Emulators

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Not console emulators, but OS emulators. I heard someone who had just gotten a mac G5, and saying that the emulator for Windows was so good blah blah blah.

Supposedly they're as fast as a good PC and a crash of the program it's running doesn't kill the computer.

Is he just repeating what the ad said or is this true?

[mossoi]

It's true that a crash doesn't kill the computer because it's running under the existing OS and as such isn't directly controlling resources. It's not true that it will run better than an equally powerful PC though. As the Windows emulator is running on the Mac OS it's having to "use" Mac OS to access the computer resources. This adds a middle man to the whole thing and will slow it down by default.

[MolecularMan14]

I've thought about having different OS's on my comp, where u would select one before booting up (ie-choose between Linux, Windows XP, or Mac) Does anyone know a good source for this type of thing?

[Mad Mardigan]

Get a copy of Partion Magic 8, partion off a section as unallocated, the NTFS for the windows partion. Then install linux to the unallocated part and build in the dual boot, RH9 is easy to set up.

[MolecularMan14]

sweet, is it easy to work with? do you have a link or should I just look it up on Google?

[Mad Mardigan]

Its not difficult to do, just partition off a small portion of your drive to unallocated, if you have a 100gig hdd, try like 20 gigs if you dont need the space, and install Linux to that portion. When installing Linux, it will ask you all sorts of stuff as far as the boot loader. I know a couple of people that had problems with Suse destroying there windows boot loader while installing. But I havent had a prob with Red Hat. Fedora Core 2 is supposed to be good, but its not free.

[Guest gtzpower]

I run Linux Mandrake 10. Very good OS, and free. You're never going to get MacOS, Windows, and Linux to boot natively (not emulated) on the same machine.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes, but the question was how well emulators work, not how well you can dual boot.

[5614]

emulators work very well.... but will not make the computer run faster, if a program crashes 'inside' the emulator, then the emulator is still running fine, just the 'inside' part of the emulator isnt, so shut down the emulator which you can as the emu is still active and the re-open/start it.

(should work in theory, never actually done it)

 

just adding to the dual booting, dual booting is very easy, just instal your second OS and on boot up you get a black screen saying press 1 for OS-X and 2 for OS-Y, easy as that.

[MolecularMan14]

that sounds awesome. How exactly can I do that?

[5614]

which bit? installing a 2nd OS??? dunno, never done it, seen it done, learnt about it.... search

 

dual-booting

dual operating system

 

from what i hear its quite simple, just have your first OS, insert your 2nd OS install disk and install it, it should automatically make new partitions and so on.... if not you will need to (presummably) make a new partition for the 2nd OS.

but that may be auto-done on installation of the 2nd OS.

[drz]

well, its a bit different with a linux/windows dual boot. I was told to install older OS first, but most likely you would want to install Linux to a machine that already has windows. During the Linux installation, it will ask you about installing a "Boot Loader", sometimes called "Li-Lo" for Linux Loader. This will be a screen that comes up soon after you start the PC, and give you a choice of the various OS's installed.

 

I've had multiple OS's on a single machine before, its not difficult at all, but you want to have a good understanding of computers.

 

As to emulators, I tried some a few years back, but it was a mac emu for windows. It worked great, better then comparable macs at the time. I once tried a windows emu in linux, but didn't have much luck with it. As has been mentioned, it will of course be slower, as you are running an OS inside an OS. OS's hog alot of resources, and while the emu is running on virtual resources, (and software representations of hardware) the performance will not be that great.

 

Although, if your purpose is to run MS word, performance is not an issue. If you are wanting to play an IBM compatible game, it probably won't be too pretty.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Ah, so if I want to emulate something it has to not take up as much system resources?