhz P4 speeds.

[83caddy16v]

I was just getting ready to post the same question.

I went to the Apple store today and spent 2hrs installing VPC 5.01 in a 933 w/ 256mb of RAM.

Installing VPC went fine. But once in VPC, W2k, Office2kPro took forever to install. I don't know why it was so slow, perhaps VPC had issues with the superdrive. It was probably close to 45mins just to install Office.

Performance on the 933 was unacceptable if you need to do anything. Sure, I could move around in PPT, Access, Word, FrontPage and Excel but the performance was not close enough to actual PC speeds to use for development. More RAM would definately help.

My G3/400 PB w/ a gig of RAM and a 5400 rpm HD is almost painful to use. So I was considering getting a G4 tower instead of a PC tower.

I may go back to the Apple store and try the dual gig machine and see if the performance is noticably better. I mainly need it for developing PowerPoint shows, some Active-X for a web admin tool and UltraDev to Access databases.

Sony has a new 2.2ghz at Costco (RX681C), gig of ram, 120mb HD, DVD -RW/CD-RW a bunch of software, and a Sony 15" LCD all for $2399. With a student discount a dual gig G4 with a gig of RAM, 80gb hd is $3007. I'm really on the fence on which way to go. I've used both platforms for 15yrs so I have no "issues" using either platform. If anyone has any suggestions or experienced my situation and want to pass along their resolution I'd appreciate it.

I hope to hear someone post positive VPC5.01 info on dual gig G4.

-Chris

[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: 83caddy16v ]

[driven]

Originally posted by 83caddy16v:
<STRONG>I was just getting ready to post the same question.

I went to the Apple store today and spent 2hrs installing VPC 5.01 in a 933 w/ 256mb of RAM.

Installing VPC went fine. But once in VPC, W2k, Office2kPro took forever to install. I don't know why it was so slow, perhaps VPC had issues with the superdrive. It was probably close to 45mins just to install Office.

Performance on the 933 was unacceptable if you need to do anything. Sure, I could move around in PPT, Access, Word, FrontPage and Excel but the performance was not close enough to actual PC speeds to use for development. More RAM would definately help.

My G3/400 PB w/ a gig of RAM and a 5400 rpm HD is almost painful to use. So I was considering getting a G4 tower instead of a PC tower.

I may go back to the Apple store and try the dual gig machine and see if the performance is noticably better. I mainly need it for developing PowerPoint shows, some Active-X for a web admin tool and UltraDev to Access databases.

Sony has a new 2.2ghz at Costco (RX681C), gig of ram, 120mb HD, DVD -RW/CD-RW a bunch of software, and a Sony 15" LCD all for $2399. With a student discount a dual gig G4 with a gig of RAM, 80gb hd is $3007. I'm really on the fence on which way to go. I've used both platforms for 15yrs so I have no "issues" using either platform. If anyone has any suggestions or experienced my situation and want to pass along their resolution I'd appreciate it.

I hope to hear someone post positive VPC5.01 info on dual gig G4.

-Chris

[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: 83caddy16v ]</STRONG>

I don't think 256MB is nearly enough to run VPC in. Heck, Win2k barely runs fast enough with 256 on a PC.

(Just a thought)

[cmoney]

Originally posted by 83caddy16v:
<STRONG>I was just getting ready to post the same question.

Performance on the 933 was unacceptable if you need to do anything. Sure, I could move around in PPT, Access, Word, FrontPage and Excel but the performance was not close enough to actual PC speeds to use for development. More RAM would definately help.

My G3/400 PB w/ a gig of RAM and a 5400 rpm HD is almost painful to use. So I was considering getting a G4 tower instead of a PC tower.

I may go back to the Apple store and try the dual gig machine and see if the performance is noticably better. I mainly need it for developing PowerPoint shows, some Active-X for a web admin tool and UltraDev to Access databases.

</STRONG>

Any reason you can't use PowerPoint from Office v.X? I switch between PowerPoint v.X and PowerPoint from Office 2000 and haven't had any troubles.

UltraDev does exist for Mac, but currently only in OS 9. Did you mean you need to "access databases" or you need "access to Access databases"? There are probably now ways to access Access databases in OS X and possibly in OS 9 via the ODBC modules Microsoft release for Office 2001 for Mac about a month ago.

Obviously ActiveX work will be Windows only but it does reduce the amount of time you'd potentially be spending in VPC.

[Mark T.]

I tried VPC 5.0 in OS X on a dual 1GHz mac and its slow. Microsoft Office was installed and it was almost unusable. Also note that the number of colors while in VPC looked like it may have been set to 256. I say this because the incons on the desktop of the windows os looked somewhat grainy.

I read somewhere that Connectix says VPC 5.0 in OS X is slow because of the layers in OS X. Well, if this is true, I would like to see VPC 5.0 modified to run in Darwin to see how much faster it would run. To me, if it runs much better in Darwin, then I would not mind the incovinence of having to shut down OS X and boot into Darwin to get some PC work done. And does OS X needs all these layers? Seems to me they add complexity and tend to slow it down.

I'd like to know if anybody has run VPC in Classic on a dual 1GHz machine and if the PC apps were useable.

- Mark

[Colonel Panic]

Originally posted by Mark T.:
<STRONG>And does OS X needs all these layers? Seems to me they add complexity and tend to slow it down.

- Mark</STRONG>

the layers help give X it's great stability.....

[83caddy16v]

Yes, I ment Access the application. I haven't explored this in great detail yet.

I use Office X to setup presentations but I just get concerned that one of these PPT shows is not going to playback correctly and I just want to confirm it prior to sending it off to the client. The files sizes are not huge, 5-10mb. On my PB, I get delayed screen transitions and effects.

Also, now that the Flash files can be imported to PPT I'll be taking advantage of it, especially for network diagrams and such. This will be a welcome alternative to animated GIFs.

VPC5 noted that there was not enough memory on the 933, something like "not enough to run efficiently" in red letters. The 933 may squeak by with a gig or so of RAM. I really wish the Apple store would have had one with 512 or a gig but they all had 256.

A $1k PC laptop maybe a temporary solution. Won't do video editing, but my PB is ok for that. It will buy me some time and perhaps by then there will be a price drop on the dual ghz or even faster G4 setup.

thanks for the feedback guys.

[KellyHogan]

VPC is only usable for real if you use it from OS 9.2.2. You also need at least a G4-733. That should be the minimum spec.

[83caddy16v]

I was just looking at my VPC5 setup on my G3 PB. I can't allocate more the 512mb of RAM.

Is this an OSX issue or VPC5 issue? My system shows a gig of RAM.

[kcmac]

It is a VPC5 issue. OS X wasn't designed to run VPC 5. VPC 5 should be designed to run on OS X which they have failed to do so far. For them to sell this software for OS X is a shame. I totally wasted my money on this. I now use a cheap PC to do things I can't run on my mac. (ACT 2000). I refuse to boot into OS 9 just because VPC can't get it together. They should not have put it on the market. And they claim it to be faster. (Yeah, maybe on OS 9.) But nearly everyone was waiting for VPC 5 for OSX.

Sorry, this has irritated me for quite awhile.

[cmoney]

Originally posted by 83caddy16v:
<STRONG>A $1k PC laptop maybe a temporary solution. Won't do video editing, but my PB is ok for that. It will buy me some time and perhaps by then there will be a price drop on the dual ghz or even faster G4 setup.

thanks for the feedback guys.</STRONG>

That's actually what I ended up doing. I got a 900MHz Duron Compaq laptop back in October for $999. You can probably find a 1GHz or more model now. You get quite alot for $999 in the PC laptop world, look for a 14" LCD, DVD drive, 20GB HD, 1GHz. At $249 for VPC with Win 2000, going all the way to $999 (or $799-899 if you're willing to scrimp on specs) isn't a bad option.

[C.J. Moof]

Yep, me too. Bought the leftover parts from my friend's last upgrade, and we put them together into a "new" PC in an afternoon.

I don't WANT to like this ugly box as much as I'm starting to. Webpage loading is fast, none of the pauses my Cube on OS X has. Divx movies just work, don't need to jump through hoops that may or may not work. I need Checkpoint VPN software to work for a client- can't do it on MacOS, couldn't get it to work on VPC, it just works on this Win2k box.

It sucks down more electicity, it's an embarrasing ugly box to share a desk with a Cube and a TAM, but it gets the job done, and that's what's important. OS X is the OS I want to use, Windows is what I on occasion HAVE to use.

If you need portability, get VPC. If you need performance and can spare the desk space, VPC can't compare to spending just a bit more money on generation old hardware.

[Guest]

ho wait� there's something I don't understand;
I have an iMac here, G3, 500Mhz, 384MB RAM.

I have VPC4 installed on OS 9. It runs fast, so fast that I can even play Age Of Empires II WITH the expansion pack. And all that without too many problems, it's only getting difficult when there +100ppl engaged in combat, but that's more a graphics card problem, I suppose.

I can hardly understand that AoE runs smoothly on my 1,5 years old iMac, and Office XP doesn't run smoothly on a brand new G4 933 Mhz� I thought VPC was optimized for the G4??
I tried to install VPC 5 in OS X, and yes indeed, it didn't run smoothly�
Is it just me, or was VPC5 more a downgrade then an upgrade??? Or is it OS X???

I've trashed VPC 5 and installed VPC 4 again on the good old OS 9 ;-)

[milhous]

What Apple needs to do is integrate Wine so that Win32 apps can be executed NATIVELY. But will it ever come to fruition, who knows.

[Alexanthros]

I play Baldurs Gate II on VPC 5 , on my G4 400.
It' runs fine. I even do some audio editing on Wavelab , just to impress my PC friends. I don't understand the complaints about VPC 5 on OS 9!

[83caddy16v]

hmm, I haven't tried running VPC5 on OS9 nor did I try VPC4 on the 933 at the Apple store--I just installed it and updated it to 5.0 then 5.01. I should go back and try just VPC4 in 9.2 and see how it does.

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally posted by Alexanthros:
<STRONG>I play Baldurs Gate II on VPC 5 , on my G4 400.
It' runs fine. I even do some audio editing on Wavelab , just to impress my PC friends. I don't understand the complaints about VPC 5 on OS 9!</STRONG>

I don't recall too many complaints about VPC 5 in OS9, they were more directed to OSX. OS9 is way faster. Period.

But I dig OSX so much... oooh.

[sek929]

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
<STRONG>VPC is only usable for real if you use it from OS 9.2.2. You also need at least a G4-733. That should be the minimum spec.</STRONG>

I agree. While using VPC 5 and Windows XP Professional in 9 performance was less than great, but still usable. In X however, XP ran so slow it was not in the realm of any usefulness at all. This was on my 733 G4, with 640 MB of RAM. 300 of that was allotted to VPC to run XP.

Right now, VPC is not worthwhile using in X. Not until a fully X version is released.

[VanToffler]

I could not come back to Macintosh after a 5-year trip to Windows land until I could afford a Mac that ran VPC fast enough to be useable.

I proclaim that VPC 5.0 running Under OS X on a Power Mac 867 is fast enough to run all the Office applications. I needed to run Cold Fusion Studio, which runs a little slow yet it's not so bad that it's unusable.

My 867 has 1.2 GB of RAM and I allocate 512MB to VPC. I run VPC at 1152x867 in 32-bit.

What's acceptable speed wise is highly subjective, but I'm VERY picky about that kind of thing. It took 3-years before I could afford a Mac that was fast enough to run VPC for me.

[The Stumper]

The layers that are referred to are not so much an "X" thing as they are a "UNIX" thing.

UNIX operating systems do NOT allow individual applications to access the computer hardware. All system level access must go through the kernel. Obviously, this gives you stability at the expense of some overhead.

VPC is a hardware emulator, so by its very nature relies on fast access to the real hardware underneath. In OS 9, this access was direct. I, too, used to run all kinds of crazy Windows apps on VPC and it would freak people out how well it worked. Especially when I set up a VPN tunnel in windows to directly access my exchange account: all on top of my mac.

Those days are gone temporarily: my 450 G4 with 1 gig of RAM simply does not cut it with VPC 5 under OS X. It's painful. Its better on a dual gig, but still not what most people are expecting after moving from VPC on OS 9.
I am fairly confident that the VPC folks will sort this out. Also, faster (hopefully :-) processors will help. I seem to remember a version of VPC/Soft PC that ran on SGI workstations and did not suck.

I have no doubt that Connectix was under considerable pressure to get the OS X version out the door. They'll need time to sort through OS X and optimize their application. Some of the most performance sensitive applications ever written run on Unix workstations, so the potential is certainly there. I could, of course, be wrong too :-)

In a perfect world we can afford two PC's. In reality, I too wait to see what Apple brings to the table over the next nine months in terms of processor power and system bus refinement. I love Macs, but in all honesty if they don't come through, that Sony mentioned in the second post looks pretty tempting :-)

In short: no one will be4 running XP at P4 500Mhz speeds on their Mac any time soon unless Connextix/Apple really surprise us at Mac World New York :-)

Later,

The Stumper.

[Ken_F2]

Sony has a new 2.2ghz at Costco (RX681C), gig of ram, 120mb HD, DVD -RW/CD-RW a bunch of software, and a Sony 15" LCD all for $2399. With a student discount a dual gig G4 with a gig of RAM, 80gb hd is $3007.

Dell has a deal where you can get the old P4 2.0GHz (not the second-generation P4 with more cache and other improvements) for $614. Click here for info on the deal.

[driven]

Originally posted by Guest:
<STRONG>ho wait� there's something I don't understand;
I have an iMac here, G3, 500Mhz, 384MB RAM.

I have VPC4 installed on OS 9. It runs fast, so fast that I can even play Age Of Empires II WITH the expansion pack. And all that without too many problems, it's only getting difficult when there +100ppl engaged in combat, but that's more a graphics card problem, I suppose.

I can hardly understand that AoE runs smoothly on my 1,5 years old iMac, and Office XP doesn't run smoothly on a brand new G4 933 Mhz� I thought VPC was optimized for the G4??
I tried to install VPC 5 in OS X, and yes indeed, it didn't run smoothly�
Is it just me, or was VPC5 more a downgrade then an upgrade??? Or is it OS X???

I've trashed VPC 5 and installed VPC 4 again on the good old OS 9 ;-)</STRONG>

I thought I was nuts.

My wife's G3 (iMac 500 384MB) runs VPC 3 faster than my G4 Cube 500 with 768MB. Odd, eh?

[driven]

Originally posted by VanToffler:
<STRONG>I could not come back to Macintosh after a 5-year trip to Windows land until I could afford a Mac that ran VPC fast enough to be useable.

I proclaim that VPC 5.0 running Under OS X on a Power Mac 867 is fast enough to run all the Office applications. I needed to run Cold Fusion Studio, which runs a little slow yet it's not so bad that it's unusable.

My 867 has 1.2 GB of RAM and I allocate 512MB to VPC. I run VPC at 1152x867 in 32-bit.

What's acceptable speed wise is highly subjective, but I'm VERY picky about that kind of thing. It took 3-years before I could afford a Mac that was fast enough to run VPC for me.</STRONG>

Which version of Windows are you running? (On VPC)

[seanyepez]

Originally posted by KellyHogan:
<STRONG>VPC is only usable for real if you use it from OS 9.2.2. You also need at least a G4-733. That should be the minimum spec.</STRONG>

Just because it's slow on a G3, it doesn't mean they should set the minimum requirements higher.

733-megahertz G4's are relatively new pieces of hardware. What would G3 iMac users think when they (the people who probably need the compatability most) can't use a software program on their year-old machine?

"Pro" users probably have enough cash to buy a real PC.

[warpmoon]

Originally posted by milhous:
<STRONG>What Apple needs to do is integrate Wine so that Win32 apps can be executed NATIVELY. But will it ever come to fruition, who knows.</STRONG>

natively? sure, on pc's using linux and Wine you can run windows progs at 90% or faster of the normal running speed, but as soon as you take away the little thing called "native pc" and exchange it with a mac, *booM* instant bottleneck^? since the translation between the two types of processors is slooooooooooow.

Wine is great, on a real pc that is.

[Guest]

Originally posted by driven:
<STRONG>

Which version of Windows are you running? (On VPC)</STRONG>

I run Win Me.

[Big Mac]

I've talked to some who are truly happy with VPC performance under Mac OS X. With that said, Connectix has admitted that they can't get the performance out of VPC they should be able to, since they don't seem to know how to tap into OS X's real time features. Processor utilization is always much lower than it should be, so it seems like the slow down most people are feeling is due to that. I think this is a temporary setback. It would help if we had those MOSR G5s that ran VPC at PIV 1.5GHz speeds, wouldn't it?

[Mac Zealot]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
<STRONG>

Just because it's slow on a G3, it doesn't mean they should set the minimum requirements higher.

733-megahertz G4's are relatively new pieces of hardware. What would G3 iMac users think when they (the people who probably need the compatability most) can't use a software program on their year-old machine?

"Pro" users probably have enough cash to buy a real PC. </STRONG>

Relatively pro users who buy a 'real' pc will suddenly love it, since it seems all fast and mighty and loud compared to their mac.

BTW: On topic, VPC sucks horribly on here, it's a dirty shame, though for some things it's very fast, others it's horribly slow.

Why is it suddenly I feel really obselete with my dp800?

[iKevin]

Originally posted by C.J. Moof:
<STRONG>Yep, me too. Bought the leftover parts from my friend's last upgrade, and we put them together into a "new" PC in an afternoon.

I don't WANT to like this ugly box as much as I'm starting to. Webpage loading is fast, none of the pauses my Cube on OS X has. Divx movies just work, don't need to jump through hoops that may or may not work. I need Checkpoint VPN software to work for a client- can't do it on MacOS, couldn't get it to work on VPC, it just works on this Win2k box.

It sucks down more electicity, it's an embarrasing ugly box to share a desk with a Cube and a TAM, but it gets the job done, and that's what's important. OS X is the OS I want to use, Windows is what I on occasion HAVE to use.

If you need portability, get VPC. If you need performance and can spare the desk space, VPC can't compare to spending just a bit more money on generation old hardware.</STRONG>

You'll probably find yourself sitting more and more frequently in front of the PC....While i love OS X, the PC is just so much faster. I can get stuff done in half the time. But the second Apple gets their act together and makes OS X run as fast....i'm right back to the Mac!

[Danny Ricci]

The only thing that runs halfway good in VPC 5 in X on my 733 (Quicksilver) is Windows 95. I think this is because less integration with Internet Exploiter so it doesn't need to stress the processor as much. But even then it still takes forever to do basic tasks like install apps.. It took 20 minutes to install The Sims off of a CD, and that's only like 200 - 400 MB? So it's pretty slow.

Something I've found that helps is to quit every app in X except VPC.. and sometimes even forcing the finder to quit will even free up some processor time.. and then renice +20 to the VPC 5 app, that seems to help it get more processor time.

Hopefully Connectix and Apple will work together to make VPC run better in 10.2.

[MasterMinds, Inc.]

If you understood this sentence from the post above:

"It would help if we had those MOSR G5s that ran VPC at PIV 1.5GHz speeds, wouldn't it?"

...then you spend too much time here.

I understood perfectly!

[Ken_F2]

How much did you all pay for VPC5 and the extra RAM to improve performance?

Because again, you can get a complete, full 1.6GHz P4 PC from Dell for $449, or a complete, full 2.0GHz P4 from Dell for $614. See right here.

I don't see how VPC will remain a viable product when people will be able to buy Dell PCs (that are 10x to 20x as fast) for about the same price as the software.

[Arcayx]

I just had to throw this in here (although one person already mentioned it)

W.I.N.E is not Emulation.
Yes, this is what it stands for.
If Apple were using x86 chips, then WINE could work. Until then, no dice.

(if someone already said the same thing, I'm sorry. I was too lazy to read it all. Yes, the PII 233 running Windows 98 I am force to use at work is MUCH faster and more responsive than my Ti 500/512. But I don't really care because its still too frustrating to use Windows)

[83caddy16v]

well, I've been running VPC5 on OS 9.2 on my G3 400mhz PB, much better than X. I used TurboTax just fine. Printing had a noticable delay but the application itself ran just fun and pulled the video clips off CD with only a couple hiccups.

[Rampico]

I hauled my TiBook 500 down to the Apple store and used target mode so I could check performance on a dual Gigger with the exact same WinXP Pro system I used at home.

What I got was XP running about 25% faster on the Gx2 than on the TiBook.

Take it for what it's worth. But the whole test took me about half an hour.

[Bigc]

good enough for MSOffice and MSProject and a few other technical graphic programs. Don't know about AI or PS.

[michaelb]

Originally posted by Ken_F2:
<STRONG>I don't see how VPC will remain a viable product when people will be able to buy Dell PCs (that are 10x to 20x as fast) for about the same price as the software.</STRONG>

As a substitute for an everyday-use PC, no argument.

But as a supplement to help out someone's workflow, VirtualPC is very valuable. For example...

A web designer could have, say, 6 emulated PCs saved in VirtualPC, loaded up with the various default browsers that came with Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, and use each to check the page formatting renders okay.

(Default browser tests are important because many users do not upgrade to the latest IE 6, just ask any web log reader.)

Having access to so many systems would be a pain even on a real PC, requiring a nightmare of conflicting drive partitioning.

Or a documentation writer could use VirtualPC to grab screenshots from a Windows program that will be desktop published on a Mac.

Or a engineer could grab some output from "structural load xyz app" that just doesn't exist under Mac.

Or a genealogy researcher could use it to access data from a Windows database and pull it into her own FileMaker database.

Etc, etc.

All of those examples are drawn from my experience, and VirtualPC has proved very valuable to the people involved.

[Mark T.]

VPC 5.0.2 is out. If anybody has a dual 1GHz G4 and has upgraded to 5.0.2, please let me know if its faster than before.


Thanks,
- Mark

[Mr. Blur]

Originally posted by Mark T.:
<STRONG>VPC 5.0.2 is out. If anybody has a dual 1GHz G4 and has upgraded to 5.0.2, please let me know if its faster than before.


Thanks,
- Mark</STRONG>

I just ran the update on my dual 800, launched vpc win98....and it is *significantly* faster...actually very usable now.

[cmoney]

Originally posted by michaelb:
<STRONG>

As a substitute for an everyday-use PC, no argument.

But as a supplement to help out someone's workflow, VirtualPC is very valuable. For example...

A web designer could have, say, 6 emulated PCs saved in VirtualPC, loaded up with the various default browsers that came with Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP, and use each to check the page formatting renders okay.

(Default browser tests are important because many users do not upgrade to the latest IE 6, just ask any web log reader.)

Having access to so many systems would be a pain even on a real PC, requiring a nightmare of conflicting drive partitioning.

</STRONG>

There is a VirtualPC for Windows now which should allow you to do this too. There's also VMware which has been around for a while. I used to use VirtualPC (Mac) for exactly this function but since the OS X version lags so much, I bought a PC laptop and now run VMware instead.

[Mac Zealot]

I want to see some PCI DOS cards again!!!

[cmoney]

Wow, anyone complaining about VPC 5 under OS X: run, don't walk to Connectix's web site and download the 5.0.2 updater. For me, it was a big performance gain. I'm running Windows 2000 on a 450MHz G4 Cube with 512MB Ram. Windows 2000 is now usable again. It's still sluggish, but it's quite fine now.

Solitaire can keep up with me now!

[Arcayx]

So let's hear those of us fortunate to own dual GHZ machines speak about the virtues of 5.0.2
Seriously!

[rmansfield]

I updated to 5.02 and now my Virtual Switch won't initialize. I can't get VPC to touch the Windows network anymore where I work. Anyone have any suggetions?

[Nebrie]

Originally posted by milhous:
<STRONG>What Apple needs to do is integrate Wine so that Win32 apps can be executed NATIVELY. But will it ever come to fruition, who knows.</STRONG>

Wine IS NOT AN EMULATOR! There is no possible way to run Wine on the Mac!

[cmoney]

Originally posted by rmansfield:
<STRONG>I updated to 5.02 and now my Virtual Switch won't initialize. I can't get VPC to touch the Windows network anymore where I work. Anyone have any suggetions?</STRONG>

Have you read the read me files that came with the update? It mentions something about needing to authenticate as an admin for Virtual Switch to work. It also has some notes about NetBIOS access. It's all in the Vital Information document, also available on line at connectix.com.

[KidRed]

Originally posted by Arcayx:
<STRONG>So let's hear those of us fortunate to own dual GHZ machines speak about the virtues of 5.0.2
Seriously!</STRONG>

Well, I'm discusted that it's barley usable on my dual gig. Sorry, but VPC should fly, as of 5.0.2 it barley walks and before 5.0.2 it was crawling. That's pretty bad considering the machine. Still feel burnt on my $250 purchase, I just hope more speed improvements come out.

[iamnid]

I guess it depends on what you are doing... since 5.0.2, vpc is quite a bit speedier on my B & W g3, but I'm not doing anything super intensive.

Whatever happened to those pci cards with pentiums on them?

[Rolling Musubi]

Much more usable than before for just the general stuff. NT4 for me is the "snappiest" of the bunch compared to 98, 2K, and XP. Runs about the same as an old Pentium Pro NT box that I used to use. Good enough for using Visio.

[cmoney]

Originally posted by iamnid:
<STRONG>Whatever happened to those pci cards with pentiums on them?</STRONG>

What happened is the PC dropped in price to &lt;$500. With the PCI cards costing as much or more than a full PC, it made more sense to buy a PC!