If you absolutely need it, it's the only choice. That said, it sucks. It's dog slow even on my TiBook 667 with 512 megs of RAM. I bought the damn program and I don't use it. That's how bad it sucks. Of course, like I said, if you need it, it's the only option <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />
i bought it once because i *thought* i would need it. turns out, it was only good for playing solitaire. never used it, finally uninstalled it, regretted the $200 i paid for it. end of story.
if you do get it, be warned that it's painfully slow, it fragments the crap out of your hard drive, and you'll need so much memory to run it, you will have to take the cost of ram into consideration as well as the money you'll shell out for virtual pc. perhaps buy a $500 PoC instead, or build yourself one.
I have to agree with the previous posters, with one additional note: Under the very first "feature" bullet item, their website mentions that Virtual PC has multiprocessor support under MacOS X... Just flat out ignore that. Their support of MacOS X is totally underwhelming; I tried running it on a 500MHz dual-processor G4, and discovered that it runs slower under MacOS X then it does under MacOS 9.
This was several months ago, and at the time, I had found an article in Connectix's support section that talked about how the task of emulating a processor can't really be load-balanced between two processors, but I can't seem to find that article now. If memory serves, this particular article also laid the blame (for the performance hit of running VPC under MacOS X) squarely on Apple's shoulders, for shifting to a pre-emptive tasking model from a cooperative tasking model. The entire tone of the article was such that it may have brought down the fist of Apple Legal. Of course, that's just a theory, mind you...
<strong>Their support of MacOS X is totally underwhelming; I tried running it on a 500MHz dual-processor G4, and discovered that it runs slower under MacOS X then it does under MacOS 9.
This was several months ago, and at the time, I had found an article in Connectix's support section that talked about how the task of emulating a processor can't really be load-balanced between two processors, but I can't seem to find that article now. If memory serves, this particular article also laid the blame (for the performance hit of running VPC under MacOS X) squarely on Apple's shoulders, for shifting to a pre-emptive tasking model from a cooperative tasking model. The entire tone of the article was such that it may have brought down the fist of Apple Legal. Of course, that's just a theory, mind you...</strong><hr></blockquote>
1. They've since updated VPC 5 & now it's OS X performace is about the same as OS 9
2. VPC's MP support is decent. It's MP support uses 1 processor to do the main emulation while it uses the other to take care of the video (essentially useing the 2nd CPU as a GPU). This speeds up the graphics a lot. Of course it's not as good as true MP support but it's a big step in the right direction.
3. (regarding anothers comment) you only have to factor in the cost of "extra" ram if you don't already have it. 512 MB is fine for VPC (it even runs okay with 256 MB). I assume most people already have this ammount. If not then all their Apps could benefit from a Ram upgrade.
Personally I've found VPC to be quite capable. I've run many office & home/consumer apps in it & found it quite good. I even play the occasional older game in it (3+ years old, no 3D games). VPC has good compatability & has sufficient speed to run Office apps (like say word or other low rescource apps) acceptibly. If you want to play 3D games or do 3D animation then VPC isn't for you. For most other uses it's fine though.
I think people also need to take into consideration the version of the Windows you use with it. If you can still use Win95, it usually runs very quickly. If you're trying to use XP or Win2000, the hardware requirements for those operating systems are so high to begin with that VirtualPC kind of sucks.
3. (regarding anothers comment) you only have to factor in the cost of "extra" ram if you don't already have it. 512 MB is fine for VPC (it even runs okay with 256 MB). I assume most people already have this ammount. If not then all their Apps could benefit from a Ram upgrade.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
i dont know, i just couldnt give that progam enough RAM and even when I had it open, I couldnt open any other apps. i used it on my G3, but not a G4. im glad to hear they've improved it but, in my opinion, it's too expensive to buy "just because."
It could be worthwhile for some people to buy Virtual PC, but for most people i think it's unnecessary. i had bought the program (along with a floppy drive i also hardly used) because i had some old disks from college that i wanted to open up. but i could have just done that from a friend's computer.
but these days, i am free of all my PC-dependencies and I am loving it!
<strong>i know its a bit off topic from this thread but is there any word on a port of WINE to OSX?</strong><hr></blockquote>You do realize that WINE stands for WINE Is Not Emulated, no?
WINE only works because it's used on the same processor architecture. It's comparable to MOL (Mac on Linux) or Classic. For the same reason, Classic can't simply be ported to x86.
I used VPC 5.0 on my iMac 400Mhz with 384 MB of RAM in Mac OS 9 running Windows 2000. The only thing I used it for was to compile c++ for a class I was taking and to test view websites I was making. It worked fine for both of these tasks. My boss uses it on her iBook to run Quickbooks or something, its fine for that.
I used VPC at my local Apple Store on a Dual 800 Mhz machine with Mac OS 9 and Windows 98 full screen. It flew. I was amazed. IE opened quicker and loaded pages faster under the emulation than mac os x. (I did a little test with a Tibook sitting next to it).
If its simple, non graphics intensive things, its fine. Otherwise, get a cheap PC.
Comments
I'm sure a G4 would help and I'd really like to get the faster laptop drives because the program tends to rely on your HD quite a bit.
On a desktop it should be much better.
if you do get it, be warned that it's painfully slow, it fragments the crap out of your hard drive, and you'll need so much memory to run it, you will have to take the cost of ram into consideration as well as the money you'll shell out for virtual pc. perhaps buy a $500 PoC instead, or build yourself one.
This was several months ago, and at the time, I had found an article in Connectix's support section that talked about how the task of emulating a processor can't really be load-balanced between two processors, but I can't seem to find that article now. If memory serves, this particular article also laid the blame (for the performance hit of running VPC under MacOS X) squarely on Apple's shoulders, for shifting to a pre-emptive tasking model from a cooperative tasking model. The entire tone of the article was such that it may have brought down the fist of Apple Legal. Of course, that's just a theory, mind you...
<strong>Their support of MacOS X is totally underwhelming; I tried running it on a 500MHz dual-processor G4, and discovered that it runs slower under MacOS X then it does under MacOS 9.
This was several months ago, and at the time, I had found an article in Connectix's support section that talked about how the task of emulating a processor can't really be load-balanced between two processors, but I can't seem to find that article now. If memory serves, this particular article also laid the blame (for the performance hit of running VPC under MacOS X) squarely on Apple's shoulders, for shifting to a pre-emptive tasking model from a cooperative tasking model. The entire tone of the article was such that it may have brought down the fist of Apple Legal. Of course, that's just a theory, mind you...</strong><hr></blockquote>
1. They've since updated VPC 5 & now it's OS X performace is about the same as OS 9
2. VPC's MP support is decent. It's MP support uses 1 processor to do the main emulation while it uses the other to take care of the video (essentially useing the 2nd CPU as a GPU). This speeds up the graphics a lot. Of course it's not as good as true MP support but it's a big step in the right direction.
3. (regarding anothers comment) you only have to factor in the cost of "extra" ram if you don't already have it. 512 MB is fine for VPC (it even runs okay with 256 MB). I assume most people already have this ammount. If not then all their Apps could benefit from a Ram upgrade.
Personally I've found VPC to be quite capable. I've run many office & home/consumer apps in it & found it quite good. I even play the occasional older game in it (3+ years old, no 3D games). VPC has good compatability & has sufficient speed to run Office apps (like say word or other low rescource apps) acceptibly. If you want to play 3D games or do 3D animation then VPC isn't for you. For most other uses it's fine though.
<strong>
3. (regarding anothers comment) you only have to factor in the cost of "extra" ram if you don't already have it. 512 MB is fine for VPC (it even runs okay with 256 MB). I assume most people already have this ammount. If not then all their Apps could benefit from a Ram upgrade.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
i dont know, i just couldnt give that progam enough RAM and even when I had it open, I couldnt open any other apps. i used it on my G3, but not a G4. im glad to hear they've improved it but, in my opinion, it's too expensive to buy "just because."
It could be worthwhile for some people to buy Virtual PC, but for most people i think it's unnecessary. i had bought the program (along with a floppy drive i also hardly used) because i had some old disks from college that i wanted to open up. but i could have just done that from a friend's computer.
but these days, i am free of all my PC-dependencies and I am loving it!
<strong>i know its a bit off topic from this thread but is there any word on a port of WINE to OSX?</strong><hr></blockquote>You do realize that WINE stands for WINE Is Not Emulated, no?
WINE only works because it's used on the same processor architecture. It's comparable to MOL (Mac on Linux) or Classic. For the same reason, Classic can't simply be ported to x86.
I used VPC at my local Apple Store on a Dual 800 Mhz machine with Mac OS 9 and Windows 98 full screen. It flew. I was amazed. IE opened quicker and loaded pages faster under the emulation than mac os x. (I did a little test with a Tibook sitting next to it).
If its simple, non graphics intensive things, its fine. Otherwise, get a cheap PC.