Virtual PC 5.0.2 for X--How Fast Is It?
Version 5.0.1 Update came out with a few critical fixes but it did not address the speed issue under OS X. Version 5.0.2 Update came out a little over a week ago and it did, as we noted, address the performance issue. But how well?
We repeated the OS X benchmarks from our review with Windows ME and Windows XP Home and a few more, i.e. launching the virtual machine (OS), Internet Explorer, Start button, control panel, Windows Explorer and Virtual PC 4.0 Manual PDF in Acrobat Reader v5.0.5. Plus we timed the shut down. Our 450 MHz G4 Cube with 1.5 GB RAM was again the test bed. In addition, Mac OS X 10.1.3 came out since the review so we timed the actions in 10.1.2 and 10.1.3. There is some variability in the times so we reported the average of three trials:
| Windows Ver.-> | Win ME | Win XP | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VPC Ver.-> | 5.0.1 | 5.0.2* | 5.0.1 | 5.0.2* |
| Action | ||||
| OS |
72
|
61(59)
|
121
|
146(142)
|
| Internet Explorer |
21
|
13(14)
|
24
|
17(17)
|
| Start Button |
-
|
<1(<1)
|
-
|
<1(<1)
|
| Control Panel |
6
|
2(3)
|
11
|
5(4)
|
| Explorer |
-
|
4(4)
|
-
|
7(8)
|
| Acrobat Reader |
-
|
44(43)
|
-
|
31(27)
|
| Shut Down |
15
|
15(13)
|
49
|
44(44)
|
Virtual PC 5.0.2 is substantially faster than v5.0.1 in all cases but one, launching Windows XP Home. For some unknown reason, the launch times for XP were consistently some 21-25 seconds slower in v5.0.2 than we recorded for v5.0.1 on the very same computer. Running VPC 5.0.2 in Mac OS X 10.1.2 brings up a dialog box that suggests upgrading to 10.1.3 for more stability. For the most part, the performance of VPC 5.0.2 is the same under Mac OS X 10.1.2 and 10.1.3. Finally, except for start up and shut down the performance of Windows Me and XP Home are similar.
These benchmarks do not really tell the full story. Windows ME and especially Windows XP felt sluggish in VPC 5.0.1. This is not the case in VPC 5.0.2, especially for the second and subsequent times any action is taken. For example, the first time one selects the "Start" button it takes 1-2 seconds for it to show the popup list. But the second and subsequent times the list pops up virtually instantaneously. Launching the Control Panel drops from 5 to 2-3 seconds in Windows ME and launching the PDF file in Acrobat Reader drops by 10-13 seconds in Windows XP Home. Apparently, Connectix has made great use of caching in improving Virtual PCs performance as well as the other performance enhancements noted in their press release.
Unfortunately, we still can not make the shared folder function work. This has worked for us before in previous versions of Virtual PC for Classic Mac OS X so maybe we are doing something wrong--we just can't figure out what. Items drag-and-drop copied from OS X to the VPC window of Windows XP Home still end up in the "Windows tmp" folder rather than on the desktop. However, this works fine with Windows 95 and Windows ME.
In summary, Connectix is to be congratulated for the significant performance improvements in v5.0.2 of Virtual PC. In our review, we cautioned against using Windows XP Home because it was so slow. No longer. We have rescinded our caution--"enjoy" XP Home if you so wish.
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