Hard Cider Index

by Don Engstrom

onnectix has done it again. The folks that brought Windows to the Mac and doubled just about everything from RAM to web surfing have recently released Virtual Game Station®. Virtual Game Station®, or VGS for the truly hip, emulates Sony's PlayStation®, opening a new world of gaming options for a platform that has been ignored all too often. To test out VGS properly I headed down to the local video store and rented an actual PlayStation as well as several games, some on the Recommended Game List at the Connectix site and some not. As of this writing (2-23-99) the list contains over 160 titles. I then resigned myself to spending the next few days playing games on both setups, the curse of this job ; - ) I installed VGS on four different machines: A Power Mac 9500/200 (nowhere near meeting the minimum requirements but thought I'd try it...), the "Rev. B" and "Rev. C" iMac and a pre-Yosemite Power Mac G3/300. I also attempted to run VGS on several Yosemite G3's without success but more on that later.

Installation/Customization - Went quickly and smoothly on all machines. Installation involves three steps, installing custom ATI drivers, updates for those drivers and finally the Virtual Game Station® program itself. After restart all you do is start VGS and pop in the game CD when prompted. At any time you can hit the escape key on your keyboard to pause the game and access the menu bar. From here you can configure the controls to any key combination, reset the game in progress and set the volume independently of the system volume. I stuck with the default key combination and, with no previous experience with Gamestations virtual or otherwise, was up and running in no time.

Gameplay - Was smooth on all G3's. When I started VGS on the 9500 I was politely informed that my machine didn't meet the minimum requirements and was given the option of continuing or quitting. I should have opted for the later as it was quite obvious that the processor just couldn't keep up with the demands of the game. Back to the G3's though. As I said gameplay was smooth on all the models. I didn't experience any dropped frames or choppy sound during the games' full motion opening sequences or any time during gameplay. After pausing a game for a long time you may experience a slight lag on restart. This is due to the CD spinning down and represents a small annoyance in an otherwise very satisfying game experience. The graphics fall slightly short of the quality of Sony's Actual Playstation®. On the G3/300 curved lines and some surfaces appeared slightly jagged. On the iMac's this was less pronounced. I suspect this is due to the monitor having a higher resolution than the TV's the games are intended for. It would be interesting to run VGS on a machine that has video ported to a TV set.

Yosemite Problems? - While the graphics were quite good in the G3 machines I had tried, I was curious to see what improvement, if any, there would be in the new Yosemite G3's with their ATI Rage 128 accelerators. I headed down to the local computer store, disks in hand to find out. Unfortunately I hit a roadblock. I fired up VGS on one of their Blue and White machines and popped a game in. The music came on but no video. I paused the game and tried resetting it. Same story, no video. Another machine wouldn't accept the CD and kept spitting it out. I checked out Connectix's Virtual Game Station® Site but there was no mention of problems with the new G3's. MacFixit has several reports of problems with VGS on the new Power Macs. Several people recommended disabling the 128 3D extension as a fix. We haven't had a chance to confirm this.

Conclusions - I would strongly recommend Virtual Game Station to any gamer with a G3 machine. It opens a whole new world of game options especially in the sports area where Mac development has been dismal. By the way, even though it's not listed as an approved game Speed Racer works just fine. Go Speed Racer go! If you are planning on doing some serious gaming on your Mac do yourself a favor and buy this program. Make sure you have a set of good speakers with a sub-woofer. I wonder when Connectix will come out with an emulator for my old Amiga computer....

Editor's Note: Connectix will not guaranty the performance of VGS on machines that have been upgraded to G3's citing the limited bus speed as a bottleneck. Some clone manufacturers beg to differ. We would be interested in hearing from anyone using VGS in an upgraded machine. Is the gameplay smooth or choppy? How is the sound? Visit our Community Bulletin Board and tell us what you think. If anyone can tell us how to get VGS to run well on our 9500....

Addendum: I have been in contact with the folks at Connectix. The version they sent for review was 1.0. The current version, 1.1 supposedly fixes the compatibility problems with the blue and white G3's. Check back here for a review of Version 1.1 on the blue and whites. Click here to download the updater. Also a reader pointed out that there is an Amiga Emulator available, thanks for the tip Reginald!

Virtual Game Station Update

The folks at Connectix were kind enough to send the latest version of Virtual Game Station® our way which they said included a fix for the problems with the blue and white G3's along with an improved installer. Once again I rented a couple of games and headed down to the local computer store to investigate. Here is what I found...

Installer - Nice improvements here. With v1.0 installing the ATI drivers was a little intimidating. You had to select a custom install (XClaim VR - Rage Pro) and ignore a warning message the installer generates when it "cannot detect appropriate hardware." After completing the first driver install you then had to run a separate installer to update those drivers. Not a big hassle but a little clumsy. With v1.1 there is just the one ATI driver installer and the default (easy install) choice is "Install ATI Drivers for Connectix VGS." No warnings, no worries. All that's left is to install the Virtual Game Station program itself and restart your computer.

Gameplay/Graphics - I rented another "unapproved" game, Tomb Raider III, to see how it would perform. Since I was operating outside of the envelope I decided to test on a 400MHz machine. See our notes below on the approval process games go through at Connectix. Although it didn't make their cut, I was pleased with the smoothness of gameplay. All of the problems I experienced on the Blue and Whites with version 1.0 had indeed been fixed. The opening sequence was stunning and scrolling within the game was free of stutters. While the graphics in the pre-recorded opening sequence looked great, during gameplay there was still a little roughness to surfaces that should have been smooth. This is a minor complaint and I was soon too focused on trying to get Laura past spike pits and out of quicksand to notice.

Approved vs. Unapproved - Two of the four games I rented for this review are not on the list of recommended games at Connectix's site although they worked fine on the machines I tested. This lead me to wonder what the criteria were for getting on the list. Here is what I found out... Connectix tests games on a stock 233MHz iMac. They look for things like dropped frames, choppy audio and how well audio and video sync up. Each of criteria is given a score of 1 to 10. Ten would equal gameplay equal to an actual Playstation and one would probably be closer to what I experienced when trying to run VGS on my 9500... Scores are then averaged and anything short of a 9 is cut. While this guarantees that any game on their list will work great on any G3 (and I commend them for taking this approach) it also means that there are a lot of games that would probably work quite well on more powerful systems. Connectix may soon restructure their list of recommended games, sorting them by processor. This would allow users to look up games that will work on their specific machine.

Conclusions - With Version 1.1 Connectix has brought the new Yosemite G3's into the fold and simplified the installation process. The new version is also supposed to expand game compatibility as well. Don't let omission from Connectix's game list steer you away from a particular title. I would recommend renting titles you are thinking of buying to see how they play on your machine. Keep an eye on the Connectix site as well for a more detailed game list.

Thanks to the folks at ComputerWare Capitola for letting me try VGS on their computers.