[goMac]

According to Microsoft VPC7 has the following new features:

� 10-30 percent speed boost processor wise
� Support for your hardware graphics
� Fast saving of states (using Windows hibernate it looks like)
� Use of native OS X print services from Windows
� G5 support

Looks like Microsoft might have a winner.

Linkage to the tour: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/product...px?pid=vpcdemo

[RonnieoftheRose]

Where does it say hardware graphics support? I only see faster redrawing mentioned. The following screenshot still shows S3 Trios being emulated...

[goMac]

In the Flash movie it says that Virtual PC takes advantage of your graphics accelerator.

[goMac]

The MacBU gave the following information to MacMinute:

"Better graphics handling by taking advantage of the graphics processor on the Mac. Screen redraws are purportedly speedier and graphics are more responsive."

It is official.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
The MacBU gave the following information to MacMinute:

"Better graphics handling by taking advantage of the graphics processor on the Mac. Screen redraws are purportedly speedier and graphics are more responsive."

It is official.

I'm sorry but that's saying something quite different. It doesn't mean the GF4MX will show up as the same chip in Display Properties. It only means Quartz is being used to speed up the front end to some degree. It doesn't say native acceleration using native drivers. Did you notice the S3 Trio in that shot? Macs don't ship with S3 Trios.

[Wiskedjak]

I'd just like to see Remote Desktop Client v.2 get released.

[goMac]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
I'm sorry but that's saying something quite different. It doesn't mean the GF4MX will show up as the same chip in Display Properties. It only means Quartz is being used to speed up the front end to some degree. It doesn't say native acceleration using native drivers. Did you notice the S3 Trio in that shot? Macs don't ship with S3 Trios.

Screen shots frequently aren't accurate... I'll go by what they've written.

Most likely what they are doing is passing the draw commands to the actual card via the virtual card, and not rendering them software. Thats probably why the S3 still appears, if this indeed is the case.

Getting the actual chip to show up as a device is nearly impossible. You will never get the Mac card to show because Windows will not recognize the Mac card. You will never ever get direct hardware access. You must use a go-between virtual chip, like the S3 to do this.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by goMac:
Screen shots frequently aren't accurate... I'll go by what they've written.

Alright...go buy it and report back. I also doubt it utilizes the Mac's graphics card. But prove me wrong.

[goMac]

: sigh :

Has anyone even considered how the hell you could use Quartz to accelerate Windows? You can't. They would create a speed hit just translating all the Windows draw commands to Quartz, considering its not a native language to Windows. Quartz is also used for creating special effects with PDF drawing. I doubt that will help Virtual PC.

The only way they can use the graphics card is to use its acceleration. Theres no magic loophole here. They are probably using a passthrough virtual graphics card that passes to the real one.

If they're saying Virtual PC takes advantage your graphics processor, that means it probably uses your graphics processor.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
Screen shots frequently aren't accurate... I'll go by what they've written.

Most likely what they are doing is passing the draw commands to the actual card via the virtual card, and not rendering them software. Thats probably why the S3 still appears, if this indeed is the case.

Getting the actual chip to show up as a device is nearly impossible. You will never get the Mac card to show because Windows will not recognize the Mac card. You will never ever get direct hardware access. You must use a go-between virtual chip, like the S3 to do this.

I love uneducated opinions.

The graphics are still emulated by passing only a few redraw commands. The S3 Trio supports only basic Open GL so forget about Open GL apps. It doesn't support Direct 3D so forget that too.

As for your second paragraph, VPC can be programmed to have direct hardware GPU access. VPC3 for example allowed the use of a 3dFX Voodoo PCI card. Perhaps VPC can't communicate directly with the main graphics processor but could, if they still wanted, with a second graphics card.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
: sigh :

Has anyone even considered how the hell you could use Quartz to accelerate Windows? You can't. They would create a speed hit just translating all the Windows draw commands to Quartz, considering its not a native language to Windows. Quartz is also used for creating special effects with PDF drawing. I doubt that will help Virtual PC.

I didn't say Quartz for Windows. I meant sending commands from the one OS's virtual driver to the host OS's hardware driver model. Quartz was the wrong word to use.

[goMac]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
I didn't say Quartz for Windows. I meant sending commands from the one OS's virtual driver to the host OS's hardware driver model. Quartz was the wrong word to use.

But Mac OS X's graphic display system is Quartz. You get Quartz support for free without doing any special coding. You can't graphics accelerate the front end any further. It's just an OS X window, with a canvas being drawn on by the emulator. As far as the Mac OS is concerned the screen in Virtual PC is simply a single image, no more.

The only way you can speed that up is by using the graphics card to generate that image for you, as opposed to having the processor do it as VPC6 does. This means you must talk to the graphics card. You cannot use any Mac OS X based API's to do so. Well, you could but it would be very costly in performance and create a huge compatibility hit.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
This means you must talk to the graphics card. You cannot use any Mac OS X based API's to do so. Well, you could but it would be very costly in performance and create a huge compatibility hit.

You're diverging all over the place. First you agree they are sending calls from one driver to another. You say the screenshot of the S3 card is inaccurate and a rumor site is better.

Face facts. The MS site says nothing about native hardware acceleration in VPC. Not one word. It only says better graphics handling. It also says 10-30% increase in performance. The same claims have been made for the last 3 versions with little improvement even though Macs have gotten 10 times faster over the same period. Possibly this version is a little faster but I bet it still hogs resources.

Notice the minimum recommended specs have increased to 700Mhz. It used to be far less.

[Earth Mk. II]

I would guess (repeat: guess) that they're drawing a blank window and having the GPU replace the contents of that window with the VPC display. Somewhat similar to how DVD Player.app works. This way, they need only to update the display's bitmap in the card's VRAM - not redraw the entire window.

I doubt that the software makes any direct use of the GPU, but by leveraging Quartz and having the GPU do the window composting work, I would imagine they're free to handle the display in a more efficient way.

Given the current variety of graphics cards that QuartzExtreme will work with, it's highly unlikely that they're directly utilizing the GPU or that they're translating S3 instructions into instructions suited to any of the many ATi or nVidia GPUs. Never mind any issues of endianness.

And, given marketing speak for what it is, if they were directly using the video card's hardware to accelerate windows (or even indirectly via translating instructions) there'd be no ambiguity. They'd of bragged, and we'd know.

[bmhome1]

Remember when Connectix claimed 10-30% speed increase for VPC6 from VPC5? It actually really was closer to 10%. Anyone notice "new" VPC7's other features are minimal or minor additions to what already exists. Saving a state by closing the window...sure to totally confuse new users and a dangerous new GUI design alteration.

[goMac]

For the final time...

Microsoft has talked to MacMinute. They EXPLICITLY said that VPC7 uses HARDWARE ACCELERATION.

"Better graphics handling by taking advantage of the graphics processor on the Mac. Screen redraws are purportedly speedier and graphics are more responsive."

This is support for hardware graphics. Please tell me how this is any different than graphics hardware support?

And no, Windows cannot directly access your graphics card. Ever wonder why VPC3 was limited to one graphics card? Your graphics card is programmed to only talk to Macs, especially integrated ones. A few NVidia AGP cards will properly work on both. It's not as simple as just showing Windows your graphics card. Unless the card is both Windows and Mac compatible (and I assure you the ones in your Powerbooks, eMacs, iMacs, and iBooks are not, maybe a few PowerMacs out there with AGP cards will work) it simply won't work. You need a layer of abstraction.

Not to mention Mac OS X will NOT provide you with direct access to the hardware unless you're a driver.

Are we done now?

: sigh :

Just annoyed at the lack of understanding about working with the graphics card...

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by goMac:


For the final time...

Microsoft has talked to MacMinute. They EXPLICITLY said that VPC7 uses HARDWARE ACCELERATION.

"Better graphics handling by taking advantage of the graphics processor on the Mac. Screen redraws are purportedly speedier and graphics are more responsive."

This is support for hardware graphics. Please tell me how this is any different than graphics hardware support?

I'm not doubting that VPC7, in some way, leverages the capabilities of the GPU for increased performance. What's ambiguous is the degree to which the GPU is leveraged. Remember, the product highlights page only states that, "Virtual PC 7 delivers faster, cleaner graphics with a screen that redraws more quickly and graphics that are more responsive." Full hardware graphics support would be a huge deal, and definitely mentioned in their highlights.

By placing the burden of composting the screen display into the desktop window onto the GPU, that effectively "takes advantage of the graphics processor," but to a lesser degree than say, translating the emulated S3 instructions into whatever instructions are native for your GPU or even into native quartz drawing calls and letting the driver sort things out.

I would imagine the current emulation structure looks like this:

Windows API calls -> S3 driver -> S3 instructions -> VPC emulated S3 card -> construct VPC screen bitmap -> load bitmap into system memory -> draw window (draw to your buffer, update your gworld, blah blah blah).

What I'm guessing is the most likely scenario for VPC7 might look like this:

Windows API calls -> S3 driver -> S3 instructions -> VPC emulated S3 card -> construct VPC screen bitmap -> load bitmap into VRAM (via AGP bus) -> tell GPU to compost bitmap into VPC screen window rect.

This is still technically hardware accelerated (by shifting a good deal of the screen drawing off the CPU and onto the GPU), but to a much lesser degree than having the GPU draw and compost each element in the VPC screen (which I'm sure is possible, but I doubt the practicality of).

This will probably lead to a noticeable improvement in VPC's performance, but probably nothing that will blow your face off... just bring the Windows UI closer to usable speeds under normal loads. About a 10-30% increase depending on your CPU. Sounds about right.

[absmiths]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
I love uneducated opinions.

Considering this thread is all speculation, I would say that sentiment applies to all posts.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by absmiths:
Considering this thread is all speculation, I would say that sentiment applies to all posts.

A screenshot by MS of VPC7 showing an S3 Trio isn't speculation.

[macmike42]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
A screenshot by MS of VPC7 showing an S3 Trio isn't speculation.

You are correct! It is, in fact, the same video card that VPC has emulated since inception. Or it might have been the S3 Virge or something a while back. Please remember that the S3 video cards are (at least) 4 year old low-end cards. Honestly, that screenshot could be from any version of VPC.

[Zimphire]

Well it goes to prove if anyone knows about how Windows works...

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by macmike42:
You are correct! It is, in fact, the same video card that VPC has emulated since inception. Or it might have been the S3 Virge or something a while back. Please remember that the S3 video cards are (at least) 4 year old low-end cards. Honestly, that screenshot could be from any version of VPC.

There's an extra icon along the bottom of that window that doesn't exist in previous versions of VPC.

[wataru]

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
composting compost compost

composit

"Compost" is something else entirely.

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by wataru:
composit

"Compost" is something else entirely.

Meh, I do pretty well considering I'm dyslexic. Things slip though occasionally. Deal with it - I do everyday.

[arekkusu]

For anyone that has VPC7 and a Mac with a nice new video card, grab GLInfo and see what renderers it thinks are available in the emulated PC. If it only says the Microsoft GDI renderer, then there's no native video card support for 3D games.

[goMac]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
A screenshot by MS of VPC7 showing an S3 Trio isn't speculation.

Ronnie... You miss the point...

Whatever Microsoft does, in order to provide hardware acceleration they must provide a fake graphics card to Windows and forward to your real graphics card.

You cannot give Windows direct access to your real graphics card because your real one will not work on the PC.

Saying it shows an S3 Treo means nothing.

[Randman]

At least there's an upgrade version available.

[The Godfather]

Originally posted by goMac:
Ronnie... You miss the point...

Whatever Microsoft does, in order to provide hardware acceleration they must provide a fake graphics card to Windows and forward to your real graphics card.

You cannot give Windows direct access to your real graphics card because your real one will not work on the PC.

Saying it shows an S3 Treo means nothing.

PC GPUs don't work in Macs. The converse is most likely true too. However, it is interesting to point out that some PC GPUs can be converted to a Mac GPU by running a flash utility. <-- I am not suggesting that Virtual PC should flash your Mac GPU to make it a PC GPU!

I think I have read somewhere that the only difference between a Mac GPU and a PC GPU is the little-endian / big-endian characteristic (how numbers and addresses are stored in memory). Perhaps Virtual PC can act as a bridge between little-endian and big-endian, allowing Windows to talk to the Mac GPU.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
Ronnie... You miss the point...

Whatever Microsoft does, in order to provide hardware acceleration they must provide a fake graphics card to Windows and forward to your real graphics card.

You cannot give Windows direct access to your real graphics card because your real one will not work on the PC.

You're going back and forth and all over the place again. First you disagree, then agree, then say I said something else. Make up your mind. You stated native hardware support, I said it's still an emulated card. There's no argument about that. Putting words in someone's mouth when you're wrong doesn't change all the posts in this thread.

There is NO hardware graphics acceleration. They might have passed some very simply draw commands to the Mac's card but the effect would be minimal. Most likely they simply optimized the code so that the Mac's CPU, not GPU, is doing better S3 Trio emulation.

[goMac]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
They might have passed some very simply draw commands to the Mac's card but the effect would be minimal.

You just defined hardware acceleration. Passing draw commands to the Mac's card is hardware acceleration. Quartz passes commands to the Mac's card. OpenGL passes commands to the Mac's card. Both are hardware acceleration.

And the effect would certainly not be minimal. You would be lifting that off the cpu reducing a lot of workload not only making the computer run much faster but making graphics much cleaner by pushing them through a different cpu.

Not to mention I have seen the words hardware acceleration used in stories on the VPC7 release many times. There is hardware acceleration.

Are we done yet?

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
You just defined hardware acceleration. Passing draw commands to the Mac's card is hardware acceleration. Quartz passes commands to the Mac's card. OpenGL passes commands to the Mac's card. Both are hardware acceleration.

And the effect would certainly not be minimal. You would be lifting that off the cpu reducing a lot of workload not only making the computer run much faster but making graphics much cleaner by pushing them through a different cpu.

You're playing black and white with yourself. Make up your mind.

I will guarantee you this:

1. Display Properties will not show the graphics chip in the host machine.
2. There will be no Open GL or Direct 3D acceleration in Virtual PC. It will still be software emulation.
3. Whether VPC passes some GUI acceleration to the host machine's GPU, which I doubt, or CPU, which I bet on, the Display Properties will show an S3 Trio being emulated. There will be no hardware acceleration of the GUI. I quote Microsoft 'Better graphics handling'. That means nothing more than optimized code. But every previous version of VPC has claimed the same thing.

When I mentioned that the minimum specs for VPC have almost doubled there was a reason for that. You missed it. If there was hardware graphics acceleration, as you claimed, the minimum processor specs would not have increased.

No doubt you'll continue to post technical stuff you don't understand. Just admit you're wrong, to yourself, and get over it.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
You're playing black and white with yourself. Make up your mind.

I will guarantee you this:

1. Display Properties will not show the graphics chip in the host machine.
2. There will be no Open GL or Direct 3D acceleration in Virtual PC. It will still be software emulation.
3. Whether VPC passes some GUI acceleration to the host machine's GPU, which I doubt, or CPU, which I bet on, the Display Properties will show an S3 Trio being emulated. There will be no hardware acceleration of the GUI. I quote Microsoft 'Better graphics handling'. That means nothing more than optimized code. But every previous version of VPC has claimed the same thing.

When I mentioned that the minimum specs for VPC have almost doubled there was a reason for that. You missed it. If there was hardware graphics acceleration, as you claimed, the minimum processor specs would not have increased.

No doubt you'll continue to post technical stuff you don't understand. Just admit you're wrong, to yourself, and get over it.

There probably won't be direct hardware acceleration of Open GL or Direct 3D. VPC probably will take advantage of hardware acceleration of some graphics, as Microsoft has stated (probably beyond "just some optimizations"). Just because the minimum processor speed has increased does not mean that the lack of "full graphics hardware support" is the sole reason for the increased requirements.

[goMac]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
You're playing black and white with yourself. Make up your mind.

I will guarantee you this:

1. Display Properties will not show the graphics chip in the host machine.

And this matters/effects performance how? Is this just an ego thing? I don't get it.

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:


2. There will be no Open GL or Direct 3D acceleration in Virtual PC. It will still be software emulation.

These are possible perhaps, but I think we might see these in later versions of VPC. The only thing I see about this is that I think (this is just off my memory) that Windows is drawn with DirectDraw. This means we probably are getting DirectX acceleration. Whether or not there is still Direct3D acceleration is up in the air.

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:

3. Whether VPC passes some GUI acceleration to the host machine's GPU, which I doubt, or CPU, which I bet on, the Display Properties will show an S3 Trio being emulated. There will be no hardware acceleration of the GUI. I quote Microsoft 'Better graphics handling'. That means nothing more than optimized code. But every previous version of VPC has claimed the same thing.

When I mentioned that the minimum specs for VPC have almost doubled there was a reason for that. You missed it. If there was hardware graphics acceleration, as you claimed, the minimum processor specs would not have increased.

No doubt you'll continue to post technical stuff you don't understand. Just admit you're wrong, to yourself, and get over it.

Do we have to do this again? OK, we shall. Lets go get some quotes from some news sites.

We have MacMinute, who actually talked with Microsoft:

"Better graphics handling by taking advantage of the graphics processor on the Mac. Screen redraws are purportedly speedier and graphics are more responsive."

Until you find articles with people who talked to Microsoft, I'm assuming otherwise.

If I were Microsoft I'd also not mention 3D support, as a lot of people would think that makes it an ample gaming solution. Microsoft does mention in the FAQ the Virtual PC cannot play new games, which leaves slightly older games (i.e Half Life) open for thought.

I don't think I'm the one who doesn't get the technical stuff... Just because it's Microsoft doesn't mean you have to bash them and believe that maybe for once they didn't do something cool. Whether it is 2D or it is 2D and 3D I am still very impressed and buying the new version.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:

If I were Microsoft I'd also not mention 3D support, as a lot of people would think that makes it an ample gaming solution. Microsoft does mention in the FAQ the Virtual PC cannot play new games, which leaves slightly older games (i.e Half Life) open for thought.
[/B]

There's no space for thought. You're posting jibberish or wishing for too much. I say you go out, buy it and then report back to us with a review.

[Horsepoo!!!]

GoMac...do you work for Microsoft?

[goMac]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
GoMac...do you work for Microsoft?

No... I'm just wondering why if the name Microsoft is attached to something everyone believes it must be garbage and not worth it...

Ronnie: You have much less proof than I do to back up everything you're saying. I've read that it has support for your graphics accelerator, and that I believe. I have not read anything that states otherwise. There's no mystery in that.

[Person Man]

Originally posted by goMac:
I've read that it has support for your graphics accelerator, and that I believe. I have not read anything that states otherwise. There's no mystery in that.

Nobody is disputing whether there is support in VPC 7 for the graphics card in your Macintosh. The question that *nobody* can answer until it is actually in the general public's hands, is *HOW MUCH* support there is.

Is only screen redrawing accelerated? 2D graphics? 3D graphics? Nobody can say until they actually try it. All three options are, technically speaking, "support for the native graphics card."

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally posted by goMac:
No... I'm just wondering why if the name Microsoft is attached to something everyone believes it must be garbage and not worth it...

Ronnie: You have much less proof than I do to back up everything you're saying. I've read that it has support for your graphics accelerator, and that I believe. I have not read anything that states otherwise. There's no mystery in that.

Everyone but you reads Microsoft's own site.

I tell you what's going to happen to dreams of hardware acceleration.

goMac downloads VPC7 from a Torrent site because he doesn't really believe his own sh!t enough to pay for it.
goMac installs VPC7.
goMac downloads Half-Life.
goMac burns Half-Life to CD.
goMac runs installer. Installs fine.
gomac double-clicks on Half-Life's icon.
Half-Life takes half a life to load.
goMac sees Half-Life's menu screen and feels happy.
goMac starts 'New Game'. Game crashes.
goMac runs Half-Life again. Goes to the setup screen.
goMac sees that the maximum setting he is being allowed is 320x240 with software rendering. Even then it won't load.
goMac finds a Direct X test utility in the Windows/System folder. He launches it.
The utlity confirms what Display Properties says. S3 Trio 32/64 doesn't support any version of Direct Draw after version 3.0a. It never has supported Direct 3D and barely supported Open GL 1.1's basic features.
goMac learns the hard way that the graphics card is emulated. Any speed increase is due to some optimized code. VPC7 has also become so bloated it feels slower on lower end machines.
goMac doesn't post anything about his experience with VPC7 on MacNN forums because it hurts too bad to argue so long and be wrong.

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by Person Man:
Nobody is disputing whether there is support in VPC 7 for the graphics card in your Macintosh. The question that *nobody* can answer until it is actually in the general public's hands, is *HOW MUCH* support there is.

Being able to read through marketing-speak is an important life skill, and anything that anyone from any company tells any media outlet through any medium is marketing-speak.

So far, no one has said Microsoft is lying about using the Mac's GPU - but MS has done nothing thus far to relate the extent to which the GPU is used, and it's far more likely that the result will be less rather than more. Not that any improvement wouldn't be welcome.

I'll wait and see before buying an upgrade though - v6.1 works well enough for what it is, and I have no G5s around me.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by goMac:
This is support for hardware graphics. Please tell me how this is any different than graphics hardware support?

I find it scary that you think you're a developer.

Not to mention Mac OS X will NOT provide you with direct access to the hardware unless you're a driver.

Yeah, and it's not like Virtual PC already loads kernel extensions or anything

[absmiths]

Originally posted by RonnieoftheRose:
A screenshot by MS of VPC7 showing an S3 Trio isn't speculation.

Deriving requirements and making architectural claims based on a screenshot is speculation, which is fine, but don't act like it is authoritative coming from you but babble from someone else.

Microsoft HAS SAID that some use is made of the GPU (or, more precisely, that there is some support for it - which might mean anything. Heck, when Symantec added support for PPC in ThinkC that didn't mean it was there yet!). Anything beyond that is speculation.

[absmiths]

Oops.

[goMac]

Originally posted by Angus_D:
Yeah, and it's not like Virtual PC already loads kernel extensions or anything

Ummmm... Sure doesn't load any kernel extensions here.

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally posted by goMac:
Ummmm... Sure doesn't load any kernel extensions here.

% kextstat
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>
1 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kernel (7.5.0)
2 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kpi.bsd (7.5.0)
3 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kpi.iokit (7.5.0)

...snip...

113 0 0x2292c000 0x8000 0x7000 com.apple.nke.IPFirewall (1.3) <10>
114 0 0x229ae000 0x3000 0x2000 com.microsoft.VirtualPC.VirtualSwitch.KEXT (6.1.0) <10>

Believe and hope for whatever you want... but do some research before just asserting things.

[EDIT: same point, but less of an asshole about it]

[goMac]

Originally posted by Earth Mk. II:
% kextstat
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>
1 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kernel (7.5.0)
2 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kpi.bsd (7.5.0)
3 1 0x0 0x0 0x0 com.apple.kpi.iokit (7.5.0)

...snip...

113 0 0x2292c000 0x8000 0x7000 com.apple.nke.IPFirewall (1.3) <10>
114 0 0x229ae000 0x3000 0x2000 com.microsoft.VirtualPC.VirtualSwitch.KEXT (6.1.0) <10>

Believe and hope for whatever you want... but do some research before just asserting things.

[EDIT: same point, but less of an asshole about it]

: looks at feet and mumbles :

Looks like it loads one at runtime from the Virtual PC application package...

[Earth Mk. II]

yup - that's why it asks for your admin password on first launch.

It makes sure that a small app has the suid bit set, and runs that when the app is launched.

you can disable it, I think... but then the app won't let you use the virtual switch option. Not that it makes a huge difference to most people.

[murk]

A review of a demo... http://www.macosxrumors.com/

[dave_carroll]

In beta form anyway. It's better than v6. It uses a good chunk of my DP 2 G5, but that's okay. Disk performance is okay. Video performance is okay. Your normal Office apps, pcAnywhere, Visio work great. Video streaming is borderline via Real or WMP, so I've stopped trying to do that. You also can't do any serious gaming in it, as expected.

I think they did a good job, but I had realisitic expectations going into the deal. The product isn't a replacement for your Intel workstation. But you can use it to do all of your basic Windows duties without turning on your Windows box. I'll be picking up a copy when it hits the local Apple store.

Now y'all can return to bickering about who knows more about how the GPU works. Fascinating...really.

[RonnieoftheRose]

Quote review " It is slow and the graphics card support is not very good yet".

After using it since version 3 I knew the hype each version made.

[The Godfather]

Does USB work in VPC 7?