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VirtualPC info needed
- Thread starter Vinny
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I've used VirtualPC a few times in the past on a friends 17" powerbook. While it functioned normally, I wasn't exactly thrilled witht the performance. What resources does it consume the most? I'm looking to get a new Powerbook, but I'm undecided on the specs and VirtualPC will be the most 'intensive' program I will use.
Basing your Powerbook Purchase totally on VPC, you'll want to get as much RAM as you can afford/get. I run VPC on my 1 GHz iMac with 256 RAM, I run both Windows 98 SE and DOS. My father runs VPC on his 933 MHz G4 tower with 512 RAM. He's got both Window 98 SE and Windows 2000. When you use VPC, use Windows 2000, it is MUCH faser than 95, 98, XP, and NT.
musicpyrite said:
Yeah, I agree with using Win2K.. I have Win2K and XP on my PB 1.33 with 1GB of RAM.
The underlying issue is that VPC only emulates a Pentium II 300Mhz, so even if you were able to allocate 1GB of RAM to the Guest OS, the CPU emulation would be a limiting factor.
I plan to use W2k whenever needed, but I will also need XP to do some platform testing. Are there any planned updates for VPC that will allow it to emulate a faster processor? I imagine there should be some updates soon, since the current version doesn't work on the G5's.
tomf87 said:
By saying that do you mean that it will only work on a G5, or is optimized to work on the G5, by taking advantage of the 64-bit core and stuff like that?
musicpyrite said:
I mean that it will actually work on the G5. The current version (6.1.1) doesn't work on the G5 at all (at least that's what the site states). I assume that this means it won't even run on the G5:
Virtual PC for Mac and the Power Mac G5
We know Mac users are excited to take advantage of the speed of the new Power Mac G5 processor to run Virtual PC for Mac and PC programs. Microsoft is currently working on the next version of Virtual PC for Mac, which will run on the G5. Watch the Mactopia newsletter for updates.
From here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/using.aspx?pid=usingvirtualpc
People, people, people! You can emulate a faster processor, but that doesn't mean that the emulated application will be faster. The exact opposite may very well be the case. The speed of an emulator is determined by the rate at which it can interpret the binary code of the emulated processor. All things being equal, you should emulate the simplest processor that will execute your code.Vinny said:
VPC runs significantly faster in OS 9 than it does in OS X. With a new PowerBook, you can't boot into OS 9, so that's not much help 
Hopefully VPC 7 will improve performance a lot.
Hopefully VPC 7 will improve performance a lot.
Nermal said:
Apart from working on a G5, are there any other hints about whats really coming with VPC 7?
I found this pretty vague http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/virtualpc/virtualpc.aspx?pid=whatsnew
From what I read http://www.macnn.com/news/22758
Virtual PC for Mac Version 7 with Windows XP Professional will ship for the first time as part of Office 2004 for Mac Professional Edition and as a stand-alone product in the first half of 2004. Virtual PC 7 will be available with other "guest" operating systems a few months after this debut. VP7 will include performance and usability improvements, as well as compatibility with the Power Mac G5
? Guest os's ?
That is the web page for VPC 6.1. It is an accurate summary description of the product. What is so vague about that?aswitcher said:
A "guest" operating system is an Intel-compatible OS running on VPC. The "host" operating system for Virtual PC for Mac is the MacOS or MacOS X.aswitcher said: