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Oh my god, VPC 7 screams!

BornAgainMac

BornAgainMac

macrumors 604
Original poster
Feb 4, 2004
7,429
5,568
Florida Resident
I just installed Microsoft Virtual PC 7 and ran my Windows 2000 setup. It has Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft PhotoDraw, Microsoft Money 2003, Digital Image Pro 7.0, Microsoft Streets 2004, Microsoft Project, Paperport 9. My G5 has 1 GB of memory and I allocated 256 MB for Windows 2000. I have experience with Virtual PC 4, 5, and 6. I originally used a G3 with Virtual PC 4 under OS 9 to run Windows and some DOS programs.

Office starts up faster, the screen refreshes like a normal PC. I am blow away how much faster it is compared to VPC 6 on my Powerbook. My favorite graphics program is the discountinued Microsoft Draw Program and it runs just as fast as the PC that I used originally with it. It's fast enough to make me want to try Visual Studio .NET next.

Perhaps it isn't as fast as a real PC of today. When I read the reviews of VPC 7, my expectations were very low. People that say VPC 7 is slow haven't tried VPC on a G3. That is painfully slow in comparsion. The speed compared to an average PC with business apps is more like comparing Safari with Firefox. It's really nickpicking to say that VPC is too slow. I have seen slower PCs used as a primary PC from other users compared to VPC on the mighty G5.
 
I am curious to know exactly what exact G5 machine you have and what model Powerbook you have. Virtual PC 7 will undoubtedly feel many times faster than previous versions of VPC especially if you are using VPC7 on say a dual CPU G5 and your refference is a G3 Powerbook. Virtual PC 7 on even a Dual 2.5Ghz G5 is slow. Try playing back a wmv or MPEG file in Windows Media Player or quicktime. Try playing a few audio files as well in itunes, Windows Media Player, or Winamp. You most likely will get choppy results or the CPU will be so maxed out that even opening another app or Window for that matter will take awhile.
 
Office starts up faster, the screen refreshes like a normal PC. I am blow away how much faster it is compared to VPC 6 on my Powerbook. My favorite graphics program is the discountinued Microsoft Draw Program and it runs just as fast as the PC that I used originally with it. It's fast enough to make me want to try Visual Studio .NET next.
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Comparing VPC 6 on your PB to VPC 7 on your G5 is not really acurate to how much better 7 is to 6. I had VPC 6 and 7 on my PB and both felt the same. I was using windows XP with all the bells and whistles turned off, but it still felt slow. I then tried windows 2000. While 2000 is faster then XP, the speed is still slow. I compare VPC as to when I ran Windows 2000 on my old 150mHz laptop (yes is ran, but it was painfully slow).

Perhaps you should try to run VPC 7 on your PB then you can see a real comparison of how much (or should I say how little) of a improvement was actually made. You will see that most of the speed comes from VPC running on your G5.
 
BornAgainMac said:
I just installed Microsoft Virtual PC 7 and ran my Windows 2000 setup. It has Microsoft Office 2000, Microsoft PhotoDraw, Microsoft Money 2003, Digital Image Pro 7.0, Microsoft Streets 2004, Microsoft Project, Paperport 9.
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If you say Microsfot one more time I am going to have to SLAP you!!!!! heh. . . well its good to hear that VPC 7 works well. I have been running 6 and it is about as fast as a Pentium II (ie SLOW) but i have been running XP, you should try installing XP to see how the performacne is. i would be curious to know, maybe it is worth installing 2000 to speed up VPC!! (i would try it, but i dont have enough room on my PB to install both XP and 2000)
 
I've noticed the same, although 3 things changed:
- VPC 6 to 7
- win XP to Win2000
- got a dual 2.5 G5 desktop (oh yeah!!)

I think the biggest speed increment occurred with changing to Windows 2000. I was running VPC 6 with win2000 on my 1.25 PB, and for non-graphic intense productivity programs, it ran great, no problems at all. Have not tried to watch video, listen to audio (why would I do that when I have a Mac?!?!?), only to use Access and a few other programs.

This is a critical issue for some people (including myself, who switched earlier this year). Being able to run some business / work programs was a big factor in the feasibility of leaving the "dark side" of computing.
 
I'd like to see the dxdiag numbers. My dual 800 with VPC 5.x using 512 MB shows up as a Pentium MMX running at ~533 MHz.
 
I wish I could say I have a prototype 5 Ghz G5 but I have a 2 Ghz first generation G5. I haven't compared VPC 7 on my 1.5 Ghz PB yet. I refuse to run any audio, games, or play video on my emulated PC because I use my Mac for that. I am a regular gamer on my Mac and use Quicktime Pro and iLife all the time. I don't even want to play video clips or audio on a real PC anymore. Windows is too boring and weird for video and music. :)

I only use apps that aren't available for the Mac like Access. Because Office 2000 is small, I installed everything. I still prefer Word 2004 on the Mac but I like Access better than File Maker Pro and Money over Quicken for the Mac. I turn off all that annoying tutorial audio with MS Money.

When I ran VPC 6 on my Powerbook, the screen updates bothered me. It was still usable but it didn't blow me away like VPC 7 on my G5. It reminded me of IE running on Mac OS X 10.0. Sort of frustrating.

When I upgrade my G5 memory, I am going to run Virtual PC from a RAM disk to see how fast I can get it to run. I heard a rumor that Microsoft was going to do that with Virtual PC 8 but I don't see why it can't be done with 7. Perhaps they will supply the Ram Disk utility with version 8 with syncing to disk that is transparent to the end user.
 
On my quicksilver VPC seems to run 2000 alright, that is with 512 of RAM for the PC, but when I try Linux or BSD it slows way down. VPC is definately made for a Windows OS to be on it, everything else doesn't seem to be able to cut it. Does VPC screem for me, hell no.
 
Tips with Virtual PC

Never run XP with Virtual PC. The screen overhead is too much and the additional features like .Mac iDisk utility, Service Pack 2, Movie Maker, and later version of IIS isn't worth the performance hit. Windows 2000 is much leaner for emulation. Disable the Windows networking if you don't need it so you don't get hit with viruses. Also don't install Norton Utilities and Anti-Virus software. It's not needed on a disabled networked Windows on a Mac. I am sure those utilities will slow down any PC.

Use your Mac or dedicated PC for networking, audio, video, graphics and games.
 
Sedulous said:
Dell OEM OS discs don't work.
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Not quite true. Some work, some do not. Jut depends if its a disc that detects what computer its going on. I've used some before where as some have not.

jon
 
Sedulous said:
Dell OEM OS discs don't work.
Click to expand...

Mine (XP Home from 2001) did work. But I wouldn't say that it screams . . . It kind of waddles alone, but works in a pinch.

I pretty much only use VPC for running AutoCad 2000 when I am away from my PC. Its alright for using occasionally, but I would hate to be dependent on it.
 
My XP Home CD from a Dell Inspiron 1100 works fine in VPC (and doesn't ask for a CD key). On my system (1.25 GHz G4 with 1.25 GB memory), VPC 7 (OS 10.3) is slower than VPC 6 (OS 9.2.2). The reference is Final Fantasy VII under Windows 98 - it's *just* playable in VPC 6 and is horrible under 7.

VPC 7 won't run under OS 9. I guess 7 is faster than 6 under OS X, but that's not really a 'real-world' comparison for me, because since I run 6 under OS 9, 7 is slower.

Sorry about the mess of numbers and versions, hopefully you figured out what I meant. :)
 
Windows 3.1 takes only 1 second to start

Just for fun, I started up a DOS session and then tried Windows 3.1 and it started up in under a second. I wish I still had 16-bit software. All the mini apps run like they are in memory. I couldn't get this older version of Windows / Dos to work unless I set the ram to 32 MB. Perhaps someday, Windows XP will startup in a second in another 15 years on future hardware under emulation. Perhaps Mac OS X will be considered the classic mode in 15 years when something new is out.
 
I read this thread and thought that I would give VPC7 another try with win2000. I have tried it under Xp and it was just to slow.
Well I do have to say that I was impressed with the results. I have been trying to switch to the mac and get rid of my windoz machine all together. I only have to turn on my windoz machine for backing up my dvds. I have tried all the mac software in numerous combos to no avail. On the windoz side I LOVE DvdShrink and guess what Now I Have It On the MAC............Thanks

BYE BYE Windows Box.................
 
I don't know what you guys are talking about. I'm running VPC7 on a dual 1.8 w/ 2GB RAM and 10.3.7 - it's pretty fast. No, it doesn't run the latest games, but Quake 1&2 run great and it's nice to play around with the Windows-only emulators of Gamecube, playstation, etc
 
I noticed my 1.5 Ghz Powerbook felt slower than my G5 with Virtual PC when it comes to disk access. I know my Serial ATA drives on my G5 are much faster than the drive in my PB. The PB had slower bootup times and slower at starting programs, etc.. This means storing a disk image in RAM will help in theory because it's a thousand times faster than disk. Also change the color resolution from 24bit color to 256 colors can help.

I'll have to check out Quake. I was happy to see the original Doom game work fine. I have many games that work best from DOS or only work with Windows 95 and/or 98. The speed should be enough for those classics.
 
fast my butt!

dvdh said:
It kind of waddles alone, but works in a pinch.
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Virtual PC 7.0.1 (including the XP Pro disk image) runs like crap on my Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 (2GB RAM, 256MB Radeon 9800XT), personally I don't think it was worth the money I paid for it. I'm hoping there's an update soon that brings some real speed to it. The comments above about using a GameCube emulator on it nearly made me fall off my seat laughing. I have enough trouble dealing with windows drawing in, I don't know what magical pixie dust was added to TheGimps version but I'd like some!
 
risc said:
Virtual PC 7.0.1 (including the XP Pro disk image) runs like crap on my Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 (2GB RAM, 256MB Radeon 9800XT), personally I don't think it was worth the money I paid for it. I'm hoping there's an update soon that brings some real speed to it. The comments above about using a GameCube emulator on it nearly made me fall off my seat laughing. I have enough trouble dealing with windows drawing in, I don't know what magical pixie dust was added to TheGimps version but I'd like some!
Click to expand...

If you can, try it with Windows 2000. WinXP is so bloated, I doubt it will ever run well under emulation.
 
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