How hard would it be for VCP to use the mac video card as the PC video card (rather than emulate it)?
If they could do that, then the GUI would be a lot faster, and that would leave more CPU time for doing processor stuff. How hard could it be, video cards on the mac and pc both lie either in AGP or PCI, and most modern video cards (GEForce, ATI) have PC drivers already. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do.
I wouldn't excpect much from it buthere's something I found elseware.Sounds like it might really give vpc a boost and if you don't mind the hassle of entering command lines then cool. Haven't tried it,so can offer little assurance that it wouldn't screw things up despite how simple a fix it appears. Seems like another cool advantage of osx! The folowing was written by someone else.....
"Heres a fix i should have known about, seeing how i use this command all the time.
"VPC5 could be considered slow. But one has to consider that the UNIX 'Nice' level of VPC5 is 0. This does not give considerable priority to VPC5. Luckily, Mac OS X 10.1 introduced the 'renice' command to the OS. VPC5 can be made to run faster by completing the following:
1.\tOpen the terminal and type the following:
ps -auxw | grep Virtual
This will reveal the process number for the Virtual PC application.
2.\tReprioritize the process using the following command:
sudo renice <nice> <pid>
Where <nice> is an integer between 20 and -20 (the lower the number, the higher the priority.) and <pid> is the process ID you learned in step 1.
I typically use a nice level of -16. Performing these steps will speed up the emulation to a more usable level."
renice-ing VPC doesn't make it any faster unless it's already being slowed down by other tasks. If VPC is the only app you're running, renice-ing it won't magically give it more processor than it already has available.
VPC and VPC 5 are optimized for G4. Don't buy VPC 5 if you own a G3. But if you have a G4 or (better) a dual G4 it will work fine.
I own VPC 5 , and i run it on my G4 533: i use it , for the software from micro application (or data baker) architect 3 D. The software works fine, except for 2 things : take time to launch, and very low speed for the 3D visualisation (the 3D acceleration is very weak in VPC : emulation of S3 64 video card.)
I read a test in A french Mac revue.
On a G4 450 with 256 mByte ram the speed is the equivalent of a P3 500 mhz. That was with VPC 4 on mac os 9.
VPC 5 works both on mac os X 10,1,2 and mac os 9,1 and superior. VPC 5 take in account dual processor under mac os X.
Virtual PC 5 with Windows 98 is very slow on my Dual GHz G4 under X. I will install Windows 2000 when I find my CD to see if it runs better. I don't feel like booting into OS 9 just to speed test VPC though...
Comments
If they could do that, then the GUI would be a lot faster, and that would leave more CPU time for doing processor stuff. How hard could it be, video cards on the mac and pc both lie either in AGP or PCI, and most modern video cards (GEForce, ATI) have PC drivers already. It seems like it wouldn't be that hard to do.
Anyone got any thoughts on this?
"Heres a fix i should have known about, seeing how i use this command all the time.
"VPC5 could be considered slow. But one has to consider that the UNIX 'Nice' level of VPC5 is 0. This does not give considerable priority to VPC5. Luckily, Mac OS X 10.1 introduced the 'renice' command to the OS. VPC5 can be made to run faster by completing the following:
1.\tOpen the terminal and type the following:
ps -auxw | grep Virtual
This will reveal the process number for the Virtual PC application.
2.\tReprioritize the process using the following command:
sudo renice <nice> <pid>
Where <nice> is an integer between 20 and -20 (the lower the number, the higher the priority.) and <pid> is the process ID you learned in step 1.
I typically use a nice level of -16. Performing these steps will speed up the emulation to a more usable level."
I own VPC 5 , and i run it on my G4 533: i use it , for the software from micro application (or data baker) architect 3 D. The software works fine, except for 2 things : take time to launch, and very low speed for the 3D visualisation (the 3D acceleration is very weak in VPC : emulation of S3 64 video card.)
I read a test in A french Mac revue.
On a G4 450 with 256 mByte ram the speed is the equivalent of a P3 500 mhz. That was with VPC 4 on mac os 9.
VPC 5 works both on mac os X 10,1,2 and mac os 9,1 and superior. VPC 5 take in account dual processor under mac os X.
Under OS X the app simply won't open. The entire thing is just too slow. VPC with OS X definitely needs help.
This is the one reason I would be annoyed to have OS 9 removed as a bootable system.
Edit: Forgot to mention under OS 9 VPC 5 seems slightly faster than its predecessors.
[ 02-05-2002: Message edited by: Telomar ]</p>