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The End of Windows Emulation

Marble

Marble

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
May 13, 2003
771
5
Tucson, AZ
Will the G4 be the last processor able to emulate Windows through Virtual PC - ever?

From what I understand, the G4 and earlier processors in the family have a built-in mode for processing little-endian instructions. Virtual PC uses this to emulate software at much faster speeds than, for example, x86 users can emulate the PPC (which they currently can't at more than 2 or 3mhz). The G5 does not have this feature.
If enormously fast x86 processors can't emulate even slow PPC processes, what is to think that the G5 will -ever- have the capacity to do so? Everyone seems to expect an update to Virtual PC that will be compatible with the G5, but is there any indication that this is possible? Is this the end of Windows emulation?
 
Microsoft made a statement saying large parts of the VirtualPC program would have to be rewritten... They didn't say it would be done... But they also didnt say it couldn't be.
 
Who would be stupid enough to not sell their software to run on their competitors product? Oh, right, Micro$oft. :D

Seriously though, M$ doesn't make any money on hardware sales (except like mice and kbs). They should be tripping over themselves trying to make their OS run as quickly and flawlessly as possibly on Macs and treating it like any OEM or Upgrade (well, downgrade in this case). But when have they ever done that? That would make sense. Connectix was just lazy. M$, if there's no VPC for G5s...

I'm sure they'll just find some way to blame it on IBM and Apple.
 
If Microsoft wanted to could it create a version of Windows that could be run a installed on G4's and G5's natively? but that would also be compatible with existing programmes for Windows XP?
Could they do this without Apple's 'permission'?
 
No. The ROM has to recognise the OS. Therefore they need Apple's permission to do things as does anyone when it comes to the ROM. But then Apple would probably give the permission to MS months before they asked for it …
 
m$ probably has some sort of trick up their sleeve.

"after two years of tedious development effort we are announcing vpc loghorn for $900 ":eek:

when the do fix it even fewer people will require it.


you can buy a two year old pc and get the same speed that you are getting in vpc for the same price or cheaper.

vpc was useful, but now it look it is going to die a very slow death
 
That's the question... is it technically possible? And will it run even slower than VPC on the current Macs because of processor limitations?
 
I read a post somewhere about someone (so... grain of salt..) who copied RealPC + Windows 95 over from his G3 to his new G5 and he said that is was very fast, faster than VPC on a G4.
 
Originally posted by MacsRgr8
Is this RealPC running in Classic?
The OS X version of RealPC never made it :( .
Click to expand...
I dunno!? Shizzle I'm trying to remember where I read it..
 
But there is always Bochs which happens to run very slow.. But it runs on a G5.

edit: Believe me, Sunday evening or not, it's never easy. :D
 
Who da man? That's right, me! Link. Scroll down a bit or Apple-f "RealPC".

Here is the quote:
RealPC runs on G5

Kris Trexler
A few weeks back I reported that Virtual PC 6 would not work in a G5. But I'm happy to report that when I cloned my old G3 over to the G5, an old installation of Insignia's "RealPC" with Windows 95 came along for the ride. I discovered that RealPC works GREAT on the G5. Of course running Windows on a Mac isn't my favorite thing to do, but I was pleasantly surprised that RealPC is screamin' fast on G5! So if you must run Windows, find and old copy of RealPC. I never saw Virtual PC on the best G4 run as fast as RealPC runs on my G5."
Click to expand...

It could, of course, be BS.

edit: This raises the question, is it illegal to copy discontinued software?
 
U R da man!

Good find.
Now to try to find a copy of RealPC.. (I used to have one once...), and see if it can run in Classic! This could be gr8 news!

Tnx 4 the link, cc bcc! :)
 
I've got a copy of SoftWindows 98 that hasn't been touched in a while and a friend that just bought a G5, I'll see what I can come up with.
 
You'll have to give me a few days, I only see this guy using rendezvous on the school network. I'm sure he'll show up early next week.
 
Originally posted by benixau
No. The ROM has to recognise the OS. Therefore they need Apple's permission to do things as does anyone when it comes to the ROM. But then Apple would probably give the permission to MS months before they asked for it …
Click to expand...

a workaround could involve rewriting and compiling windows as a Mac program (since Windows is basically a program), kind of like VirtualPC environment but without the software go-between. i think it could be done, tho it would be a shoddy product, that doesn't seem to bother MS.

pnw
 
Originally posted by MacsRgr8
U R da man!

Good find.
Now to try to find a copy of RealPC.. (I used to have one once...), and see if it can run in Classic! This could be gr8 news!

Tnx 4 the link, cc bcc! :)
Click to expand...

Hmm... running a Windows emulator on top of an OS 9 emulator... this is "gr8"?
 
Originally posted by Macco
Hmm... running a Windows emulator on top of an OS 9 emulator... this is "gr8"?
Click to expand...

Then inside that you could run an Amiga emulator, a C64 emulator inside that.. Eventually, you'd end up running a UNIX emulator... wait...
 
LOL I know what you mean.....

But what will be "gr8" is the possibility of running a Windowz emu-app on a G5, pretty fast.
VPC is argueably the only "usable" one running on Mac OS X, but cannot run on a G5.
Bochs (never tried it myself) seems to be outrageously slow. So maybe this solution is the best.

Good to have options :)
 
Originally posted by Marble
Then inside that you could run an Amiga emulator, a C64 emulator inside that.. Eventually, you'd end up running a UNIX emulator... wait...
Click to expand...

Lol, but Classic is not a OS9 emulator, Classic apps think they are making OS9 API calls, but the Classic APIs are OS X native. No emulation here. Speedwise it doesn't make a lot of difference if an application is Classic or OS X native.
 
Bochs.......i hate this it has been on the same verions for near enough a year. i thought opensource programmes were meant to come out quicker and more stable. i dont think so!!! all youm people who are talented in writting programms are lazy by the looks of it (hehehehe)
 
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