Windows emulator for Mac?

[k8track]

As you know, we Mac users are always getting the shaft (e.g. there is no Mac version of Kazaa; the Hotrod joystick won't work on a Mac; etc, etc.). It's especially frustrating this time because there's a program I really want to use, and there's no Mac version. I bought a Cuttle Cart a while back, with the intention of eventually getting a computer with a CD burner, so I could convert my 2600 roms from bin to wav format, and burn them onto a CD. I just recently did get a nice new (Mac) computer and was all set to do just that, and then when I went to the site that has the makewav utility, discovered that it was PC only. Argh. However, I did write Chad Schell, author of the Cuttle Cart (and a very friendly and personable guy to boot!), and he suggested that I might try using a Windows emulator for Mac.

Hmm, that's intriguing. A Google search did confirm that yes, those things do exist and they appear to work. Before I plop down any cash and download anything, can anyone here recommend any particular one? Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing? Any info is appreciated.

[rbudrick]

Virtual PC is all you'll ever need. It is incredible...nothing it can't do except for certain complex 3d graphics (no 3d card emulation).

Yours,
Rob

[norkusa]

Yeah, I have Virtual PC 5 for my Mac with Windows 98 and it works great with Kazaa Lite. (for some reason, I can't install the full version of Kazaa on VPC). Forget about using any emulators/applications with it though because it runs SOOOO slowly. All it's really good for is running Kazaa and transfering PC files to and from your Mac.

Virtual PC 6 just came out and it supposed to run 25% faster when used with OS X Jaguar, but thats still way too slow for any pratical use. Although, I'm only using a 500 PowerMac G4 with 256Mb of memory, so I don't know how well Virtual PC works with newer, more powerful Macs.

[icbrkr]

Yeah, I have Virtual PC 5 for my Mac with Windows 98 and it works great with Kazaa Lite. (for some reason, I can't install the full version of Kazaa on VPC). Forget about using any emulators/applications with it though because it runs SOOOO slowly. All it's really good for is running Kazaa and transfering PC files to and from your Mac.

Virtual PC 6 just came out and it supposed to run 25% faster when used with OS X Jaguar, but thats still way too slow for any pratical use. Although, I'm only using a 500 PowerMac G4 with 256Mb of memory, so I don't know how well Virtual PC works with newer, more powerful Macs.

On my PowerMac 733Mhz with 512MB, it runs *dog* slow. It's unusable pretty much. I tried it on my work's 800Mhz iMac, and again, still unusable. RealPc (http://www.fwb.com/) will be out for OS X shortly, hopefully it'll be faster. I end up just switchboxing to my XP box when I need to use it.

Brian

[oesiii]

I just installed VP6 today. That 25% faster is a bunch of crap, probably if you're running one of their test programs but you won't notice it in real world use.

Still it's a great emulator, my setup runs decently on my 800mhz G4 with 640MB and Jag 10.2.5. You really need all the memory you can put into OSX. Windows 2000 does everything I ask of it even if its slow, I even get in some 2600 emulation (Z26 a great emu doesn't have a Mac port :) )

[NoahsMyBro]

Well, I don't know how helpful this will be, but several years ago a friend of mine got a brand-new Mac with a *hardware* PC emulator inside. It was effectively a PC-on-a-card plugged into the Mac motherboard. Some hotkey-combination switched the Mac over to PC-land and back again. It worked much, much faster than all of the various software Windows emulators I've ever seen on the Mac.

I don't know if that product still exists, but if so I highly recommend it. Although I suppose for this one purpose buying one would be a little unrealistic.

[FABombjoy]

Well, I don't know how helpful this will be, but several years ago a friend of mine got a brand-new Mac with a *hardware* PC emulator inside.

Not so much an emulator as it was a seperate card with a 486/66 with it's own RAM. Kinda neat at the time, now they're relics. A fast Mac should emulate x86 faster.

I used to use VPC on a G3/350 and it ran better than you guys are indiciating. Of course, this was with Win98 installed on it. I would imagine that Win2k would run like hell under any type of emulation, regardless of CPU speed.

[Jorpho]

If you want something free, I think there's an OSX version of Bochs available.
________
No2 Vaporizer Review (http://no2vaporizer.net)

[TRM]

Once again, I would recommend Virtual PC also. It works really nice from when I used it.

[rbudrick]

I have a 600-mhz imac running Jaguar and it runs pretty damn well. You may want to defrag you mac to make it run faster....macs are usually so fragmented cuz there is no built in defragger. Norton Speedisk is good for this.

-Rob