Enhanced compatibility and speed highlight Connectix's emulator
When Virtual PC was first announced more than a year ago, the hype it created spread like a wild fire. Within days, rumors that it would revolutionize the cross-platform bridge with unheard of speed and compatibility were everywhere. In reality, though, when Virtual PC finally shipped it ended up offer no significant speed gains over SoftWindows 95, although itss price and enhanced compatibility that came from emulating a PC and not an OS highlighted the emulator. Now Virtual PC is entering its second generation with a speedier outlook and even more features.
Virtual PC 2.0 maintains 
the previous version's ease-of-installation and setup by auto-configuring Windows 95 and setting defaults values for the preferences. Upgrading from Virtual PC 1.0 requires just a couple of mouse clicks and a few minutes, as the updater creates a new VPC application and places the updated extras in their appropriate places. Since Virtual PC 2.0 emulates a new video card, the S3Trio32/64 (which supports up to 4 MB of VRAM instead of the previous 2 MB limit), the Windows 95 CD must be used to update the drivers. If you have Techworks's Power3D installed, which VPC 2.0 supports, the appropriate 3Dfx drivers must be installed as well.
Virtual PC 2.0 places all of its settings in a convenient preferences screen which enables you to customize the emulation to suit your needs. More RAM can be allocated by the user, networking can be toggled on or off, and the MMX portion of VPC can be disabled to allow applications which are not MMX enhanced to run faster.
Improved Performance Connectix touts Virtual PC 2.0 as being up to 40% faster than the original, although admittedly those performance gains are primarily experienced on a G3 equipped machine. With 50 MB of RAM allocated to it as opposed to the 15 MB minimum, VPC 2.0 2.0 did prove to be faster, reducing the time to launch Windows 95r2 from 59 seconds to 44 - a 25% gain - on 604/150 equipped with 1 MB of L2 cache.
Word 97 took under 10 seconds to launch and VPC 2.0 did not lag while text was being typed, even when inputted at 100 words per minute. General tasks, such as screen redraws and scrolling still sputtered along like in the original VPC, but did exhibit more fluidity. Other general applications, ranging from Lview to Internet Explorer launched and ran at acceptable speeds, albeit as slowly as one would expect from an emulator.
Processor intensive applications, on the other hand, didn't fair as well, as Adobe Photoshop 4 and CorelDraw 8 crawled at an unbearable rate while completing complex tasks. But as Connectix points out, VPC 2 isn't designed for the purpose of running such programs but rather as a means to work with PC applications when necessary. The one exception to this rule, it appears, is games. VPC 2.0 is being strongly pushed as a gaming emulator, with full sound and joystick support and a DOS version retailing at under $50. Playable performance was achieved in games such as Command and Conquer (although the movies were jerky) and Worms 2. By itself, VPC 2.0 can't handle the complexities of 3D games such as Tomb Raider 2 or Quake 2, but support for the Power3D card means that owners of the popular 
3Dfx Mac solution will be able to. Under the default graphics options, Virtual PC achieved an average of 15 FPS in GL-Quake 2, more than an ample amount to enjoy the game and its astounding graphics. Unfortunately, since VPC 2.0 only supports the Power 3D, other 3Dfx cards such as Village Tronic's 3D Overdrive are not compatible.
A Real Cross-Platform Solution When it came to integrating the Mac environment with the PC, the original Virtual PC fell short, offering one-way clipboard exchanges and tedious file transfer methods. Version 2.0 puts an end to the cross platform limitation of its predecessor. Transferring files from one environment to another is as simple as dragging the Mac file onto the PC desktop and a new 2-way clipboard that supports both text and graphics has been implemented. VPC 2.0 also has enhanced serial port support which now supports 3Com's PalmPilot in the PC environment. Configuring your Mac's printer and modem to work under Windows95 remains a straight-forward process which is covered in detail in the manual.
Virtual PC 2.0 is a solid upgrade to Connectix's already popular emulating solution. Most new users won't quite experience the "walk down the PC aisle ready to buy" idea that Connectix conveys, but as a means of integrating a network, running PC-specific applications, or just having fun with games, VPC 2.0 is the best software-based solution on the market.
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 SRP: $149.99 w/ Win95, $49.99 w/ DOS, $35 Upgrade |