vpc 7

[Ninja_Turtle]

so vpc 7 is out...but i see nothing that says it takes advantage of graphics card acceleration...nothing at all...wtf, i thought vpc 7 was going to have this feature...this was the reason i was waiting for vpc7 to see if it would actually run counter strike....any comments

[vraxtus]

so vpc 7 is out...but i see nothing that says it takes advantage of graphics card acceleration...nothing at all...wtf, i thought vpc 7 was going to have this feature...this was the reason i was waiting for vpc7 to see if it would actually run counter strike....any comments


Yeah... there's no specific mention... but they claim the redraw is much better... so we'll see how it works.

[Dr. Dastardly]

There was never any formal anouncement saying that vpc 7 was going to sport hardware support, it was just a rumor. A highly plausible rumor though in my opinion and wuld be suprised if it didn't have this.

[ZildjianKX]

Hell, if I can finally play Shadow Warrior on a mac, I'll be happy.

[vraxtus]

Hell, if I can finally play Shadow Warrior on a mac, I'll be happy.


Wait wasn't that the Duke Nukem engine based game? Where you used a sword and threw ninja stars etc?

[applekid]

Let's say don't expect anything big. My gut tells me nothing significant happened as far as graphics acceleration goes. The beta tester I talked to weeks ago said there wasn't much for gamers, not that it's a bad release, in his opinion.

[Ninja_Turtle]

Hell, if I can finally play Shadow Warrior on a mac, I'll be happy.

they did release it on mac...it came with Duke Nukem 3D ATOMIC Edition...cost me a good 10$, but it was worth it :D :)

[TheGimp]

Hell, if I can finally play Shadow Warrior on a mac, I'll be happy.

Shadow Warrior is already out for the Mac. Been out. Seen it at Compusa for $2.99. No joke! (What a lamebrain...)

[Chaszmyr]

I don't think there wasn't ever any reliable source of the rumor that VPC7 would have native video card support, and I for one am not even remotely surprised that it does not.

[Nermal]

It still emulates the old S3 Trio. It is faster though.

[Abstract]

Yep, it does.

What I find even more unbelievable is that people expected to play games like CS on the Mac through VPC 7. Expecting better graphics performance is one thing, but :p

Games don't even play well on Macs, let alone on a Windows emulator on a Mac!

[ijimk]

Do you think i will be able to get away with running Magic the gathering online through vpc 7? Here are the specs...

Minimum Requirements:
Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP or Windows NT 4.0
Pentium II 333 MHz
64 MB RAM
600 MB free hard disk space
Video card able to handle 800 x 600 pixels
(1024 x 768 recommended) and Hi Color settings
DirectX 3.0
4X CD-ROM drive
Sound card
Internet connection (56k or better)
Web browser that supports SSL encryption

Please gimme some feedback. I plan on using machine in my signature. :confused:

[JOD8FY]

What about Age of Mythology? I hope so...

JOD8FY

[gekko513]

Do you think i will be able to get away with running Magic the gathering online through vpc 7? Here are the specs...

Minimum Requirements:
Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP or Windows NT 4.0
Pentium II 333 MHz
64 MB RAM
600 MB free hard disk space
Video card able to handle 800 x 600 pixels
(1024 x 768 recommended) and Hi Color settings
DirectX 3.0
4X CD-ROM drive
Sound card
Internet connection (56k or better)
Web browser that supports SSL encryption

Please gimme some feedback. I plan on using machine in my signature. :confused:
That sounds possible, but don't take my word for it :)

[gekko513]

What about Age of Mythology? I hope so...

JOD8FY
No way. At least not on the setup you have in your signature.

What's wrong with the Mac version of Age of Mythology, by the way?

[boxerchip]

ok so as i have NO expireance with macs what should i expect out of a dual 2.5 with 2 gigs of ram running VPC7? what type of games will i be able to play?

Couterstrike maybe?

[benpatient]

counter strike runs on a P2 400mhz well enough to make a lot of official Mac releases look slow.

But it probably won't play on your dual 2.5 through VPC7 unless there is hardware graphics accelleration support...

[unixkid]

ok so as i have NO expireance with macs what should i expect out of a dual 2.5 with 2 gigs of ram running VPC7? what type of games will i be able to play?

Couterstrike maybe?

at about 10 to 20fps if ur lucky...lol

[MacsRgr8]

Me thinks most important is that there's no mention of DirectX support.

I don't think the grfx card will be used for hardware acceleration at all. The faster screen draw etc. seems to mee be the fact that maybe stuff like Quartz Extreme is used... :rolleyes:

The system requirements are pretty steep.
If VPC 7 is faster on the same machine than VPC 6, then why don't the requirements drop?

[Lancetx]

Me thinks most important is that there's no mention of DirectX support.

I don't think the grfx card will be used for hardware acceleration at all. The faster screen draw etc. seems to mee be the fact that maybe stuff like Quartz Extreme is used... :rolleyes:

The system requirements are pretty steep.
If VPC 7 is faster on the same machine than VPC 6, then why don't the requirements drop?

Maybe because VPC 6 runs under both OS 9 and OS X. It doesn't require as much horsepower to run in OS 9 as it does in OS X. Apparently VPC 7 is now OS X only and therefore it would obviously have higher requirements. That would be my guess anyway. I'm not looking for any dramatic performance increases over VPC 6 though. I hope M$ surprises us, but I'm not getting my hopes up. At least it'll run on G5s now...

[JOD8FY]

No way. At least not on the setup you have in your signature.

What's wrong with the Mac version of Age of Mythology, by the way?

Darn. The only reason is because I already have a PC version of it and don't feel like spending the money on a game I already own.

JOD8FY

[JOD8FY]

at about 10 to 20fps if ur lucky...lol

About how many fps are needed for a game to run "smoothly"? I know that all depends on how you think of "smoothly," but shouldn't 20 fps be pretty smooth? How many fps are needed for a game like AOM not to be choppy/skippy?

JOD8FY

[scottwat]

SO I guess running doom 3 under VP 7 on my orange ibook is out???
Darn the luck!!!

[benpatient]

if it is under 30 fps "average" then you will notice choppiness. If a game runs at a sustained 24fps, it is able to maintain the illusion of motion...that's not the issue. The problem comes from people who average 30 fps but that average includes a bunch of zero-action 60fps time, and a bunch of high-action 5-10 fps time...do you think 5 fps is playable? If at any point during your playing experience, your FPS drops below 20 in a first person shooter in a multiplayer match, chances are very, very good that you just got fragged because of it. That's why counter strike players like to be well over 100 fps even though their monitor's refresh rate (your "true" fps) isn't set any higher than typically 75-85Hz. If you're averaging 150 fps, then you're probably never dipping under 70, which means you're maintaining a very enjoyable experience...unfortunately, any game that has been released in the last 3 years or so will not run at that level on even a dual 2.5 G5 at a respectable resolution (1024x768, let's say).

In fact, the last game that came out (FPS games, anyway) that can manage minumum framerates over 75 fps on ANY apple computer (i.e. the dual G5s with a 9800 or better) is, to the best of my knowledge, Quake 3, or one of its spin-offs.

Not exactly a refreshing gaming environment we have going here in Appleland.

[JOD8FY]

if it is under 30 fps "average" then you will notice choppiness. If a game runs at a sustained 24fps, it is able to maintain the illusion of motion...that's not the issue. The problem comes from people who average 30 fps but that average includes a bunch of zero-action 60fps time, and a bunch of high-action 5-10 fps time...do you think 5 fps is playable? If at any point during your playing experience, your FPS drops below 20 in a first person shooter in a multiplayer match, chances are very, very good that you just got fragged because of it. That's why counter strike players like to be well over 100 fps even though their monitor's refresh rate (your "true" fps) isn't set any higher than typically 75-85Hz. If you're averaging 150 fps, then you're probably never dipping under 70, which means you're maintaining a very enjoyable experience...unfortunately, any game that has been released in the last 3 years or so will not run at that level on even a dual 2.5 G5 at a respectable resolution (1024x768, let's say).

In fact, the last game that came out (FPS games, anyway) that can manage minumum framerates over 75 fps on ANY apple computer (i.e. the dual G5s with a 9800 or better) is, to the best of my knowledge, Quake 3, or one of its spin-offs.

Not exactly a refreshing gaming environment we have going here in Appleland.

Thanks for the info. I'd like to see some benchmarks of VPC 7. Does anyone own it yet? Can you give us an idea of how it runs?

Thanks,
JOD8FY

[applekid]

If anybody read Richard Bannister's post about his talk with a Microsoft official at Mac Expo:

He told me that VPC7 is ~30% faster than VPC6, but that there is no hardware video acceleration; VPC still emulates the same video card as before. He did point out, though, that hardware acceleration will be required for Longhorn and as such will likely be in VPC8. He said it could still run older versions of Windows if required and would be released at the end of the month.

VPC8 it is. ;)

[BrianKonarsMac]

Do you think i will be able to get away with running Magic the gathering online through vpc 7? Here are the specs...

Minimum Requirements:
Windows 95/98/2000/ME/XP or Windows NT 4.0
Pentium II 333 MHz
64 MB RAM
600 MB free hard disk space
Video card able to handle 800 x 600 pixels
(1024 x 768 recommended) and Hi Color settings
DirectX 3.0
4X CD-ROM drive
Sound card
Internet connection (56k or better)
Web browser that supports SSL encryption

Please gimme some feedback. I plan on using machine in my signature. :confused: you are good to go :D.

they basically stated that any game that doesn't require ADVANCED HARDWARE ACCELERATION (i.e. the latest and greatest using DirectX 9), that you should be good to go, then again this is M$ talking...

so M$ plans on supporting Longhorn through VPC? interesting...

[NusuniAdmin]

why pay 100+ dollars for a program like that to play games when u can pay a little more and make ur own gaming rig that will run MANY MANY times better. And if you dl it off p2p then why risk paying 10 thousand dollars to a bunch of lawyers or getting put in jail? Honestly.....you people disgust me and make me ashamed to call myself a mac user!!

[MacsRgr8]

Maybe because VPC 6 runs under both OS 9 and OS X. It doesn't require as much horsepower to run in OS 9 as it does in OS X. Apparently VPC 7 is now OS X only and therefore it would obviously have higher requirements. That would be my guess anyway. I'm not looking for any dramatic performance increases over VPC 6 though. I hope M$ surprises us, but I'm not getting my hopes up. At least it'll run on G5s now...

True.
The fact that Mac OS X 10.3 is needed for G5 support makes one wonder.
Only Mac OS X 10.2.8 is needed for the G4...

If I could get hold of a copy, I'd love to test it on a Dual 1.25 GHz G4, with 1.5 GB RAM, using the same guest OS-ses (Win 2k Pro, and Win XP Pro)

I heard this before: "SourString 4.0.8"

[mattmack]

What about Age of Mythology? I hope so...

JOD8FY
I thought this was released for mac already from macsoft

[gekko513]

Darn. The only reason is because I already have a PC version of it and don't feel like spending the money on a game I already own.

JOD8FY
Maybe the moral police will accept that you download a Mac copy from a "friend" on the internet since you already have a PC copy ;)

[JOD8FY]

Maybe the moral police will accept that you download a Mac copy from a "friend" on the internet since you already have a PC copy ;)

Do you work for them? :p

JOD8FY