Plan-G in a virtual XP machine

[Haddock]

Hello,

first, I'm a new user here in the forum and also with Plan-G. I hope you can excuse my bad english...

Second, congratulation for that great peace of software. Superb.

Third, I need hints for a better performance running Plan-G in a virtual machine. The details:

I'm running Plan-G (together with WideFS) in a virtual WinXP hosted via Parallels6 on a MacBook Pro. It is connecting by LAN to FS2004 which is running on a real GamePC with WinXP. Everything is running fine except the performance of Plan-G is very poor.

This means changing the map size of Plan-G bigger than a quarter of the screen size results in a response time more than one minute when moving the map or adding details like waypoints, nav aids or something else. During flight it isn't a problem but when making a flight plan these breaks are very frustating especially when making longer flights.

I was trying several configurations for the virtual machine, with one or two virtual CPUs, more or less memory and so on but it doesn't change anything.

So I want to ask here if someone will have some hints for me to speed up the performance of Plan-G. To avoid misunderstandings, I don't want to have all details showing in the map at the same time - I know that the ressources of a virtually machine are limited. What I want to have is only the possibility to have a bigger map size with the possibility to show me nav aids and all size of airports at the same time, and this scrollable in an acceptible time.

Did someone any idea? If you are needing more details please feel free to ask.

Thanks in adcance and many greetings from Germany
Haddock

[tim arnot]

Is there any reason why you can't use Bootcamp? A VM will only give you poor performance at best, since you are trading performance for convenience. Personally I'd use Bootcamp, since you'll be running at full speed and with full resources.

[Haddock]

Hello Tim,

the reason for using a virtual WinXP on the MacBook was to combine the best of both OS. There are only a dozen of Win programs I want to use further on (because there are no alternatives or I don't wanna like to change) but I want them for using directly while working on projects so it makes no sense for me to reboot the OS 20 times a day. So Parallels is a perfect solution for this.

Take a look into the attached picture, you can see that the MacBook is the nearest screen beside my main screen. The 23" main screen is switchable via a KVM switch to the game PC so the Flight Simulator will run there in full screen mode. So it suggests itself trying to use a virtual WinXP on the MacBook, isn't it?  ;)

But after making this constrution it could happen that I miss something in the configurations so that is the reason I want to ask you for hints. Nevertheless it is running best while flying as a moving map, yesterday in the evening it was a great help during 2 hours of multiplayer flying with and without a flight plan. Only during creating flight plans the performance breaks down when you need to scroll and zoom many times.

In the meantime I have find some ways to avoid to much break downs by using a smaller map and less details in lower zoom levels but if someone will have some hints for me he will welcome.  :)

Kindly regards
Haddock

[Haddock]

Hello,

some words as an experience report after a while of using Plan-G in a virtual WindowsXP:

- The startup of Plan-G will be faster when not in full size. In other words: Resizing Plan-G to window mode before closing will speed up the opening at next time. When Plan-G is running the full size mode is recommended.

- Using of less details is recommended, too. As long as you are using the details you are actually needing only the performance is acceptable.

- Best settings for me in Parallels are 2 CPUs and the 1 GB of RAM.


And again thanks again for this great software!

Kindly regards
Haddock