Anyone know of any good tweaks for optimizing VPC 7.0 on a G5? Most of what I have in searches relates to optimizing WinXP. Thanks.
The x86 emulation engine in Virtual PC is about as good as it can be. If you don't believe it now, you will after you try the alternatives. To maximize performance, you have to run x86 operatings systems that are less taxing on VPC. Windows 2000 is generally considered to be the sweet spot. Also, it won't hurt to throw more RAM at your system.
In the end, you have to accept VPC on its own terms. Nothing emulates x86 computers better than VPC. It even does things that no hardware PC can do. However, if you are one of those children who wants to replace a hardware PC with VPC, then you are going to be sorely disappointed.
i think there are things you can do to make winxp run faster in vpc7. i cant remember all of them but i remember reading, of all things, a review for vpc 7 on amazon that went into detail abut services to shut off and similar tweaks that speed it up a bit. some of it involved turning off themes and so forth so it generally gets rid of some of the graphic intensive stuff. i'll see if i can find it and post if i do.
found it...hope im not breaking any rules by posting it but the review was written on oct. 8,2004 by a D.Zerafa who says:
You can increase performance to P3 / P4 levels by disabling services.
Disable 90% of the services XP runs in the background (Does a desktop really need wireless zero config enabled by default?!?!?) and speed should be as good as Home.
I still wouldn't try playing games, I'm just using it to run some Windows only programs for school.
Updated Rating : 4 stars.
Disable the services that you don't need to run XP:
-Fast User switching
-Messenger (ALWAYS DISABLE THIS!)
-Portable Media Serial Number
-Remote Registry (ALWAYS DISABLE THIS!)
-Secondary Login
-SSDS Discovery Service
-Terminal Services
-Upload Manager
-Server (If this is just going to be a standalone version of Windows no need for the service.)
-System Restore Service (VPC takes care of this.)
-Computer Browser
-Webclient
-Network Location Awareness (MS's network integration to VPC may depend on this so its a tossup if you need to disable it.)
-Theme (Since most Mac users aren't impressed with XP's Fisher Price theme anyways disabling the theme engine can free up some RAM and some speed.) You'll just be forced to use an Windows 2000-ish theme.
.....so i did a fair number of these on a dual 2.0 with 1.5 gb of ram...its still not a speed demon but works well enough. i just got sick of using my dell for stuff so bought vpc. eh, i would prefer the pc at this point but if u really need vpc its ok.\
Thanks for the advice. These suggestions should be helpful.
I am basically using VPC to run Quickbooks Pro (for my Office Accting) and Microsoft Access. The speed has been pretty good to date, but I figured there must be a way to maximize performance.
And no, I don't expect it to work like a Windows desktop and I don't plan to play any games besides Spider Solitare.
The only way to make VPC7 usable is to make a 1gig RAMDISK , copy over the XP image and start. The speed difference will be between night and day. Having 4 gigs of memory of course helps but using VPC7 any other way is just asking for a frustrating XPerience.
The only way to make VPC7 usable is to make a 1gig RAMDISK , copy over the XP image and start. The speed difference will be between night and day. Having 4 gigs of memory of course helps but using VPC7 any other way is just asking for a frustrating XPerience.
This would be true if the bottleneck in the performance of VPC were IO. It is not. The bottleneck is the emulation engine itself. It has to interpret x86 code on a PPC computer. This task can be done only so quickly. The RAM used for RAM disk is better used for RAM.
This would be true if the bottleneck in the performance of VPC were IO. It is not. The bottleneck is the emulation engine itself. It has to interpret x86 code on a PPC computer. This task can be done only so quickly. The RAM used for RAM disk is better used for RAM.
Have you tried it or just speculating; it?s at least 5 times faster. I'll bet money on this, if you have 2 gigs of memory allocate 1gig for the XP image 512mb to XP's memory and 512mb to OSX. You will see a performance jump much more profound then any of the other solutions mentioned above.
To be perfectly honest, the moment anyone mentions RAM disks, I usually stop listening immediately (just like defragmentation cult members). The slowness of XP in Virtual PC however, will make me grasp at any straw and I will report back when I get a chance to try this.
quickest way to disable services is by running services.msc from the run box...
HOWEVER, there are some discerning voice around about this increasing desire to disable services. i have heard that you shouldn't disable them from services.msc but somewhere else. just for an anecdote, disabling services made msbackup stop working and FOR THE LIFE OF ME i couldn't get it working again. lack of ability to back up almost caused me to lose all my stuff not long ago.
i'm interested what people have said about win2000 tho. that could be worth a shot. got that somewhere
Comments
Originally posted by ChuckLlama
Anyone know of any good tweaks for optimizing VPC 7.0 on a G5? Most of what I have in searches relates to optimizing WinXP. Thanks.
The x86 emulation engine in Virtual PC is about as good as it can be. If you don't believe it now, you will after you try the alternatives. To maximize performance, you have to run x86 operatings systems that are less taxing on VPC. Windows 2000 is generally considered to be the sweet spot. Also, it won't hurt to throw more RAM at your system.
In the end, you have to accept VPC on its own terms. Nothing emulates x86 computers better than VPC. It even does things that no hardware PC can do. However, if you are one of those children who wants to replace a hardware PC with VPC, then you are going to be sorely disappointed.
You can increase performance to P3 / P4 levels by disabling services.
Disable 90% of the services XP runs in the background (Does a desktop really need wireless zero config enabled by default?!?!?) and speed should be as good as Home.
I still wouldn't try playing games, I'm just using it to run some Windows only programs for school.
Updated Rating : 4 stars.
Disable the services that you don't need to run XP:
-Fast User switching
-Messenger (ALWAYS DISABLE THIS!)
-Portable Media Serial Number
-Remote Registry (ALWAYS DISABLE THIS!)
-Secondary Login
-SSDS Discovery Service
-Terminal Services
-Upload Manager
-Server (If this is just going to be a standalone version of Windows no need for the service.)
-System Restore Service (VPC takes care of this.)
-Computer Browser
-Webclient
-Network Location Awareness (MS's network integration to VPC may depend on this so its a tossup if you need to disable it.)
-Theme (Since most Mac users aren't impressed with XP's Fisher Price theme anyways disabling the theme engine can free up some RAM and some speed.) You'll just be forced to use an Windows 2000-ish theme.
.....so i did a fair number of these on a dual 2.0 with 1.5 gb of ram...its still not a speed demon but works well enough. i just got sick of using my dell for stuff so bought vpc. eh, i would prefer the pc at this point but if u really need vpc its ok.
Originally posted by Ichiban_jay
and HOW do I disable these things?
control pannel->admin. tools ->services
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
I am basically using VPC to run Quickbooks Pro (for my Office Accting) and Microsoft Access. The speed has been pretty good to date, but I figured there must be a way to maximize performance.
And no, I don't expect it to work like a Windows desktop and I don't plan to play any games besides Spider Solitare.
Originally posted by Relic
The only way to make VPC7 usable is to make a 1gig RAMDISK , copy over the XP image and start. The speed difference will be between night and day. Having 4 gigs of memory of course helps but using VPC7 any other way is just asking for a frustrating XPerience.
This would be true if the bottleneck in the performance of VPC were IO. It is not. The bottleneck is the emulation engine itself. It has to interpret x86 code on a PPC computer. This task can be done only so quickly. The RAM used for RAM disk is better used for RAM.
Originally posted by Mr. Me
This would be true if the bottleneck in the performance of VPC were IO. It is not. The bottleneck is the emulation engine itself. It has to interpret x86 code on a PPC computer. This task can be done only so quickly. The RAM used for RAM disk is better used for RAM.
Have you tried it or just speculating; it?s at least 5 times faster. I'll bet money on this, if you have 2 gigs of memory allocate 1gig for the XP image 512mb to XP's memory and 512mb to OSX. You will see a performance jump much more profound then any of the other solutions mentioned above.
HOWEVER, there are some discerning voice around about this increasing desire to disable services. i have heard that you shouldn't disable them from services.msc but somewhere else. just for an anecdote, disabling services made msbackup stop working and FOR THE LIFE OF ME i couldn't get it working again. lack of ability to back up almost caused me to lose all my stuff not long ago.
i'm interested what people have said about win2000 tho. that could be worth a shot. got that somewhere