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whiteangel

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 29, 2004
115
0
Manchester
If I need to do programming in say .NET. Not that I like to but sometimes you have to do it for money. Will I be able to run Virtual PC on my iBook G4. I was told by the shop assistant that iBook is not powerful enough for running virtual PC. and its so expensive, can I do it some other way besides using Virtual PC?
 

AmigoMac

macrumors 68020
Aug 5, 2003
2,063
0
l'Allemagne
You may wait and give VPC 7 a try, of course depends on the iBook, but a G4 is pretty OK for VPC , IMO, you don't need the last games running there, do you? ;) just get enough RAM...
 

AmigoMac

macrumors 68020
Aug 5, 2003
2,063
0
l'Allemagne
wordmunger said:
If you're not afraid of running X11, you can get something like this, but it will be even slower than virtual PC.

Yeah, but he's asking for speed ... not something to experiment with ... VPC 7 has promised a lot
 

dieselg4

macrumors regular
Oct 20, 2003
196
0
Rockin' Pittsburgh!
I had VPC running on a Powerbook G4 Ti 550 that was half the speed of today's iBook (and that was with 10.1!). It won't be speedy, but you can run it. Have alot of ram.
 

wordmunger

macrumors 603
Sep 3, 2003
5,124
3
North Carolina
AmigoMac said:
Yeah, but he's asking for speed

He's asking if it will run, and if there's anything cheaper than VPC. Yes, VPC will run, and yes, there are cheaper alternatives. Anyone looking for speed should just buy a cheap PC--bottom of the barrel will run Windows better than a loaded Dual 2.5 G5.
 

rteichman

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2003
25
0
I would say it depends on your iBook. I switched from a 800MHz laptop PIII PC to a PowerBook 1.0GHz and 512 MB Ram running VPC 6.0. In making my purchase decision I also considered a new 2.8GHz P4 laptop. At first I was very upset with my decision. Compared to the 2.8GHz machine the VPC emulation was soooo sloooow. However it was only a little bit slower than my old Laptop. Thus I was pissed at spending all the extra money on the Apple (it was about $1,000 more expensive) for a slower environment since it seems I spent ALL my time in the VPC. At the time I was doing VB, .NET, and MS Access.

After almost 2 years, I have come to the point where I would not trade my PowerBook for anything and am very happy with the decision I made. My change of heart comes from the fact that I now spend about 30% of my time in VB and MS Access. Thus I run the emulation for only 30% of my work, and can enjoy the apple features for the rest of the time. At 30% of the time, VPC is more than adequate. The IDE is snappy so you only notice performance issues when compiling or running queries. Large compiles and queries take a little longer but unless you are sitting next to a 3.0GHz PC you won't notice the difference.

If you are only using the PC environment 40% of the time or less, and you have a 1GHz G4 iBook or better I think you will be totally satisfied (just don't EVER compare it to a 3.0GHz PC running VB/Access or you will be sad).
 
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