[Mr Mushroom]

I am just about to make the switch from PC to MAC, but will still be dependent on many PC only programs. Based on your experiences, what is the best Virtual PC program to use for this purpose? I have heard good things about the Microsoft Virtual PC 6, but I believe there are other companies that also make this kind of application.

I will primarily use it for running Online Poker software that is only PC compatible, and will have 3 to 4 windows working at one time. What kind of RAM would be required for this to run smoothly?

Any advice would be much appreciated,

Thanks

Mr Mushroom

[Maflynn]

At the moment there is only one virtual pc application. The original vendor (connectix) was bought out by MS. In essence you have no choice.

Depending on what you doing and what your running on VPC is pretty decent but not for games.

Mike

[Mr Mushroom]

Thanks Mike,

So the one to get is Virtual PC 6.1 yes? Should I get it with Windows 2000 or XP? What's your thoughts on RAM requirements - I was thinking of getting 1GB on my new 17".

Originally posted by Maflynn:
At the moment there is only one virtual pc application. The original vendor (connectix) was bought out by MS. In essence you have no choice.

Depending on what you doing and what your running on VPC is pretty decent but not for games.

Mike

[azdude]

Originally posted by Mr Mushroom:
Thanks Mike,

So the one to get is Virtual PC 6.1 yes? Should I get it with Windows 2000 or XP? What's your thoughts on RAM requirements - I was thinking of getting 1GB on my new 17".

If you're going to be purchasing VPC soon, but it's not incredibly time-critical, I'd definitely wait until VPC 7 comes out (VERY soon... weeks, I believe). It is supposed to have significant performance improvements.

Not that I have VPC experience (I'm waiting on 7), but I'm planning on installing Windows 2000. Consider what you *need*, and don't run anything newer.... each successive version of Windows gets more bloated and slow. Again, I have no VPC experience, but I'm expecting W2000 to run faster than XP. We'll see.

[bmhome1]

Win2000 runs fastest in VPC6 (and mosy likely VPC7) by far. Max out your RAM in Powerbook if using VPC. It will be unlikely that gaming, with 3 or 4 open windows, will work very well, at least under the current VPC6.

[rag on a muffin]

vpc6 simply sucks, i am hoping 7 is much better.

there are some alternatives, lik DOSbox, which is free, but only runs dos as far as i know.

there is another one which i dont remember the name.

[galarneau]

Originally posted by bmhome1:
Win2000 runs fastest in VPC6 (and mosy likely VPC7) by far. Max out your RAM in Powerbook if using VPC. It will be unlikely that gaming, with 3 or 4 open windows, will work very well, at least under the current VPC6.

I don't know what everyone thinks win2k is the best for VPC. If you try out the various incarnations of windows, it is plainly evident that Windows NT 4 is by far the fastest and most stable.

I mean, what does running Win2k get you that you can't do in WinNT? Seriously?

WinNT uses 22MB of RAM, and allocating 32MB to the virtual machine lets me run my medical review software fast and efficiently. Win2k takes almost 80MB for the OS alone. That's almost quadruple.

I used to run WinNT in VPC 6.1 on my Pismo G3/400 with 384MB of RAM. Worked fast and smooth. On my iBook 1GHz, it flies.

[B_2]

galarneau is correct coming from a Windows background but moving to the Mac side shortly, NT4 is the least bloated, very stable & fast.

Galarneau on a Windows you could only install NT4 on a partition no bigger than 4GB, are there any such constraints when installing it on a Mac via Virtual PC?

B_2

[Maflynn]

I believe that Win2k is faster the nt 4.0 in genneral and in particular to VPC. Yes it takes more space, but the optimizations that were made make it a more efficient OS.

Win2k is actually NT 5.0, they just renamed it. Not only did they add lots of stuff MS did try to make it faster.

Anyways that's my opinion.

Mike

[powermacj7]

If you are switching to Mac from PC, can you just keep your PC?
Everyone is right, VPC sucks when it comes to games, even though your game does not sound the same as Quake.

[galarneau]

Originally posted by B_2:
Galarneau on a Windows you could only install NT4 on a partition no bigger than 4GB, are there any such constraints when installing it on a Mac via Virtual PC?

That's a good question. I never tried to make an image larger than 1GB. In fact, I make my images 500MB, so I can burn them to CD when I get them just right, and then they're a snap to restore.

The one app I need VPC for is web based, so I don't need much space for the install.

[galarneau]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
I believe that Win2k is faster the nt 4.0 in genneral and in particular to VPC. Yes it takes more space, but the optimizations that were made make it a more efficient OS.

Win2k is actually NT 5.0, they just renamed it. Not only did they add lots of stuff MS did try to make it faster.

Anyways that's my opinion.

Mike

Well, perhaps you're right in terms of the actual speed of running processes. I don't know, I never ran any benchmarks.

But in terms of GUI speed, and the all important "Snappy-ness", WinNT4 seems much, much faster to me.

[the_glassman]

Microsoft Remote Desktop

[galarneau]

Originally posted by the_glassman:
Microsoft Remote Desktop

Yep, it is a great way to run PC software... unless you travel with a laptop, and don't have that luxury.

[bmhome1]

I have and run every Windows OS except 95 in VPC; 98SE, NT4.0, Win2000, XP-Home, 98SE Lite-PC modified and XP Lite-PC modified (don't bother).

IMHO, 2000 offers by far the best combination of speed, modern features (USB, etc), and software compatibility (not much supports NT anymore).