Boring Blog Episode 2
Hello ladies and gentlemen. So this unexciting blog continues my never ending waffling about computers that no-one really gives a flying fuck about.
So as I mentioned last issue. I bought a new Dell Inspiron 3525 laptop before Christmas. I ran Linux on it for two weeks and then I returned it to windows 11 which its where it is currently.
A friend asked me was I annoyed at Windows yet and to be honest I really don’t have any major issues. Do I miss Linux well lets just admit I can’t say I miss at all.
So what nonsense have I been messing with. Well as the Macintosh 128k was 40 I was going to do something Mac based. So I could have downloaded Basilisk II/Sheepshaver but nope. Mini Vmac would be appropriate given the Mac in question, once again no.
I was playing with VirtualBox trying to get it to run Mac OS 12.0 (Monterey) I was following various guides and after 5 hours of playing about I still couldn’t get it beyond the EFI boot kept failing.
I had tried many different fixes and it really wasn’t working. I then moved to VMWare Player. Originally I went to version 15 but upon changing the vmx file to apply the fix it crashed the player and refused to let it go on.
I found WMware Player could be updated to version 17 which I did and the fix allowed the installer to work. It then took forever to install. Then I let it upgrade to 12.7.3 which took another 2 hours.
This was a project I intended to be an hour ended up being over 9 hours playing with various virtual machines.
Now I have managed to install WriteRoom 3.21 on it also now considering this is a Ryzen 7 5700U system. It runs Monterey about the speed of a Pentium. You can literally type and watch the delay as the buffer updates.
So 9 hours for the slowest VM in history. That’s with it set at 8GB Ram and using 4 processor cores. Ridiculous.
Also while I was playing with emulators. I have been playing with PCSX2 (Playstation 2) emulator and have been playing most of the Burnout franchise.
It works fine but when I tried using EPSXE (PlayStation 1) what a nightmare as half of the plug-ins just refused to work.
I did try Xemu(Xbox emulator) I did try running Project Gotham 3 Racing but it wouldn’t even get above 15 frames per second making the game unplayable.
Given this is a Ryzen 7 I was thinking what the hell does it need to get it working better. My suspicion is the Vega 8 graphics card is just not up to snuff. Once again potato graphics cards used in laptops.
I was going to try Xenia (XBOX 360 emu) but given how bad the Xbox emu was I thought against it.
So one day I will get a decent desktop and run a decent video card but I am sure that’s going to be a cold day in hell before that.
Any way that’s enough waffle for now until next time … Take care
