iMac 17" & Virtual PC w/WinXP: Speed & Compatibility

[pimentoLoaf]

Anyone have this combination? How well does it run various WinXP apps?

And, of course , what about games?

Win98 experience under VirtualPC also accepted.

 

[Chimaera]

'dog slow' sums up my experience of win98 on a top of the line iMac.

Oh, and practically no games support, definitely nothing in 3D - the 'videocard' in VPC is an old S3 whos real-life equivalent sucks extreme ass.

 

[pimentoLoaf]

My alternative is to get one of these -- 'cept my video game needs aren't high-end 3d (eg, Railroad Tycoon II, Caesar III, Pharaoh & Cleopatra, Cossacks, & Total Air War flight sim).

 

[iGold]

Forget about third party games, not gonna happen with VP6. Maybe some java or shockwave games.

As for programs, they run slow but are usable. If you can put up with a...maybe 300mhz pc with 128 ram you could stand it.
EDIT(using VP6 now, lets make that a p166 with 64 meg ram)

I'm using XP but thinking 98 would run better. Not going to pay another 129 bucks to find out though.

 

[trusted_content]

I have that exact combo and it runs surprisingly well. I wasn't expecting XP to be responsive on only an 800 mhz G4... nor was I expecting it to run faster than 98. Both are true.

Of course I have no REASON to run XP, I just have VPC6 and XP Pro because I CAN. ROFLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!

 

[pimentoLoaf]

Well, I now have it on my 500mhz iBook, and it's very slow. On a system dialog it claims I'm running at 285mhz, though it feels more like 200 (or less).

Took off Media Player, movie-whatchmacallit -- and them dang card games which you can never win at. (Pinball play was nearly impossible.)

Seems okay for text programs and, for one data unit only, I'm running Folding@Home. That is as slow as drying paint, but I got to write a quick batch file to start it up from the command prompt. I really enjoyed batch: simple-'n'-easy programming.

Only games I can tolerate are Masque slot machines and video poker. All the others I listed tax the software emulator.

Still gonna get that real laptop.