Yeah that should be great! I am trying to install XP, but it stays at 39 mins. for like 12 mins before installing the drivers. Its pretty easy to use-when you pop in a DVD, it automatically boots from it.
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Windows on a PMG5?
- Thread starter KeegM480
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Yeah that should be great! I am trying to install XP, but it stays at 39 mins. for like 12 mins before installing the drivers. Its pretty easy to use-when you pop in a DVD, it automatically boots from it.
VirtualPC 7 is not a multithreaded application. Thus, it'll use only one core. Having a dual G5 is no advantage over having a single G5. Windows XP was faster on a mid-range Northwood Pentium 4 than in VirtualPC 7. Maybe even faster on a Willamette Pentium 4.
FWIW, I was referring to the actual XP install, not the running function/speed. Once the VM is up and running it is a little slower than the Dell Vostro mentioned, but still more than serviceable for my uses.
hmmm... ok. I might just keep running it on the MacBook Pro until I can afford a PC then
Yeah Q isn't all the greatest as I have found out-if you try it go no less that 512 MB RAM and 1 CPU. Its virtually un-usable then. It is an emulated processor which will be slow of course, but it is highly customizeable however. It took me about 3 Hrs. All together to install WinXP with little RAM and 1 CPU. It says you can try Vista, but that would run like a snail on a marathon, seeing as how XP runs sluggishly. You can run any OS under Windows Vista, and even some Linux options. If you install windows, I would do XP with 1024 MB virtual RAM, 2 virtual CPUs.
Afford? There is no reason you can't find a really decent P4 or Dual Core for free, or around or under 100 george washington dollars. Try friends and family first, workplace second, craigslist, ebay in your area, or a reputable computer recylcer third. I recently saw a working dual core with 2 GB of RAM go for 28 bucks. Thats like four trips to Starbucks for a latte and scone.
To add to this, the Goodwill and the Salvation army see tons of unwanted PCs and PC parts dropped on them every day. Most all of it works, it's just stuff people had no idea what to do with so they took a tax write off and got a good feeling for donating.
The Goodwill and Salvation Army just want to move this stuff so you can usually find PCs and parts for less than dirt cheap. We took home a Postscript printer and a PC once for about $40. A lot of times too, the people who process the donations have zero idea of the value of what they are getting. I brought home two 10/100 48 port network hubs once for $10. Rack mountable.
Lots of resources out there.
I don't know if its regional or not, but Goodwill stores around me in Kansas don't accept computers or parts anymore (I guess they were tired of taking out people's e-waste) so you might not bother looking there. Salvation Army still does I think.
I would guess it's specific to an area. Maybe regional.
The stores in Phoenix (Peoria and Glendale too) anyway still seem to be stocking PCs and parts. My wife brought home a $15 USB hub a week ago that she got for me at the Goodwill for $5.
Hello everyone,
I really need to get Windows XP or 7 working on my PMG5, my MacBook Pro is in for its second repair and I need a reliable computer (so ironically I turn to an older one), I have a Windows 7 disk, When I tired running bootcamp, my Mac said bootcamp isn't compatible,
what is? I'm ok with running an application that runs Windows 7, just need to be able to do C++ Programming.
Thanks!
Oh, I am running 10.5.8 and I have to use Windows unless there is a way to run Microsoft Visual Studio, I have 80+ GB to use.
EDIT: Trying to see if anyone has any other ideas? Would love to see if there are any ways you guys can think of that I could run XP or Windows 7 on this. Just for a backup machine, maybe I would use it. Who knows. I have my specs in the signature
I tried this very thing and HATED it. It ran terribly and VPC 7 for Mac did not recognize the CPUs properly and the performance just wasn't worth it in the long run.
I tried this on a PMG5 Quad with 16GB RAM, 2 TB HDDs, running OS X 10.5.8. I'm telling you; it was not a good experience at all.
then my dual 2GHz, 2GB of RAM will be awful. I will look at my goodwill today. See if I can find a cheaper PC.. I haven't owned a PC in so long, maybe it would be fun!
Did you have the latest VPC 7 update? I ask, because there was a specific one that MS released shortly after the initial release that was intended to fix performance on G5s only.
XP Pro was slow on my work G5, but it wasn't crippled and ran decently. And that G5 was 1.8Ghz (single processor) with 4GB of ram. There's also some suggested settings. You don't want to use more than about 256mb of ram and 4mb of video ram. Increasing or maxing it actually degrades performance of the virtual machine.
Ironic update: the Dell vostro bit the dust this morning. I have not diagnosed exactly what is wrong, but i am thinking PS. There is no reaction to the power button being pressed. Good thing I have the PM running.
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Having a quad core won't change anything as VirtualPC is single-threaded... Plus, I don't think there is a big difference between 1.8 GHz and 2.7 GHz as the emulated processor is ~800 MHz. I'm sure with more than the double the frequency, you can do real-time translation to PowerPC. Having 16 GB of RAM won't help too as I think you can only gives 768 MB to the VM. (Maybe less, but clearly less than 1 GB)
I've tried VPC 7 on my quad. It wasn't that good (remember me my old Pentium III 400 MHz with WinXP), but it's not that bad. An updated version of QEmu could probably do a better job. (Not Q, which is a wrapper around QEmu 0.9.0)
OP,
having browsed through the entire thread, I'll dare to venture a heretic recommendation: Get a PC for your windows-based work.
Honestly, the best quality of PC's is that they are dirt cheap. You can get a (hardware-wise) decent new laptop for 400 /$, and even "quality" gear (such as e.g. IBM's, Toshibas and HP's) lose resell value very fast, resulting in that you can get a decent used machine for peanuts.
That is not to say, that the MBP+bootcamp route would not be acceptable - I worked that way for more than a year - but if your ability to work is linked to running windows, you really need a PC as a backup rig if nothing else.
And believe me: you do not want to do software emulation (running intel code on PowerPC hardware) for any length of time.
RGDS,
having browsed through the entire thread, I'll dare to venture a heretic recommendation: Get a PC for your windows-based work.
Honestly, the best quality of PC's is that they are dirt cheap. You can get a (hardware-wise) decent new laptop for 400 /$, and even "quality" gear (such as e.g. IBM's, Toshibas and HP's) lose resell value very fast, resulting in that you can get a decent used machine for peanuts.
That is not to say, that the MBP+bootcamp route would not be acceptable - I worked that way for more than a year - but if your ability to work is linked to running windows, you really need a PC as a backup rig if nothing else.
And believe me: you do not want to do software emulation (running intel code on PowerPC hardware) for any length of time.
RGDS,
THAT is very true. No matter how fast I got XP to work under VPC 7 on the work G5, I had it dedicated to simple non-critical functions. It was good enough to to do that, and those simple chores weren't time critical so it worked.
But using that on a daily basis to get normal work done? No way.
What does that even mean?
You can write a C++ program in a command line text editor and of all the commonly used OOP languages around today it can be the fastest due to the lack of an interpreter.
Hey there E,
Yes I did have the latest update and why I was even more surprised at how slow it was. I made sure not to keep the settings for assigned RAM too high because of that very issue and still had a bad time of it. I still have my VPC7 installation disc and the update .dmg as well, but will not be using them ever again.
Maybe I was just expecting too much from it and that's why I have such a low opinion of running XP through VPC.
LOL! Could be.
It was Windows running on a G5 in 2007 for me, so I was expecting crap!