OT: Virtual PC vs "Real" PC

[Troy Rollins]

On Aug 20, 2004, at 2:52 PM, Sannyasin Sivakatirswami wrote:

> Question: Is Virtual PC on the Mac a reliable representation of the 
> user experience on a real PC running Windows?

 From a look and feel perspective it is, yes. From a performance level, 
no, of course not. If you have a very powerful Mac, performance becomes 
pretty acceptable... probably figure about half the MHz of your Mac.

>
> Obviously there can be underlying hardware issues that Virtual PC 
> cannot address, but for now just the presentation, font sizes, etc. is 
> what i am looking for and, aside from rev presentations:  viewing web 
> pages in IE5-6 on Windows... to see if the CSS is rendering as 
> expected...

It is fine for that. The interface is actually being generated by 
Windows, not Mac. Again, rendering performance will not be accurately 
reflected, but the final render will.

>
> Does Virtual PC really do a good enough job? Or do I need to 
> requisition a cheap Dell running windows 2000. The "lo-end" Windows 
> user experience would be the target.

I do both. During development I get in my "test early, test often" 
stuff on VPC. Toward the end of a cycle, I usually move the stuff onto 
an actual - especially if performance is an issue... (see the running 
theme here?  ;-)

>
> Which leads to the next question, should we test under 2000  or XP?

That really is one of the beauties of VPC. I maintain a system with 
each, all stored on a single external Firewire drive. Once one of them 
freaks out, grabs a virus, whatever, I just drag a clean and setup copy 
off my archives (it is one file for the whole installed OS with apps 
in) and I'm ready to go again. I also have 2 different Linux 
installations the same way.

There really is no full replacement for having an actual PC, but you 
can indeed do most of your testing in VPC, and for many types of apps, 
even get all the way through shipping based on it. VPC is the only PC 
I've ever owned which hasn't given me fits of rage. (And I used to do 
everything exclusively on PC.)

A tip if you start using VPC - render performance is MUCH improved if 
you set your monitor, or one of them if you have a dual monitor setup, 
to having VPC full-screen, rather than in a window. Probably doubles 
the display updates.

--
Troy
RPSystems, Ltd.
http://www.rpsystems.net