Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-28, 05:39:Well, a friend (Linux fan) once had to install Windows XP for his girl friend on a Macintosh (using BootCamp ?).
According to hi […]
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Well, a friend (Linux fan) once had to install Windows XP for his girl friend on a Macintosh (using BootCamp ?).
According to him, if memory serves, he was positively surprised that Windows XP ran without issues on that Macintosh.
In fact, he newer saw Windows running so smooth and stable. 😀
And speaking of SoftWindows 98, I wasn't completely kidding - it has a working pass-through feature for Voodoo 1 / Voodoo 2. 😀
So far, I haven't encountered any issue there as well. However, I'm not playing much 3D games also. 🙁
Though for real "gaming" (my English teacher would cry because of that term, btw) a CPU upgrade likely would be necessary (GHz range). 😐
Oh god, I hate responding to forum posts with multiple quote tags.
Eh, that's a different kind of Mac running on a different kind of hardware. SoftWindows 98 runs on PowerPC Macs using MacOS Classic (9.x or below) - it's emulating x86 while working around MacOS classic (which before MacOS X was like a frankenstein Apple equivalent of Windows 3.0 with all sorts of hacks applied to keep it running). If your copy of MacOS classic has all sorts of system extensions and stuff added to it, it's unstable. And given the fact that it's cooperative multitasking, a single badly behaved app can take down/lock up a system.
As for CPUs...you don't play around much with the OldWorld PowerPC Macs, do you? If your machine is old enough to use SoftWindows 98 and a PCI slot to take a Voodoo or 2...eh, it's probably not going to have too many options to have economical Gigahertz CPU upgrades that plays well in OS9 without another system extension added (or if it exists at all).
Bootcamp on the other hand is just multi-booting off x86/x64 Mac hardware - it's just another OS in EFI. Considering that Macs since 2006 has been EFI and somewhat legacy-free, yeah, it would run Windows just fine. Hell, Apple knows exactly what hardware goes into them and can optimize the drivers for them. MacOS X is also a much better UNIX-like OS with modern features like pre-emptive multitasking, so you are comparing a cake...with the contents of the Chernobyl Sarcophagus.
This strategy doesn't always translate to a better experience, though. The 2017+ MacBook Pros have tweaks to their wattage/P-state ramp-up schedules to prevent them from thermal throttling in MacOS (but it also messes with their CPU throughput for the sake of longer battery life/cooler running) to compensate for their rather lackluster heatsink/fan setup - it's an old trick. If you've ever used NoteBook Hardware Control on Pentium-M machines with XP to extend battery runtime/cool the machine down, it's the same idea.
On modern Windows the ramp-up tables/tweaks don't exist (or at least, Apple either didn't do the tweaks or know where to do them), so they'll run faster on higher wattage, hit a thermal wall and then throttle back.
cyclone3d wrote on 2020-02-27, 15:50:Those Seagate SSHDs are junk. I tired a few a couple years ago to try and save money over buying large SSDs. […]
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Those Seagate SSHDs are junk. I tired a few a couple years ago to try and save money over buying large SSDs.
Super slow and might as well just buy an HDD.
You're thinking of the very old Momentus XT, aren't you ? 😉
- That was a 2,5" laptop drive series that was, according to some user reports of the day, plaqued with data loss, noise (constant spin-up/-down),
and a too small SSD cache (4GB ?)... Last thing I heard was that a firmware update was released to address some of the issues.
Eh, even the modern Firecuda SSHD will be crushed by a cheap SATA/mSATA SSD performance-wise. The argument for having them back then is more of an extra, cost effective performance boost for large 3.5" capacity drives (2TB+), and even then, Seagate does something really silly like giving them 8GB SSDs and 5900rpm spindles. Frankly, given a choice between faster response for certain tasks and more capacity, I would rather spend the money on a faster running spindle and more capacity.
For 2.5" drives the price for a 1TB Firecuda is almost the same as a 1TB Crucial MX500, so they are not even that price competitive nowadays.
And like I've said before...for Windows 98 on those old school machines, you don't really need the extra capacity - The PIIX4 southrbridge common to the 440 chipsets cannot address more than 137GB (they are LBA28, not LBA48) and neither can the oldschool ALI M1533 southbridges common to the K6s, so buying them any drives over 128GB is a waste. (Note: yes, you can use the capacity over the LBA28/137GB boundary, but any operation will be done via polled I/O and NOT DMA, so lower throughput, more CPU pegging, bad news bear that you want to avoid. Okay?)
In fact, if you watch Phil's video on the SSHDs and pay attention (which was recorded 4 years ago when SSDs were MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE and SSHD demonstrated a performance boost over normal spinners) you would see that he actually had to manually tweak the BIOS on the 440 based PIII boards so it only uses 32GB (instead of the full 200GB capacity).
Considering that you can buy Vaseky 128GB mSATA drives new today off Newegg for about 22 USD, and mSATA to IDE40/44 enclosures for 15 USD on Amazon, it doesn't make any sense to use SSHDs unless you have them laying around. With the exception of my Thinkpad 560Es and the Pismo Powerbook (both using Class V3 MicroSDXC for easier access to drive contents), all of my retro PATA laptops use the mSATA+cheap SSD approach.