VPC 5

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
"Connectix has also added support for dual processor machines when running under Mac OS X. Virtual PC will automatically use the second processor for all video updating tasks when launched on a dual machine. "

<a href="http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0112/05.vpc5.php"; target="_blank">http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/0112/05.vpc5.php</a>;



Hmmm, interesting. By this is sounds like their essentially making the second processor act as a GPU. I wonder if they've increased the the VRAM settings above 4MB. Perha DP will be able to play some of those newer PC games now ... (the ones that actualy work in VPC anyway).



They didn't say anything about speed enhancements though. Anyone know if aster for SP machines?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    franckfranck Posts: 135member
    I really hope VPC 5 is as fast on OS X as VPC 9 running on MacOS 9.

    It's slow on my 400MHz G3, even with 512MB
  • Reply 2 of 22
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    This is not a direct answer to your question but I find the whole virtual PC thing confusing. Each release says it's better and faster than the one before. I own VPC 3 and 4 and 3 is considerably faster than 4 on a 450mhz G4 w/ 256mb. Also, VPC supports Voodoo 5 cards unlike the newer versions. If you have a Mac w/o AGP and want to play some windows games get a Voodoo 5 and VPC 3.
  • Reply 3 of 22
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    [quote]I wonder if they've increased the the VRAM settings above 4MB.<hr></blockquote>



    Nope.
  • Reply 4 of 22
    franckfranck Posts: 135member
    G4Dude,



    I've benchmarked VPC 3 & 4 on my G3.

    VPC 4 is faster ( I've tried Norton System Info and Sisoft Sandra) but screen redraws are painfully slow under VPC 4 so it seems slower.
  • Reply 5 of 22
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    I guess that's it. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
  • Reply 6 of 22
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    [quote]Originally posted by Franck:

    <strong>G4Dude,



    I've benchmarked VPC 3 & 4 on my G3.

    VPC 4 is faster ( I've tried Norton System Info and Sisoft Sandra) but screen redraws are painfully slow under VPC 4 so it seems slower.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The Maccentral article reports that screen redraws are supposed to be faster, something to do with keeping the res the same as the mac side. I haven't found it to be a problem, but then I've always kept the VPC res at the same res as my mac side so perhaps I won't see a difference ...



    [quote]Originally posted by G4Dude:

    <strong> Also, VPC supports Voodoo 5 cards unlike the newer versions. If you have a Mac w/o AGP and want to play some windows games get a Voodoo 5 and VPC 3.</strong><hr></blockquote>

    It's to my understanding that only a Voodoo 2 will get 3D acceleration in VPC 3. I could be wrong but you may want to double check the Voodoo 5 accel. Have you actually played a 3D game & used the Glide or OpenGl drivers?



    I really hope the OS X version is on par with the OS 9 one. The "Test Drive" performance was terrible.
  • Reply 7 of 22
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    I thought there was a file called "voodoo 5 config" or something but I could be wrong. I don't have a Voodoo card so I would n't know what performance is like. Does anybody out there use a Voodoo w/ VPC?
  • Reply 8 of 22
    Looks pretty slick. Wonder how the speed is on Windows XP.



    Also, imagine running it on a 1 GHz G5. How fast do you think the x86 emulation would be? I didn't read all the info but does it have built-in support for Altivec? Perhaps with a G5 we wouldn't even need to worry about the slow-down in emulation...
  • Reply 9 of 22
    x704x704 Posts: 276member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>Looks pretty slick. Wonder how the speed is on Windows XP.



    Also, imagine running it on a 1 GHz G5. How fast do you think the x86 emulation would be? I didn't read all the info but does it have built-in support for Altivec? Perhaps with a G5 we wouldn't even need to worry about the slow-down in emulation...</strong><hr></blockquote>



    VPC 4 had some Altivec support, assumingly VPC 5 does too. Apparently VPC 5 in OS X is no faster (or not much) then the "Test Drive", very dissapointing .



    A person submitted this report to XLR8yourmac.com

    [quote]" Hi! I have my Powerbook 667 with 512 Mb with MacOS 9.2.1 (Italian) and MacOS X 10.1.1. Well, I have tested VPC5 with Cinebench 2000 for windows:



    MacOS 9.2.1

    Shading (Cinema4D) = 2.12

    Shading (OpenGL) = 1.24

    Raytracing = 2.41



    MacOS X 10.1.1

    Shading (Cinema4D) = 1.29

    Shading (OpenGL) = 0.83

    Raytracing = 1.38



    Good performance on old MacOS. Slooow on new MacOS.

    Massimo De Carli

    from Italy"

    <hr></blockquote>
  • Reply 10 of 22
    g-dogg-dog Posts: 171member
    I haven't been able to find any info on connectix's website...but, does anyone know if USB is fully supported in VPC5 for OSX? It wasn't in the test drive.
  • Reply 11 of 22
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    I just got it running.



    Honestly, I don't notice anything really gets the speed boost. It's still as slow as a turtle....
  • Reply 12 of 22
    Checked it out last night. Got my hands on a copy. I think i may be slower than verion 4 or the same speed. The app is not coca, its carbon so its not going to run like a pure OS X app would. I dont know why they made it that way. They gave support for dual CPUs which is good.. but I thought the OS makes it so all tasks take advantage to both CPUs? And when you configure the windows image, you are still promped for RAM allocation. I thought that OS X allocated RAM dynamicly.... no need for this sort of thing? The first time you boot your Windows disk image, you have to do a hardware config.. takes a few min. The interface is more OS Xish as can be expected. if you are a user of Verion 4.. you wont need any help on how to use verion 5. Running a image of XP and its VERY slow. I didnt make the image so the image its self could be the promblem. I will have to pay with it somemore. Win89 image works just like it did with verion 4.

    ....Will contunue to test.
  • Reply 13 of 22
    g4dudeg4dude Posts: 1,016member
    These reports are not good. My school is making all the students get laptops and if I can't run Winblows software at good speeds on a TiBook, I might have to get a PC. At least I still have 2 macworlds till I need the laptop (come on speed bump!). Overall though I have been very dissapointed with the performance of VPC 3 and 4. For the price of that software, I could get a wintel box that was like 4 times faster.
  • Reply 14 of 22
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    [quote]Originally posted by evildead:

    <strong>= I think i may be slower than verion 4 or the same speed. The app is not coca, its carbon so its not going to run like a pure OS X app would. =</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Wrong...try another theory. A well coded Carbon app will run identically (speed wise) to a well coded Cocoa app. The advantages of Cocoa are mainly manifested on the developer side, not the user side....
  • Reply 15 of 22
    [quote]Originally posted by evildead:

    <strong> The app is not coca, its carbon so its not going to run like a pure OS X app would. I dont know why they made it that way. </strong><hr></blockquote>





    And I repeat:







    If you don't know how Carbon and Cocoa work, please don't say anything against them.
  • Reply 16 of 22
    ibookibook Posts: 50member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>Looks pretty slick. Wonder how the speed is on Windows XP.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Windows XP in VirtualPC is fast unless you are moving active windows around. So I guess everything is fast but the video draw, but all else does seem faster than VPC4. I don't know if Windows XP Home edition would be any faster at video draw (I have Professional edition).
  • Reply 17 of 22
    ibookibook Posts: 50member
    [quote]Originally posted by G-Dog:

    <strong>I haven't been able to find any info on connectix's website...but, does anyone know if USB is fully supported in VPC5 for OSX? It wasn't in the test drive.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Actually OSX is recommended for full USB suport according to the "read me".
  • Reply 18 of 22
    [quote]Originally posted by starfleetX:

    <strong>





    And I repeat:







    If you don't know how Carbon and Cocoa work, please don't say anything against them.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Why don't you stop acting like an ass and explain it to him then.
  • Reply 19 of 22
    jutusjutus Posts: 272member
    [quote]<strong>Why don't you stop acting like an ass and explain it to him then.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Please excuse starfleetX, he's getting tired of explaining it.



    [quote]Originally posted by evildead:

    <strong>Checked it out last night. Got my hands on a copy. I think i may be slower than verion 4 or the same speed. The app is not coca, its carbon so its not going to run like a pure OS X app would.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    A Carbon application is also an OS X native app. It does not imply a performance hit in any way.



    [quote]<strong>I dont know why they made it that way. They gave support for dual CPUs which is good.. but I thought the OS makes it so all tasks take advantage to both CPUs?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Only certain kinds of tasks lend themselves to be divided among processors. It usually is not an issue to run application A on one processor while running application B on another, but for multiple threads within a single application, certain provisions must be made. VPC divides this problem by assigning graphics (windowing, I believe) operations to one processor while the other deals with everything else.



    [quote]<strong>And when you configure the windows image, you are still promped for RAM allocation. I thought that OS X allocated RAM dynamicly.... no need for this sort of thing?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    For most apps, yes.. but remember what VPC is doing. It is emulating a full blown PC, so it grabs a hunk of memory (of size X you specify) and uses that as "pc" memory. That hunk of memory is probably dynamically allocated under OS X, although it is possible for performance and compatability reasons it is a single static chunk. Windows XP or whatever x86 OS you use will then allocate its memory for its apps from that memory space.



    [quote][/qb]Running a image of XP and its VERY slow.[/QB]<hr></blockquote>



    I would bet that one of the reasons for the performance hit under OS X is that Darwin doesn't lend itself as an emulation platform (performance-wise) that well. It's tough for VPC to take over the processing and i/o resources and grab top priority on them.



    It shouldn't have anything to do with Carbon.



    Any other theories?



    [ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: jutus ]</p>
  • Reply 20 of 22
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,401member
    Version 5.0 runs quite slow in OSX according to the reports from various web sites. What happened to the speed increase that it should have from the "modern" OS as compared to running it in the old slow classis OS?



    I still don't think OS X is ready for prime time. Maybe its got too much glitz (transparency, etc).



    - Mark
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