So you have your mind set on playing at an online poker room that hasn’t previously offered suitable Mac client such as Party Poker and Pokerstars. What tricks or special programs are there to make this possible and how do you use them to manipulate your Mac so you can play online poker? Fortunately for you, a few companies have developed products for problems just like this.
What is a PC Emulator?
A PC emulator is a virtualization suite that Apple Mac OS users use in order to play Windows type software programs on their Mac. This allows Apple Mac users to execute any program that was exclusively designed for Microsoft Windows.
The existence of PC emulators is good for us Mac poker players because most of the online poker rooms, such as PartyPoker and PokerStars, have ignored the fact that Apple Macintosh poker players even exist.
What Options Exist for PC Emulators?
The most notorious and dependable PC emulator is Microsoft Virtual PC. VirtualPC was originally created by Connectix, and subsequently acquired by Microsoft. With its solid reputation and dependable stability, Virtual PC can be used to play at nearly every online poker room that offers a .exe (Windows) file.
Virtual PC is capable of running Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, and XP on a Mac OS. Nearly all online poker software (including Party Poker and PokerStars) and other software applications, such as Microsoft Office, run seamlessly with Virtual PC.
Virtual PC simply runs as a separate window on your Mac OS. It allows users the option to change from Mac OS or Windows OS by clicking the icon on their Apple computer. You may also cut, copy, and paste information from one OS to the other.
Of course, virtual PC is quite slower than a typical Windows compute, but it is the fastest PC emulator available. We have noticed that, strangely, Virtual PC seems to run Windows 2000 faster than Windows XP.
So if you are set on playing online poker at a site such as PokerStars or Party Poker for Mac, then we encourage you to take the next step by doing more research and purchasing this unique product.
Virtual PC has several different versions available, with different prices for each.