[Virtualacorn-list] Incompatible host

[T.O.M.S.]

Hi folks

I'll try to tie together several points from the last 5 posts:

- Chris C said:

> Is there any pressing reason why [VirtualRPC] should be in the c drive?

Setting aside that's 
the 'official' location in the VirtualAcorn bible, another thought
is whether the prevalence of SSDs for drive C: means 
it's any quicker? When Jim N
and I were updating the comparative performance data in VirtualRPC In Use last
autumn, we looked at this in more detail on 4 similar 'power' PCs, each running
VirtualRPC on SSDs (C:), SATA3 HDDs (D:) and plug-in USB SATA2 drives (F:).

There was negligible difference in start-up times when running VirtualRPC direct 
from the 3 different media, or in most of the tests listed in Chap 1 of the main
booklet. But on tests when loading and saving large files (say 30MB or more), it 
was noticeably faster on the SSDs - although no more than 25% on the
stopwatch. So *in practice*, my personal view is there's 
not much to be gained.



- Mik T said:

> The problem, of course, is when people mess without really understanding 
> what they are doing... ;)

Absolutely right!!! Recent discussions with Aaron simply confirm that this is by
far his biggest headache - which is another good reason why he much prefers 
people not to change the default location. It must be very, very frustrating for 
him. In trying to assist many punters over the years, the same thing comes 
through loud and clear to us.

Lots of examples, but 
here's a very recent one to make the point. A long-standing
user had installed the *default* installation of VirtualRPC onto his new PC, which
worked fine. But not wishing to 'clog 
up' his 256*GB* SSD drive C: with RISC OS stuff 
(as mentioned in my previous post), he then copied the *default* installation onto
his drive D: before re-configuring it (setting 256MB RAM and several mounts, etc)
and loading it up with all his RISC OS applications and personal datafiles etc.

This became his *working* installation which appeared to work a treat - except 
that the RAM was seemingly stuck at 32MB. He tried everything - e.g. different 
RAM settings (128MB, 64 and so on), loading a fresh Model folder, re-setting the 
RAM on all 3 ARM cores, etc, but nothing worked for him so in desperation he 
emailed us for help (he must have been desperate...)

Any clues anyone?? Oodles of head-scratching - but the answer turned 
out to be that, when starting up VirtualRPC (by double-clicking on the desktop 
VirtualRPC icon), that was still pointing to the *default* installation on drive C: 
- and the Model file in that was still set to 32MB RAM wasn't 
it?? So VirtualRPC 
was doing exactly what was being commanded of it. Seemples or not?

At our suggestion, he deleted the default icon on the desktop, went to the 
*working* installation on Drive D: right-clicked over the VirtualRPC 'cogs' 
icon, 
generated a shortcut to that, dragged the latter to the desktop  - and that then
became the 'proper' start-up shortcut for his *working* installation - which 
started 
up with 256MB RAM and sanity was restored. (As a postscript to this saga, he 
freely admitted he 
didn't entirely understand what he was doing - which is exactly the
point Mik made!! QED...?)

-  Chris N then said (in response the Mik's 
comment):
>> on Andrew's advice I'd switched to using 7500 in preference to SA and 
I'd forgotten 
>> to backup that Model.cfg file.

> He [Andrew] must have chosen that for mine when he set the machine up. I wonder 
> why he prefers that over the StrongArm version. Does he have a reason or is it just
> his policy ;-)

Subsequent comments by Dave S and Mik T are spot on. For us, by far the biggest 
bonus of using the ARM7500 ARM core is that it emulates the real A7000 and 
provides c. 16MB of 'VRAM' which supports lots of lovely pixels in 16M 
tecno-colours. Both Jim and I now run 2560 x 1440 pixel '2.5K' monitors and the
resulting displays are absolutely gorgeous - see Support Article 146 on 
http://www.virtualacorn.co.uk/support/articles/146/index.htm 

As Mik also mentioned, the A7500 ARM core also supports the use of a scroll
wheel under RISC OS, which is nice. The only downside we can think of is that the 
ARM7500 core will not run StrongARM-ONLY software - but does any still apply
to VirtualRPC?

Phew, are we there yet? BTW, 'T.O.M.S' is now a late-T.O.M.S. - it has ceased to be...
We shut up shop last April as with the 4 of us then being aged 75-80, it was all 
getting very silly. But Jim Nott'mum 
and I will keep in touch so HTH. Regards to all, 

Steve Johnson


  


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