Now here is a hopefully simple question. Will a piece of software like VirtualPC be able to use this somehow to take some of the graphics load it places on the processor away too?
If it can wouldn't this allow VirtualPC to gain an incredible performance boost?
Comments
Plus, games would be its biggest market. I can't tell you how many kids I've seen ask if VPC will let them play PC games on the Mac. Games are one of the biggest reasons families buy PeeCees anyway. Then I have to tell them, no, they can't play PC games, because VPC is stupid.
<strong>I've always wondered why VPC doesn't use the damn video cards in Mac. How hard would this be to implement!? Windoze drivers are already made!
Plus, games would be its biggest market. I can't tell you how many kids I've seen ask if VPC will let them play PC games on the Mac. Games are one of the biggest reasons families buy PeeCees anyway. Then I have to tell them, no, they can't play PC games, because VPC is stupid.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It has something to do with the size of Indians! ...no, wait...that's not right...I meant; it's an endian issue!
That is why Virtual is half the speed of your PPC when you do normal calculations (001 is 100). I am talking about using the damn video card, which has Windows drivers already.
But, it was funny.
I'm just so fed up with VPC's lack of using the video card.
You're still making plastics, right? For the G5 hypergyrational rhombocuboid?
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What choice does connectix have? None unless they don't want to support future Windows versions ...
Besides, VPC was never meant to run games. It is an emulator, and by definition emulators always suffer a performance hit: they're emulating foreign hardware!
Given that games (and some notable graphics arts software) push the limits of hardware more than anything else, how can you expect an emulator to allow you to play games like MOH:AA or RtCW???
<strong>Go to Connectix's site and read their FAQ. There are some legitimate issues regarding the support of video hardware.
Besides, VPC was never meant to run games. It is an emulator, and by definition emulators always suffer a performance hit: they're emulating foreign hardware!
Given that games (and some notable graphics arts software) push the limits of hardware more than anything else, how can you expect an emulator to allow you to play games like MOH:AA or RtCW???</strong><hr></blockquote>
Especially since Macs lag behind PCs in game performance.
Anyway, if Connectix could solve the acceleration conundrum, they would sell a hell of a lot more copies of VPC. Of that at least, I'm sure.
<strong>
PPC G4 is bi-endian with a negligible speed hit for mode swapping. That was one of the major architecture changes from G3 to G4.</strong><hr></blockquote>
All PowerPC's are bi-endian. This is too slow on pre-G3 PPC's though:
One of the challenges in emulating a Pentium processor is that Intel chips store multi-byte data in reverse order from the PowerPC. This difference in endianness must be taken into account when executing Pentium code. The PowerPC has a special mode which allows it to simulate little endian mode (the native mode of Intel-compatible processors). However, on PowerPC Processors prior to the G3, this mode came at a high performance cost, especially when the data in memory was misaligned (i.e. not stored to memory locations that are divisible by the size of the data). The G3 and G4 processors removed these performance bottlenecks, allowing Connectix engineers to finally take advantage of this previously ignored feature.
Because of Virtual PC 4.0's reliance on this little endian mode, support for processors older than G3's had to be dropped. Users who own Macs based on 601, 603 or 604 will have to either upgrade their processors to G3's or continue to use Virtual PC 3.0.
C. Lee Graham
Moderator@Connectix Forum
<strong>I've always wondered why VPC doesn't use the damn video cards in Mac. How hard would this be to implement!? Windoze drivers are already made!
Plus, games would be its biggest market. I can't tell you how many kids I've seen ask if VPC will let them play PC games on the Mac. Games are one of the biggest reasons families buy PeeCees anyway. Then I have to tell them, no, they can't play PC games, because VPC is stupid.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But they *had* native graphiccard support back in VPC2 and 3... IIRC you could use (some) Banshee cards in the G3/G4 and even this 3D accelerator for the iMac. One could get quite some fps out of these combinations...
They dumped in again in v4, claiming people demanded 1:1 PC performance (HalfLife anyone?) and that issue got on their nerves.
Hm. Maybe it'll come back.
PB
[ 05-16-2002: Message edited by: Powerbook ]</p>
Why would Apple release a new technology and not puch developers to use it as was suggested above?
If Apple truely wants Extreme to make a difference they need to make it as broad and useful as possible.
Also, I don't need the true speed of a PC but I like being able to run some of the programs occasionally. That might be less important once I'm out of school (I graduate with a BBA in two days!).
My question, and hope, was does anyone actually know if Extreme *could* be used to generate Windows windows (tell me that doesn't sound funny). I guess it is more of a hope for some additional speed than anything else.
Finally, what is up with everyone wanting to play PC games on a Mac. Buy a PS2 for crying out loud. Heck, it's even a hundred bucks cheaper now.
/me ducks the tomatoes
<strong>The main issue IS windows drawing the screen--THEN VPC translating it to a MacOS window afterwards. The slow part is the Windows internal draws.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thankyou! People seem to keep missing this! Quartz Extreme has nothing to do with the emulation that MUST take place internally in VPC (since it's not offloaded to a vid card), before its sent to your monitor.
Quartz Extreme Offloads part of the rendering to the Video Card (through OpenGl) rather then having the CPU process it all. Quartz Extreme will not effect your fps in Quake III (or whatever)! They already use OpenGl for rendering! It benefits the finder & windows because they currently do not offload any of the processing to the video card. VPC does not even see the video card. If it did it would utilize OpenGl already ... which would mean there'd be no reason for Q.E. to help it out (becuase again, all Q.E. does is offload rendering from the CPU to the Videocard through OpenGl).
Got it? It's really not that difficult.
But, lots of people want to play games that are PC only or released very late, and I'm sure they would pay the $$$ for it. Does Connectix like $$$?