Virtual PC

buffbuff
Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
I have recently got hold of VPC5, and I have got Windoze98, however, it is very slow, and I can't work out why...does anybody else use VPC?

I use a G4-400, with 448mb ram built in and about 5 gigs free space.

I have been using it on OSX, I will try using it on 0S 9.1.



If anyone has used it, or has any tips, please reply

I was hoping to run some PC games, but it chugs when i startup paint!!

I was thinking the software might be set to a slow PC setting...

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 9
    jambojambo Posts: 3,036member
    I have VPC5/Windows 98 on my iMac (800Mhz G4, 512Mb RAM) and it's also very slow.



    It's fine for Minesweeper and Access 2000 but I wouldn't dream of using it for any games which rely on 3D graphics hardware.



    J :cool:
  • Reply 2 of 9
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    [quote]Originally posted by Buff:

    <strong>I have recently got hold of VPC5, and I have got Windoze98, however, it is very slow, and I can't work out why...does anybody else use VPC?

    I use a G4-400, with 448mb ram built in and about 5 gigs free space.

    I have been using it on OSX, I will try using it on 0S 9.1.



    If anyone has used it, or has any tips, please reply

    I was hoping to run some PC games, but it chugs when i startup paint!!

    I was thinking the software might be set to a slow PC setting...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'm afraid it will be slow compared to running Windows on a PC, as Windows generates instructions for Intel (and compatible) processors based on the x86 instruction set and VPC is having to translate these into the equivalent PowerPC instructions. Consequently, any processor intensive Windows applications, especially 3D games, will crawl. For speed some games may even bypass Windows altogether and access the hardware directly, in which case they won't run at all. '98 may seem slow under VPC, but I expect XP is even slower!
  • Reply 3 of 9
    brianmacosbrianmacos Posts: 548member
    I run VPC 5 with Windows 2000 Pro on my iBook 14" which has the 700mhz G3 and 384 megs ram. It seems to run rather well. I run Photoshop 7 and Office XP in it no problem it is a lot slower than what it would be on an actual PC but it still works and is very usuable. In VPC 5 i have it use 96 megs of my ram when running Windows 2000.
  • Reply 4 of 9
    emacemac Posts: 6member
    A cool thing to run in Virtual PC is NeXT Step, and Rhapsody(for PCs).
  • Reply 5 of 9
    salmonstksalmonstk Posts: 568member
    I also have VPC and Win98 on a 550 G4 Titanium



    Its slow.



    Turn off all the graphics stuff. i.e. go to 800x600 resolution snd 256 colors. Its ok then.



    Of course with these changes its pretty ugly- even for Windows. But I use the VPC for a command line prgram so its ok.
  • Reply 6 of 9
    brianmacosbrianmacos Posts: 548member
    I run VPC 5 with 1024x768 with 32 bit color with effects. I have switched it to 256 colors recently and have noticed big improvement and I have also turned off all effects which also helped. It made it much faster.
  • Reply 7 of 9
    allenchristopherallenchristopher Posts: 135member
    VPC is slow, but it is more than fast enough for its main purpose. The main point is doing small but crucial tasks that won't work on the Mac. For example, you can buy a wireless router for far less than the price of an AirPort station, but the setup software will likely run best through Windows. Perhaps you want to read a CD that was formatted for the PC by a cheap burning program and preserve long file names. Maybe you want to run Outlook on Windows because you don't want to be stuck wwith all your old e-mail in a Mac format if Apple goes under (doesn't look likely now, but ten years from now anything could happen). There are hundreds of important jobs like this that VPC can handle easily, and it integrates the Mac and Windows worlds.



    If you primarily want to play games, take the money you'd spend on VPC with Windows and buy a used PC. Getting one that's many times faster than VPC is cheap. It's just that then you'll have to integrate your Mac and PC hardware on a network to do the practical things VPC does. I prefer using VPC and buying a game console once every five years.
  • Reply 8 of 9
    buffbuff Posts: 55member
    Thanks for all replys, I realise now it is not for gaming, which was the main reason I borrowed it, but I will still probably make use of it for small tasks when I need to. I also found it works much better in 9.1 (opposed to OSX) and with less colours.



    I found an interesting article on the net, I probably wouldn't do this myself, but it might be of interest to someone...

    &lt;hr&gt;



    "Netviper says "Maya is running on my powerbook 400 g3... and it works!"



    If you need to REALLY run Windows NT at it's fastest on your Mac, do this with VPC:

    On another partition create a bare bones System (sorry, without another partition, this will not work), remove EVERY extension except the Appearance extension, and every control panel except the Appearance control panel. Then move the VPC preference file into the new System's preference folder. Also move the VirtualPC app itself into the System folder. Remove the Finder from the System, throw it in the trash and delete it. Use ResEdit to change the VPC app's 'creator' code to MACS and 'type' to FNDR. Then rename VirtualPC? to Finder. Then reboot holding down "Shift-Option-Command-Delete", this will force your Mac to boot from a System other than your startup disk. !!DO NOT CHANGE THE STARTUP DISK IN THE STARTUP DISK CONTROL PANEL!! If you do, it will be murder trying to get it to boot back to MacOS.

    Now what you have is Windows NT booting instead of MacOS, and the performance increase is more than double! Alas, you will not be able to use the MacOS while you are running VPC like this, but you WILL still be able to share ANY Mac folder!, but if you NEED to use WinNT, this is the best way to do it!

    Now to get back to the MacOS, just quite VPC as normal, saving it where you left off, and then once it has saved the data to the disc, you just force-restart "Control-Command-PowerKey", and your Mac will safely boot back to MacOS.

    BTW, all networking is STILL available from the PC using it this way, it's great!

    On my 8500/180 I am getting speeds that my PC loving friend says are faster than his 200MMX, so believe me, it kicks ass! If you want to play games on VPC, this is the way to do it.

    &lt;hr&gt;
  • Reply 9 of 9
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    *sigh*



    Not THAT "article" again...



    I've explained this before. The only reason you would want to follow tht procedure is if you very little RAM or can't allow the Finder *ANY* compute cycles. It's not work the trouble. It may have been helpful in years past, but it's not today. I'd say you get more of a placebo affect, if anything.



    edit: note the Mac mentioned in the bit above: a 8500/180. That's a sign of the days when RAM was slim pickins and not a single CPU cycle could be spared. It was also a time of a lesser-developed operating system where these kind of procesures might have actually yielded a slight improvement. Regardless, on a Mac, you will NOT see Virtual PC outperform a higher-clocked PC processor. It's not possible with today's technology. Virtual PC has to translate every CPU instruction from x86 to something that can be done with PPC. There is no way a current Mac can both translate AND process these instructions faster than a real x86 processor.



    [ 06-24-2002: Message edited by: starfleetX ]</p>
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