Virtual PC - how good is it?

[AtomBoy]

Does anyone know of a good website that lists which programs run well on Virtual PC?

Or can anyone here who uses VPC advise me?

I have tons of PC software, some of which I'd like to use on my Mac, but reviews of VPC tend to be very conflicting and don't state which programs ran well and which ones didn't.

Or will everything that runs on a native windows OS run in the VPC environment?

Has anyone used WinMX on VPC? Does it work? I hate the p-to-p programs for the Mac and still use my old PC for this.

Thanks

Sorry, I'm a dumb newbie...I previously posted this question in the software rumors section!!

 

[cb911]

i've got VPC and i had Win XP installed, and it ran reeaaaallllyy slow. and i've got a TiBook 667 with 768MB RAM.

i also have Win 98 on VPC and it runs better than XP.

and as far as i know, all PC programs should run on VPC.

if you want to know more, you can always do a search. i know there are a couple of VPC threads in the General Mac Discussion and Mac Questions forums...

good luck

 

[SilvorX]

ived used XP on vpc b4...its pretty slow, but it works, but most ppl recommend either win 2k or 98 on vpc, if u give it enough ram it should work fine, and most of your appz would work fine..im getting a dual 867 soon maybe

just use 2k probably, xp is full of ugly luna gui

 

[iGav]

I use VPC 5 point something or other running Windows 2000 Pro, I mainly use Director just to tidying anything up for cross platform development...... and yes VPC is slow..... much slower in OSX than OS9 though!!

 

[evildead]

VPC, thoughts on

VPC Works pretty well considinging its emulation of an OS on top of another OS. Yes it is slow, its a RAM hog, and you have to have a pretty beefy Mac to run it with resonable proformace. As the other said... WinXP runs reall really slow.. not worth working with at all (or at least on my 867G4 with 1.2GB RAM).

As for Apps... almost anything that runs on Windows will run on Windows under VPC. The lastes versions of VPC will let you even Sync your Palm. I dont know about things like DV and such. Printing works pretty well too. As for P2P.. they work just fine. Most use internet protacalls that are generic.. its just a GUI ontop of some old technolgy. As long as you can get your internet connection from your mac to VPC.. no problem. I have never had any problems... VPC V.3 to V.5. I have run tons of apps on VPC and my only complant is speed.. but you have to expect that. Oh... games dont work out very well... the newest games are really bad..

The only app that I could not get to work with VPC was TASM.. an x86 Assembler... but that is to be expected

-evildead

 

[MarkW19]

Originally posted by iGAV
I use VPC 5 point something or other running Windows 2000 Pro, I mainly use Director just to tidying anything up for cross platform development...... and yes VPC is slow..... much slower in OSX than OS9 though!!

There are issues with VPC 5 and OS X - a lot to do with the preemptive multitasking that the X Darwin kernel uses. By default, VPC doesn't seem to take advantage of all the power available on the CPU, it isn't given top priority - but it seems that instructing it to specifically do so improves performance considerably.

Launch VPC in OS X (10.2 recommended), then open Terminal, and type "top".

This lists all currently active processes/applications - at the side of "Virtual PC", take note of the "PID" at the left of it. This is the process ID allocated to Virtual PC when it was launched.
Then, type "sudo renice -20 <pid of VPC>" (without the quotes obviously). This instructs OS X to give top priority to Virtual PC - a lot of users have noticed a big difference in performance after doing this. You'll probably have to do it every time you launch VPC though.

Hope that helps - let me know if it does!!

 

[AtomBoy]

cb911. SilvorX, iGAV, evildead, MarkW19

Thanks for the advise guys, that was really helpful. I think I'm going to go ahead and get VPC this weekend.

I'll try out your suggesstions Mark, as soon as I have it installed and let you know if it shows any improvement.

 

[SilvorX]

Re: cb911. SilvorX, iGAV, evildead, MarkW19

Originally posted by AtomBoy
Thanks for the advise guys, that was really helpful. I think I'm going to go ahead and get VPC this weekend.

I'll try out your suggesstions Mark, as soon as I have it installed and let you know if it shows any improvement.

hope everything works out ok, im currently on a peecee, and vpc/vmware was pretty handy from time to time....especially when i wanted to install linux lol, even tho it was laggy, but then again i do have only 192 megs of ram lol

 

[Choppaface]

vpc is nice, but for a couple more hundred dollars you can get a full blown PC. I've never gotten really decent performance out of VPC, but then again it's not really something designed to play games on or do graphics work on anyways. I'd choose new hardware over new software any day....

 

[LimeiBook86]

VPC is good...

Virtual PC is good but not "great" See nothing is better than the original. If you copy a PC (emulate in this case) it just won't be the same. It works sorta slow under Windows XP, I have a G3 iBook 466 (320mb RAM) and my Dad's G4 450mhz (700+ RAM) and it still runs slow. You guys probably have faster Macs, but these are the only macs I have the program on, I'm not gonna put it on my Power Maicntosh G3 333mhz 128mb RAM 8GB cu8z it couldn't run well, if it would run at all. I think u need at least 400mhz to run it. VPC is ok, but... eh I don't even know anymore....

 

[buffsldr]

atomboy, i havent had real good results with vpc. it works okay, just slow.

off the topic... your address says japan. where in japan are you? I will be in tokyo and nagoya next week.

 

[AtomBoy]

Hi buffsldr,

I'm in Shizuoka, half way between Tokyo and Nagoya.

 

[buffsldr]

Originally posted by AtomBoy
Hi buffsldr,

I'm in Shizuoka, half way between Tokyo and Nagoya.

Well, AtomBoy, as I race by on the ShinKanzen next week, I will look for you out the window. Lol

 

[awulf]

VPC 5.0.0 keeps crashing my computer in OS 9. And it caused a kernel panic in OS 10.2.

I run win 98 on it and it runs pretty fast, it runs better on OS 9. I have a PM G4 466.

 

[dricci]

To anyone using VPC, I highly suggest upgrading to 5.0.4. It helps A LOT with speed. Also, give it as much ram as possible, and renice it to -20 for more processor time to go to it. Also, make sure no other apps are running in the background, and Windows 2000 Pro seems to be the best for VPC, Avoid 95, 98, Me, and XP.