Try using PS, Arcinfo, MS Project, or even KaZaa is slow as snot (besides being ugly). Web Java Apps are also painfull, although they run in OSX anyway.
bah
stop being a wimp
Try running SQL Server 7, Visual Studio, and my company's disk-intensive VB apps all on a 266Mhz powerbook w/ 192MB RAM. Now THAT was slow. Kids these days....
VPC is already capable of executing x86 code at around 60% of the host's CPU speed. That means my 1ghz tibook executes code about as fast as a 600mhz windows machine, which isn't too shabby.
I really like VPC 6.02 I use it on my macintosh for Windows 2000 stuff. I wish the Ethernet was faster than 10 mbit because I use it as a ghost server.
FWIW, the ethernet card in VPC runs as fast as the ethernet interface on your system (and the speed of the VPC) allow. 10mbit is what VPC reports to Windows, but it's basically lying to Windows. The card that Windows sees is actually capable of more than 10mbit, depending on how powerful the Mac is. This is covered by a FAQ or KBase article buried on the Connectix website someplace.
I'll take my empirical results over your strong doubts anyday. You can start by running some benchmarks; SiSoft's Sandra has some good stuff. Windows XP's System control panel thinks my Powerbook is a 550mhz system, and Sandra thinks it's 533mhz, IIRC (haven't checked recently).
Since we all know that benchmarks aren't indicative of real-world performance, blah blah blah, try some real CPU-bound applications. According to both the computer's internal clock and my stopwatch, several of my CPU-bound algorithms execute at the equivalent of a 500-650mhz x86 machine, depending on the algorithm.
So yeah, I stand by my claim of ~60% emulation speed. Maybe not for every case, but out here in the real world it seems to be true. Remember, this is CPU-bound stuff. It has nothing to do with graphics or disk performance.
I'll take my empirical results over your strong doubts anyday. You can start by running some benchmarks; SiSoft's Sandra has some good stuff. Windows XP's System control panel thinks my Powerbook is a 550mhz system, and Sandra thinks it's 533mhz, IIRC (haven't checked recently).
Since we all know that benchmarks aren't indicative of real-world performance, blah blah blah, try some real CPU-bound applications. According to both the computer's internal clock and my stopwatch, several of my CPU-bound algorithms execute at the equivalent of a 500-650mhz x86 machine, depending on the algorithm.
So yeah, I stand by my claim of ~60% emulation speed. Maybe not for every case, but out here in the real world it seems to be true. Remember, this is CPU-bound stuff. It has nothing to do with graphics or disk performance.
system profiler says whatever VPC tells it to.
and what exactly is CPU bound without using graphics or disk?
and what exactly is CPU bound without using graphics or disk?
Many, many things. Fast Fourier tranforms (FFTs) are incredibly important in many fields; many algorithms that require FFTs are CPU-bound. String processing needs a lot of CPU, database queries can be CPU-bound (depending on RAM), compiling software can be CPU-bound (depending on a number of factors; compiling can also be I/O bound sometimes). The list goes on + on. Even a simple search + replace in a 10MB document needs a lot of CPU.
If nothing were CPU-bound, there wouldn't be a market for upgrade cards.
Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
Hi -- I'm intrigued here by the number of people labeling VPC "unusably slow" even on very powerful Macs. I'm currently using a G4 DP 450 MHz machine, which many called "unusably slow" for earlier versions of OS X. While I know that faster machines exist, I've always been able to use it just fine.
Currently, my Windows machine is a 700 MHz Pentium III laptop with 128 MB of RAM. The graphics card is a S3 Graphics SavageIX, which I'm assuming is no great shakes, as it came installed on an 2-year-old entry-level laptop. The machine is running Windows XP Home and I find it perfectly adequate for what I use it for -- XEmacs and Word (for use when I'm on the road), Mozilla Firebird, IE for some Web-based apps I need for work that only work with with IE for Windows, and Microsoft Streets and Trips. How fast a Mac do people think I need to emulate that with VPC?
I judge by professional performance, and the public face of their engineering staff has been abysmal in every instance I have come across post OS 8 RAM Doubler days. Too long ago to rest on those laurels.
My opinion and implication stands. They have been free for the last 4 years to update it and have failed miserably.
I'll grant that there have been snafus, especially w/ VPC 5. Bad QA doesn't mean they're stupid, though, it means they have bad QA. There's a big difference.
But don't forget that their engineering staff were the ones answering questions in their forums late at night or on the weekends, and providing prerelease builds to customers who needed a specific bug fix in an effort to make the customers happy. To me, that says that the engineers (as individuals) care about the customers, regardless of what management is/isn't doing. I don't think that makes them stupid, does it?
The engineering staff has also been working hard on products like VPC for Windows, which means less spent on the Mac side. There's more money to be earned in the Windows market, so it's more important (as a company) for them to have sales there than in the Mac market. That sucks for us, but it's business. It doesn't make the engineers stupid. Even brilliant engineers can't do everything at once.
My point is that you're no more justified in calling the individual engineers stupid for doing what management tells them than I am in calling you stupid for disagreeing with me.
Kickaha and Amorph couldn't moderate themselves out of a paper bag. Abdicate responsibility and succumb to idiocy. Two years of letting a member make personal attacks against others, then stepping aside when someone won't put up with it. Not only that but go ahead and shut down my posting priviledges but not the one making the attacks. Not even the common decency to abide by their warning (afer three days of absorbing personal attacks with no mods in sight), just shut my posting down and then say it might happen later if a certian line is crossed. Bullshit flag is flying, I won't abide by lying and coddling of liars who go off-site, create accounts differing in a single letter from my handle with the express purpose to decieve and then claim here that I did it. Everyone be warned, kim kap sol is a lying, deceitful poster.
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
An option to speed up VPC would be to make it use a 8 gig hard drive based entirely in RAM considering the disgusting amounts of RAM G5s are capable of and will be capable of soon (4 gig chips? fill up all the slots with those...imagine how much Apple will charge for that!)
Also it would be nice to have VPC support Gigabit Ethernet. Maybe you can help famousmred, I can't get VPC to see the Internet on my Ethernet no matter where I am or what I do. I tried all the different settings in the Script menu. I'm on a PBG4 12" 10.2.6.
This would speed things up a little, but really it is fairly minor compared to the benefit of a native driver.
A native driver would be great, except I imagine Connectix doesn't see a big payoff for the time invested. The current system works decently for the intended purpose - running a critical Windows-only application - but no matter what they do you're still not going to get a level of performance that'll let you play games.
They do have *some* graphic acceleration though - wasn't the mouse cursor recently modified to be hardware blitted? If they can do that then it's obvious they have the capability to do more elaborate stuff as well.
Someone else asked about what version of Windows to run, Windows 2000 is much better than 98SE. I installed it on an NTFS formatted image (didn't read the comment that FAT32 was preferable in time but I haven't come to regret it yet) and it's actually fairly snappy. It's actually at least as fast displaying folders with large numbers of files as the native Finder is (though to be fair it updates the generic icons with their real look rather slowly), and switching back and forth between the tab panes of a Windows dialog (say for the networking preferences) is as fast if not faster than doing the same on OS X, sad but true. This is VPC 6.01 on 10.2.6, Win2K Professional SP1 with both the Mac and Windows running in 16-bit / thousands. I like running it in a 1024x768 or so window rather than full screen, there's a reason I own a Mac after all, but it is noticeably faster (try a screen saver for instance) when it doesn't have to pay the Quartz compositing tax.
Welcome. You sound frustrated by the goings on within Connectix. Will MS free you up to do what finally needs to be done with VPC or are you just going to be even more frustrated with it all in the future.
I use VPC6 with Windows98SE. It gets me by using ACT 2000. But it is way slower than the slow PC's the company uses it on.
It sounds like you take this all way too personally. Take a deep breath. A lot of us have waded through some fairly pathetic upgrades (ahem) that keep costing more and more. Version 5 stunk. Went backwards. Version 6 at least got it closer to a liveable speed (for me) but it is clearly not what should be expected after so many years.
Also it would be nice to have VPC support Gigabit Ethernet. Maybe you can help famousmred, I can't get VPC to see the Internet on my Ethernet no matter where I am or what I do. I tried all the different settings in the Script menu. I'm on a PBG4 12" 10.2.6.
VPC should work fine over GigE to the best of my knowledge; the PC will continue to report a 10MBit connection, but actual throughput should be greater (limited by the speed of the PC and the host machine's network).
For debugging the ethernet problem, I'd recommend searching the support forums over at connectix.com. A number of other users have had the same problem.
Comments
Originally posted by Bigc
Try using PS, Arcinfo, MS Project, or even KaZaa is slow as snot (besides being ugly). Web Java Apps are also painfull, although they run in OSX anyway.
bah
stop being a wimp
Try running SQL Server 7, Visual Studio, and my company's disk-intensive VB apps all on a 266Mhz powerbook w/ 192MB RAM. Now THAT was slow. Kids these days....
Originally posted by thefamousmred
VPC is already capable of executing x86 code at around 60% of the host's CPU speed. That means my 1ghz tibook executes code about as fast as a 600mhz windows machine, which isn't too shabby.
I strongly doubt that
Originally posted by Elderloc
I really like VPC 6.02 I use it on my macintosh for Windows 2000 stuff. I wish the Ethernet was faster than 10 mbit because I use it as a ghost server.
FWIW, the ethernet card in VPC runs as fast as the ethernet interface on your system (and the speed of the VPC) allow. 10mbit is what VPC reports to Windows, but it's basically lying to Windows. The card that Windows sees is actually capable of more than 10mbit, depending on how powerful the Mac is. This is covered by a FAQ or KBase article buried on the Connectix website someplace.
Originally posted by applenut
I strongly doubt that
I'll take my empirical results over your strong doubts anyday. You can start by running some benchmarks; SiSoft's Sandra has some good stuff. Windows XP's System control panel thinks my Powerbook is a 550mhz system, and Sandra thinks it's 533mhz, IIRC (haven't checked recently).
Since we all know that benchmarks aren't indicative of real-world performance, blah blah blah, try some real CPU-bound applications. According to both the computer's internal clock and my stopwatch, several of my CPU-bound algorithms execute at the equivalent of a 500-650mhz x86 machine, depending on the algorithm.
So yeah, I stand by my claim of ~60% emulation speed. Maybe not for every case, but out here in the real world it seems to be true. Remember, this is CPU-bound stuff. It has nothing to do with graphics or disk performance.
Originally posted by thefamousmred
I'll take my empirical results over your strong doubts anyday. You can start by running some benchmarks; SiSoft's Sandra has some good stuff. Windows XP's System control panel thinks my Powerbook is a 550mhz system, and Sandra thinks it's 533mhz, IIRC (haven't checked recently).
Since we all know that benchmarks aren't indicative of real-world performance, blah blah blah, try some real CPU-bound applications. According to both the computer's internal clock and my stopwatch, several of my CPU-bound algorithms execute at the equivalent of a 500-650mhz x86 machine, depending on the algorithm.
So yeah, I stand by my claim of ~60% emulation speed. Maybe not for every case, but out here in the real world it seems to be true. Remember, this is CPU-bound stuff. It has nothing to do with graphics or disk performance.
system profiler says whatever VPC tells it to.
and what exactly is CPU bound without using graphics or disk?
Originally posted by applenut
and what exactly is CPU bound without using graphics or disk?
Many, many things. Fast Fourier tranforms (FFTs) are incredibly important in many fields; many algorithms that require FFTs are CPU-bound. String processing needs a lot of CPU, database queries can be CPU-bound (depending on RAM), compiling software can be CPU-bound (depending on a number of factors; compiling can also be I/O bound sometimes). The list goes on + on. Even a simple search + replace in a 10MB document needs a lot of CPU.
If nothing were CPU-bound, there wouldn't be a market for upgrade cards.
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
Currently, my Windows machine is a 700 MHz Pentium III laptop with 128 MB of RAM. The graphics card is a S3 Graphics SavageIX, which I'm assuming is no great shakes, as it came installed on an 2-year-old entry-level laptop. The machine is running Windows XP Home and I find it perfectly adequate for what I use it for -- XEmacs and Word (for use when I'm on the road), Mozilla Firebird, IE for some Web-based apps I need for work that only work with with IE for Windows, and Microsoft Streets and Trips. How fast a Mac do people think I need to emulate that with VPC?
jf
Originally posted by AirSluf
I judge by professional performance, and the public face of their engineering staff has been abysmal in every instance I have come across post OS 8 RAM Doubler days. Too long ago to rest on those laurels.
My opinion and implication stands. They have been free for the last 4 years to update it and have failed miserably.
I'll grant that there have been snafus, especially w/ VPC 5. Bad QA doesn't mean they're stupid, though, it means they have bad QA. There's a big difference.
But don't forget that their engineering staff were the ones answering questions in their forums late at night or on the weekends, and providing prerelease builds to customers who needed a specific bug fix in an effort to make the customers happy. To me, that says that the engineers (as individuals) care about the customers, regardless of what management is/isn't doing. I don't think that makes them stupid, does it?
The engineering staff has also been working hard on products like VPC for Windows, which means less spent on the Mac side. There's more money to be earned in the Windows market, so it's more important (as a company) for them to have sales there than in the Mac market. That sucks for us, but it's business. It doesn't make the engineers stupid. Even brilliant engineers can't do everything at once.
My point is that you're no more justified in calling the individual engineers stupid for doing what management tells them than I am in calling you stupid for disagreeing with me.
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
An option to speed up VPC would be to make it use a 8 gig hard drive based entirely in RAM considering the disgusting amounts of RAM G5s are capable of and will be capable of soon (4 gig chips? fill up all the slots with those...imagine how much Apple will charge for that!)
Also it would be nice to have VPC support Gigabit Ethernet. Maybe you can help famousmred, I can't get VPC to see the Internet on my Ethernet no matter where I am or what I do. I tried all the different settings in the Script menu. I'm on a PBG4 12" 10.2.6.
Originally posted by Programmer
This would speed things up a little, but really it is fairly minor compared to the benefit of a native driver.
A native driver would be great, except I imagine Connectix doesn't see a big payoff for the time invested. The current system works decently for the intended purpose - running a critical Windows-only application - but no matter what they do you're still not going to get a level of performance that'll let you play games.
They do have *some* graphic acceleration though - wasn't the mouse cursor recently modified to be hardware blitted? If they can do that then it's obvious they have the capability to do more elaborate stuff as well.
Someone else asked about what version of Windows to run, Windows 2000 is much better than 98SE. I installed it on an NTFS formatted image (didn't read the comment that FAT32 was preferable in time but I haven't come to regret it yet) and it's actually fairly snappy. It's actually at least as fast displaying folders with large numbers of files as the native Finder is (though to be fair it updates the generic icons with their real look rather slowly), and switching back and forth between the tab panes of a Windows dialog (say for the networking preferences) is as fast if not faster than doing the same on OS X, sad but true. This is VPC 6.01 on 10.2.6, Win2K Professional SP1 with both the Mac and Windows running in 16-bit / thousands. I like running it in a 1024x768 or so window rather than full screen, there's a reason I own a Mac after all, but it is noticeably faster (try a screen saver for instance) when it doesn't have to pay the Quartz compositing tax.
Welcome. You sound frustrated by the goings on within Connectix. Will MS free you up to do what finally needs to be done with VPC or are you just going to be even more frustrated with it all in the future.
I use VPC6 with Windows98SE. It gets me by using ACT 2000. But it is way slower than the slow PC's the company uses it on.
It sounds like you take this all way too personally. Take a deep breath. A lot of us have waded through some fairly pathetic upgrades (ahem) that keep costing more and more. Version 5 stunk. Went backwards. Version 6 at least got it closer to a liveable speed (for me) but it is clearly not what should be expected after so many years.
Does anyone else get this problem with VPC not using Ethernet?
Originally posted by Aquatic
Also it would be nice to have VPC support Gigabit Ethernet. Maybe you can help famousmred, I can't get VPC to see the Internet on my Ethernet no matter where I am or what I do. I tried all the different settings in the Script menu. I'm on a PBG4 12" 10.2.6.
VPC should work fine over GigE to the best of my knowledge; the PC will continue to report a 10MBit connection, but actual throughput should be greater (limited by the speed of the PC and the host machine's network).
For debugging the ethernet problem, I'd recommend searching the support forums over at connectix.com. A number of other users have had the same problem.