Review: VPC Running Windows on a PPC Mac
Whether or not you are willing to admit it most of us have the occasional Windows application that they like to run. On a Power PC Mac you cannot install windows natively like you can on the new Intel based machines. Yesterday I found out that it is possible to run windows on a PPC Mac. You just have to install Virtual PC (a Microsoft product) which is an emulator that emulates a P2 and allows you to run Windows as a Virtual OS.
If you do any web design work for the web it is crucial that you be able to view how a site will look in Internet Explorer as well as browsers on the Mac such as Safari, FireFox, Flock, Camino, etc. You could use BrowserShots (www.browsershots.org) but that takes time. It can take anywhere from 1 minute to 4 hours for a screen shot to be captured with BrowserShots so you can see the issue there.
Today I installed Windows XP Professional on my Virtual PC and I also installed the additional tools so that my mouse could interact with both Windows and OS X without having to command-tab to get out of Virtual PC. I have a dual display setup now so I have VPC on my secondary display running in full screen. It’s pretty cool to have OS X on one screen and Windows XP on the other.
In order to use Windows I move my mouse over to the secondary display and I have access to everything. This is really an excellent alternative to purchasing a new Intel based machine. If you do any gaming however, I am sure it will not be sufficient. It will more than likely be very slow. I have noticed some lag on VPC when you open a large program or go into system settings, etc.
While used as a general tool (browser, IRC, etc.) I would give VPC an A+, for gaming… well try gaming on a P2 with 512mb ram and you tell me. I have thought about upgrading this Quad G5 to the new Mac Pro but I cannot justify the $1000 expense and I would get a machine with slower specs than this one. The combination of VPC and my PPC machine works for my situation. I just wish someone could emulate faster than a P2.
