Running Virtual PC on Power Book - Mac-Forums.com

Traveler · 11-09-2005, 01:52 PM

I haven't yet got rid of my laptop since I need to run some windows only programs. Im thinking of buying a PB and run VPC. How well does it run? It it worth buying or shuold I just use my pc laptop for windows only programs?
Any sugestions.

Cheers.

11-09-2005, 01:59 PM

I have no experience with it but many people tell me it is a lot slower than if you just run your programs on native windows versus vpc. My parents use vpc and I haven't heard any complaints from them. I guess if you can deal with the loss of speed then you should be fine.

inflexion · 11-09-2005, 03:11 PM

I think it depends on what you want to do with it TBH my mate used it fine but then again he had a DP 2.5Ghz but said that was like a low/mid end spec PC so a PB should be fine depending on what you want to do with it

Traveler · 11-09-2005, 03:48 PM

im going to run just programs that have very few images, mostly words.

mig.gentry · 11-09-2005, 04:30 PM

I used VPC on a 1ghz iBook with 768Ram and it was very slow. I dont know if there's a way you can test it first but it's quite an annoyance, i was just running spreadsheet type stuff and it sucked.

Unless your in urgent need i'd wait til the intel Macs come out and you can dual boot OSX and Windows, problem solved

11-09-2005, 05:40 PM

with text only programs it should be fine.... god i havn't been on these forums in months

11-09-2005, 10:42 PM

Out of curiosity....when Apple roll-over to Intel processors.....is VPC expected to run any better? Will the Intel chips use x86 the same as PC's?

11-10-2005, 04:59 PM

Emulating on a 1.67GHz Powerbook, VPC runs @ 133MHz. Yes, that's mega

11-10-2005, 05:22 PM

I ran VPC 6 on my iMac 800, with 512 of RAM. It was a bit slow, but your specs wil be wa better than mine, and as long as you're only using office-type apps it shouldn't cause any trouble. What VPC does not do well is graphics. Don't expect to use any sort of photosop type apps.

mynameis · 11-10-2005, 06:22 PM

VPC is not worth its high cost.

What apps do you need that are Windows only?

baggss · 11-10-2005, 07:29 PM

I've run various versions of VPC over the years, they all pretty much suck. Your best bet is to save the cost of VPC and buy a low end PC for the PC only stuff you want to do, it will be easer in the long run.

You COULD wait for the Intel macs and then just run a duel boot machine or perhaps even run Windows Apps on the rumored virtual machine.

Kyomii · 11-10-2005, 07:44 PM

If you turn off all networking in VPC, (so it will not connect to the net) it runs quite a bit faster. Even more so, in the case of XP, you will notice a difference in speed if you turn all the eye candy off.

Meyvn · 11-14-2005, 11:55 AM

If you can, I would definitely recommend using Windows 95 or 98 instead of a modern OS. That should help considerably. (Plus, it's much cheaper). I'm considering doing that to run a very old, basic strategy game on my PB. If I do, I'll post my results.