Hi all,I'm a seasoned PC hardware enthusiast and have been building my own PCs for 5-6 years now. About two months ago, I ventured into the world of Macs as I found the exterior look of the Mac mini too hard to resist. I also wanted to see what all the fuss about the Mac OS X was about. The more I use Mac OS X, the more I love it. (For those of you who are skeptical or unsure, see http://www.anandtech.com/mac/. There are some fantastic articles there about using a Mac from a PC user's perspective.)The problem with the Mac mini is that it's very slow compared to my PC, even when doing simple things like Web surfing and e-mail. (Bear in mind this is a completely unfair fight. My PC is a P4 Northwood 3.4GHz with 1GB RAM and an ATI 9800 Pro while my Mac mini is a 1.25GHz G4 with 512MB RAM and an ATI 9200.) So, I'm tempted to invest in a new Power Mac G5 (dual 2.7GHz, 1GB RAM and NVIDIA 6800 Ultra DDL). My only hesitation is that I still want to play FS. Upgrading my PC *and* buying a new Power Mac G5 seems rather exorbitant. Has anyone tried playing FS9 with Microsoft's Virtual PC for Mac? Is it even possible? If so, what are the frame rates like? I expect frame rates with a Mac would be lower than with a PC but is it still at least playable at 1600x1200?Many thanks in advance for any insights!Edwin

Hi Edwin, you probably know that FS doesn't support multithreading yet, so the dual-CPU Mac will probably not do too much for you. Otherwise, I'm also curious whether others have tried to go down the Virtual PC route. I recall somebody who was working on a similar project for Linux (perhaps do a forum search?) but haven't heard anything since. The Mini-Mac indeed looks like a nice alternative for our daily requirements and a couple of friends have gotten one too. Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hi Edwin,Don't even go there (virtual PC). It will be so slow as to be unplayable. Keep your PC for flying and the Mac Mini for everything else. I have a G5 at work and just purchased a Mac Mini for home, and to be honest the Mini really doesn't seem that much slower. Granted I have the 1.45GHz with 512RAM, and haven't tried rendering 3D files yet, but am very satisfied. Do you have a broadband connection? I haven't noticed any slowdown online.Hi Jaap,Did you get my last email?Edwin, one other thought occured. If you really have the incurable desire to use your Mac for flight sims, maybe check out X-Plane. It's looking very good: http://www.x-plane.com/Take care,Todd

Todd - Thanks so much for your comments. I do have a broadband connection and downloading files is as fast as on my PC so I'm quite sure it isn't to do with the connection itself. It's the scrolling in Firefox that bugs me a lot. I can never get a smooth scroll as I do on my PC (or even on my P4 2.8GHz with 256MB RAM here at work!) I'm guessing it's to do with the weak graphics chip on the Mac mini? The scrolling is slightly smoother in Safari but I like my Firefox extensions so I'd rather stick with Firefox. Application startup times are slow but acceptable although I'm sure a faster hard drive would help. Incidentally, upgrading to Tiger gave me a slight but perceptible improvement in the overall feel of the machine. BTW, these aren't complaints at all - you get what you pay for and given the price and specs of the Mac mini, I wasn't expecting it to be as fast as my PC. Just that now that I've tried and started to love the Mac, I feel I'm ready to move up to a Power Mac.And thanks for your suggestion on X-Plane. But I think given your comments, I'm going to consider upgrading my PC and buying a Power Mac but with the same budget. Not the ideal since I'd rather invest all my money into one very high-end machine but given my needs, I suppose I have no choice.Jaap - I realize the dual CPUs won't help FS. It was more for everything else I do on my computer. The thing about the Power Macs is that you can't get a single but high-speed CPU. Once you go higher than 1.8GHz, you have to go dual. Thanks for your comment anyway!Edwin

@ Edwin, I'm glad Todd jumped in and added X-Plane which I completely forgot. I'm slowly but surely melting down for an Apple too. The only real reason I run Windows are games. @ Todd, yepp, got it. If all goes well, I'm off to the post office tomorrow. I thought the little extra was less elaborate... Darn computers! Hehe Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hi Edwin,As far as scrolling, I use a wheeled mouse on the PC and Mac, so I really don't see a difference. And I also use Firefox on both.Cheers,Todd