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acrafton

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 18, 2006
268
3
Trying to follow all of the posts re Windows on the Intel macs. . .isn't a simple solution that will probably be supported just a new version of VirtualPC that 'talks' directly to the Intel chip with no translation? Wouldn't this give near native speed and enable Windows to run on the new Macs with great speed?
 

atari1356

macrumors 68000
Feb 27, 2004
1,582
32
VirtualPC is a potential solution, although nobody knows when (or if?) Microsoft will release it.

If the Intel version of Darwine is released before VirtualPC and works reasonably well, it could hinder sales of VirtualPC greatly.

I'm looking forward to Darwine, since it would mean that you don't have to purchase a copy of Windows to install... you could run Window's apps right alongside Mac apps. Of course, at the moment I can't even think of any Window's apps I'd actually want to run. :D
 

RacerX

macrumors 65832
Aug 2, 2004
1,504
4
acrafton said:
Trying to follow all of the posts re Windows on the Intel macs. . .isn't a simple solution that will probably be supported just a new version of VirtualPC that 'talks' directly to the Intel chip with no translation?
Yes... and for most people this is exactly how Windows is going to run on Macs.

Sadly, many people believed that installing Windows on these Macs would be a straight forward process... even though Apple never said that it would be. All PC makes build their systems with the main goal of supporting Windows... Apple had no need to follow that path just because they were switching to Intel based processors.

As for how soon Microsoft updates VirtualPC, that will most likely depend on how well the new Intel based Macs sell. If Microsoft perceives a large user demand, they'll most likely move more quickly in producing a compatible version. If they don't, then people will likely have to wait for the next version in Microsoft's regular production cycle.

The best way to judge how Microsoft will act would be to look at how fast they updated VirtualPC for the G5.
 

atari1356

macrumors 68000
Feb 27, 2004
1,582
32
RacerX said:
The best way to judge how Microsoft will act would be to look at how fast they updated VirtualPC for the G5.

Which took, what... a year? If Microsoft is that slow this time around there are other companies/open source groups who will beat them to market:

Darwine
VMWare
Dual booting (not quite the same as having a virtual PC running within Mac OS X... but if people find a way to do it, then there won't be as must interest in Microsoft's Virtual PC product)
Open OSX/Bochs (bleh) ?
 

SiliconAddict

macrumors 603
Jun 19, 2003
5,889
0
Chicago, IL
acrafton said:
Trying to follow all of the posts re Windows on the Intel macs. . .isn't a simple solution that will probably be supported just a new version of VirtualPC that 'talks' directly to the Intel chip with no translation? Wouldn't this give near native speed and enable Windows to run on the new Macs with great speed?

The key is NEAR native speeds. For your average everyday app this is fine. You sure as heck don't need 100% performance on MS Access. But for games it's always going to be a better experience running Windows outside of OS X.
 

Chaszmyr

macrumors 601
Aug 9, 2002
4,267
86
atari1356 said:
Which took, what... a year? If Microsoft is that slow this time around there are other companies/open source groups who will beat them to market:

Darwine
VMWare
Dual booting (not quite the same as having a virtual PC running within Mac OS X... but if people find a way to do it, then there won't be as must interest in Microsoft's Virtual PC product)
Open OSX/Bochs (bleh) ?

You're right and potentially wrong. Keep in mind recent comments Microsoft has made about the new version of VPC. They indicated that it had already been under development, because they said they needed to test their new builds to see how much work needed to be done, but they also said that they hadn't even started working with Apple on it yet. What do these comments mean? It could be within the next few months if their builds are good, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's another year.
 

Chaszmyr

macrumors 601
Aug 9, 2002
4,267
86
SiliconAddict said:
The key is NEAR native speeds. For your average everyday app this is fine. You sure as heck don't need 100% performance on MS Access. But for games it's always going to be a better experience running Windows outside of OS X.

This is absolutely true, because not only is OSX sucking up additional RAM and CPU cycles, it's also taxing the video card a bit. However, dual booting is a pain in the butt in my opinion, so I'd rather be running Virtual PC than dual booting Windows (provided the new version of Virtual PC has full hardware acceleration).
 

7254278

macrumors 68020
Apr 11, 2004
2,365
0
NYC
Key for this build is, if they include 3D driver for video cards. . . If they do I might atempt to run older games like freelancer.
 

AtHomeBoy_2000

macrumors 6502a
Feb 3, 2005
879
0
atari1356 said:
If the Intel version of Darwine is released before VirtualPC and works reasonably well, it could hinder sales of VirtualPC greatly.
Any idea when DarWIne will be ready for Intel Macs? I can't find any concrete info on their site.
 
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