Virtual PC has a much more polished user interface, handy LED-style indicators that show whether hard-disk or network activity is going on, and many smaller usability details. And although neither emulator has any problem running a variety of basic Windows software, contemporary games really want to run on actual PC hardware.ĭespite their similarities, the two emulators differ in some significant ways. Virtual PC had no compatibility problems with the networking software we tested, although it requires a second IP address in addition to the one already assigned to the Mac and can't use an extant Mac PPP connection.īoth emulators use large Mac files as their virtual hard disks both also have a quick-launch feature that lets you put the Windows environment to sleep and reawaken it without having to go through the full boot process, though Virtual PC's implementation of this feature is more than twice as fast as SoftWindows 98's. The downside is that SoftWindows 98 is incompatible with some networking software. But running the emulators with applications that make heavier use of networks points up some compatibility differences. How to play PC-88 and PC-98 gamesĪnd their performance is remarkably similar: our overall benchmark scores show a difference of just 5 percent between the two.

That said, both emulators are fast enough and compatible enough for quick forays into the Windows world. Unfortunately, our lab testing made one thing abundantly clear: if you need to run resource-intensive Windows software, emulators aren't for you see ' Emulation in the Slow Lane '.

But depending on the application, you may be able to use a software emulator running on your Mac rather than having to use an actual PC. Like it or not, because much of the software that's available for the PC lacks a Mac counterpart, you occasionally need to turn to Windows applications to get your work done.

Pc88 emulator for mac