iMac G3 600 w/Virtual PC and PC Games NEED HELP

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MaxTek's picture
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iMac G3 600 w/Virtual PC and PC Games NEED HELP

I have an iMac G3 600mhz with 640 megs of ram and am using Virtual PC 6.1 with Windows XP.

I was hoping it would be able to play this children's PC game that has these requirements on the box:

Windows 98/Me/XP CD
Pentium III 700mhz or 100% compatible, 256 MB Ram, 500 MB hard drive space, 32 MB DirectX compliant video card, DirectX compliant sound card, 8X Speed CD-ROM Drive, DirectX 9.0 (included on CD and installed).

The error I am getting when double clicking the game icon is: "Could not find any compatible Direct 3D devices."

Click OK and that's it. The game won't go any further. Is it hopeless?

MaxTek

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since windows is running unde

since windows is running under software emulation you will be hard pressed to get games with the system requirements of a P1 133 to run properly or even at all. and since VPC dont do Direct 3d that will limit you even further.

i tryed to play shadow warrior in VPC 4 and 6.1 running windows 98 and even in DOS and it was like i was trying to play it on a 386 25mhz system if that.

VPC was made to run word and other app's for pruductivity and not to play games on as if you can already tell. there is a huge diffrence running somthing on emulated hardware than running it on actual hardware.

you might be able to play a old DOS game that requires a 486 66mhz and just be useable if it will even play at all.

VPC is emulating everything that would be in a PC like video card, CPU, BIOS and a few other select hardware components.

the video its emulating is S3 virge DX and has no direct 3d capability's (meaning there is no 3d acceloration) or a non 3D accelorated card. which you will never get to work cause everything is being emulated and the video it is emulating only supportd direct draw if you can even call it that.

so Games on VPC is a no no, you might be able to get a real low system requirement game to run (486 25mhz or 33mhz) IF it dont require direct 3d. or a DOS only game.

now if its web browsing or word prosessing or another app of the like it will run ok. cause that is what VPC was made for.

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That is a great explaination, thanks!

That is a great explaination, thanks!

Let me ask you this than....I am running another children's PC game pretty good with Virtual PC 4. It's requirments are:

Windows 95/98, Pentium 90mhz CPU or higher, 16MB Ram, 4x CD, Windows 95/98 Comaptible Video Card, Direct X Version 5.2 (included) Windows 95/98 comatible sound card.

This game runs pretty good and is why I picked up the newer good mentioned above and upgraded my Virtual PC to 6.1 and XP.

Is the requirements pretty ancient for the second game and that is why it is running on the same iMac?

Thanks again,

MaxTek

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yea since the games requireme

yea since the games requirements are so low VPC can handle it. and those old games like that dont use Direct3D they use direct Draw which is software rendering basicly and sinve that is what VPC will do it would have no problems playing that. you can go maybe up to a game that requires a P100-133mhz as long as it dont use direct 3d.

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There's only one way to play

There's only one way to play PC games...... and that is on a Windoze PC.

VPC works OK for some things but games are definitely not one of them.
You can always get a cheapo $10 PC to run those old games.

I like playing games and have had to face the fact that I need a PC if I want any kind of selection of games.

Jon
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I concur. I've built up a $1

I concur. I've built up a $10 P3 machine that came with a Win98 COA on the side just to play a few games and run kids software for my kids. WINE didn't work with half of the stuff I've got, and the CodeWeavers Crossover Office was slightly better, but not enough to be worth while. So I dual booted the machine with Win98 and Ubuntu and games run very well in Win98. Of course now I'm reminded just how often the stupid thing locks up. It's frustrating to be in the middle of a game that doesn't save often (GTA2) and get stuck when the machine hard locks so bad it doesn't even get a BSOD. In Linux the machine is rock solid. Oh, how I wish WINE worked better...

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Re: I concur. I've built up a $1

I concur. I've built up a $10 P3 machine that came with a Win98 COA on the side just to play a few games and run kids software for my kids. WINE didn't work with half of the stuff I've got, and the CodeWeavers Crossover Office was slightly better, but not enough to be worth while. So I dual booted the machine with Win98 and Ubuntu and games run very well in Win98. Of course now I'm reminded just how often the stupid thing locks up. It's frustrating to be in the middle of a game that doesn't save often (GTA2) and get stuck when the machine hard locks so bad it doesn't even get a BSOD. In Linux the machine is rock solid. Oh, how I wish WINE worked better...

Well than let me ask you this; with the game requirements in my orig. post above what type of PIII or PIV should I get. I would prefer a used laptop from Ebay. Can you make a suggestion? Dell, Compaq, etc and Windoze 98, 2000, XP. Obviously I don't want to spend too much just for PC childrend's gaming.

Thanks for all the answers.

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Laptop VRAM

I bought an old PIII 550MHz board and CPU off eBay and put it in an old ATX case I had lying around. I used an old PowerComputing ATX PSU, a Sony CD-ROM out of a B&W G3, and a couple of old beige G3 IDE drives. With the generic Nvidia 32MB card I think I have a total of about $20 in the beast and it plays GTA III and Vice City pretty well running W2K Pro.

The problem you will run into with a laptop will be lack of video RAM for the games even if it has a fast enough CPU. It's the same with Mac laptops as well and I don't think you can upgrade the VRAM on most.

I don't know much about PC laptops but the older IBM Thinkpads sell for more than most others so I would assume they are some of the better PIII laptops.

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i do know that the first vers

i do know that the first versions of VPC going up to VPC 2.x emulated a 3dfx voodoo2 video card which supported direct 3d and glide API's but i dont think it runs in OS X and even if it did still you will be limited on how high the system requirements are cause it is still emulating the pc hardware.

also you will be limited on what OS you could run cause the 3dfx was not supported in windows xp i cant remember what OS dropped support for the 3dfx. but what ever OS dont support the 3dfx is the os you cant use to a degree. you might still be able to use direct 3d API cause i had a 3dfx voodoo 3 2000 and windows xp and only could do direct 3d cause the 3dfx was unsupported. i think i had to use 3rd party drivers to be able to use direct 3d.

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