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Author Topic: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator  (Read 8237 times)

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Offline MotormouthTopic starter

What is the best software PeeCee emulator???

PCTask, PCx, Emplant e586(I know this used the emplant board for timing, but the x86 code was still emulated) or other(not including bridgeboards).

My personal experience is primarily with hardware emulators, bridgeboard which are not really emulators, more or less real PeeCees on a board and mac emulators.  I have alot of experience with Jim Drew's Mac emulators (ie emplant, emplant pro, and Fusion) all which I love, but these don't need the CPU to be emulated.

Are any of these fast enough and accurate enough to be useful let us say with a fast CPU expansion like the vampire?
 

Offline B00tDisk

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2017, 06:40:22 AM »
Quote from: Motormouth;824612
What is the best software PeeCee emulator???

PCTask, PCx, Emplant e586(I know this used the emplant board for timing, but the x86 code was still emulated) or other(not including bridgeboards).

My personal experience is primarily with hardware emulators, bridgeboard which are not really emulators, more or less real PeeCees on a board and mac emulators.  I have alot of experience with Jim Drew's Mac emulators (ie emplant, emplant pro, and Fusion) all which I love, but these don't need the CPU to be emulated.

Are any of these fast enough and accurate enough to be useful let us say with a fast CPU expansion like the vampire?


Here's a video (albeit not a good one) of Descent 1 and Doom 1 running on an A600 with Vampire, from about summer of last year.  Doom runs better than Descent, but neither one exactly flies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8RPyupsfUk

Another, this one showing Windows 3.1.  Performance is markedly better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW22WqZLTMQ

Magic Carpet, also through PC-Task.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QQuEqSejPw - it's not awful, but there's better ways to play it...!

Windows '95:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP5cxaiXI3c

From the video description:

"The speed corresponds to a real 386 SX cca. 33 MHz, but in many operations it is even slower. Of course for real use it is still not enough. Tested with resolutions 640x480 and 800x600 both in 16 colours. In 256 colours show the famous blue screen of death."

Finally, here's some positivity: X-Wing for the Mac, being emulated in ShapeShifter on a Vampire.  Looks as good as it ever did on a well-specced PC of the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xUsHhACfwA
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Offline MotormouthTopic starter

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2017, 07:03:26 PM »
Oh, there is one more software PeeCee software emulator DOSBOX for amiga.  I had no idea that there was a DOSbox version for the Amiga.

@B00tDisk
These are useful videos!!!!
The Amiga ports of DOOM and Descent for the amiga appear to be the way to go!!!!
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2017, 07:23:32 PM »
There's actually 2 different versions of Dosbox for 68k Amiga. Novacoders AGA 0.74 version and an older RTG/0.58 version.
The older version is temperamental though. When it works it works fine, but it often crashes when 1st launched. Setting a large stack improves things a little, but doesn't guarantee it won't crash.

I've not used the emplant emu, but my experience with the others is there's no best as such, they all have pros and cons and different software will favor one over another.
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline B00tDisk

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2017, 06:43:03 AM »
Quote from: fishy_fiz;824627
There's actually 2 different versions of Dosbox for 68k Amiga. Novacoders AGA 0.74 version and an older RTG/0.58 version.
The older version is temperamental though. When it works it works fine, but it often crashes when 1st launched. Setting a large stack improves things a little, but doesn't guarantee it won't crash.

I've not used the emplant emu, but my experience with the others is there's no best as such, they all have pros and cons and different software will favor one over another.


I think until 68k FPGAs get stronger you're still going to be out of luck for robust x86 emulation on the Amiga in pure software.  Even so, it isn't just a matter of grunt, but rather what's being emulated, and the emulation software itself.  There's no sources available for PC-Task (or PC-x) and they're not actively being developed any longer - DOSBox is seeing some progress, but that's a horse of another color: it is purely for DOS Emulation although with some pluck you can get ancient versions of Windows (1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11 and '95) running on it.

A full-featured tool like perhaps Bochs is what you'd want if you want to do more than noodle around with old DOS games and a shaky install of Windows...if it's a larger library of older albeit more widely known productivity apps you're after I think the best emulation experience on the Amiga (in pure software) is MacOS through Fusion or ShapeShifter.
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Offline MotormouthTopic starter

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #5 on: April 19, 2017, 03:06:47 AM »
Quote from: B00tDisk;824713
I think until 68k FPGAs get stronger you're still going to be out of luck for robust x86 emulation on the Amiga in pure software.  Even so, it isn't just a matter of grunt, but rather what's being emulated, and the emulation software itself.  There's no sources available for PC-Task (or PC-x) and they're not actively being developed any longer - DOSBox is seeing some progress, but that's a horse of another color: it is purely for DOS Emulation although with some pluck you can get ancient versions of Windows (1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11 and '95) running on it.

A full-featured tool like perhaps Bochs is what you'd want if you want to do more than noodle around with old DOS games and a shaky install of Windows...if it's a larger library of older albeit more widely known productivity apps you're after I think the best emulation experience on the Amiga (in pure software) is MacOS through Fusion or ShapeShifter.


Alas,  It looks like I will stick to my Bridgeboard for PC emulation, not a bad problem to have, but it does effect what amiga the vampire goes into when it eventually gets here.  I am leaning heavily toward the A2000 rather than my A500+.  This is primary due to the expansion cards.  Things like the bridgeboard and an A2065.

I cannot wait to see how the vampire will cut through Fusion..........   Will the vamp in an amiga + fusion or shapeshifter be the fastest 680x0 mac out there.  I think youtube videos already show this!!!!!

@Jim Drew don't worry I will be using fusion with an Emplant board :-)
 

Offline fishy_fiz

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #6 on: April 19, 2017, 05:57:40 AM »
One thing I'm curious about is x86 emulation for 68k mac under shapeshifter or fusion. It could give a few more options. From my browsing a few months back when I looked into it there was Softwindows, one other commercial product whose name eludes me, and surprisingly a 68k Mac qemu port from a few years ago.
There may be others, but that's what I found.
Haven't yet got around to trying any of them though.
Near as I can tell this is where I write something under the guise of being innocuous, but really its a pot shot at another persons/peoples choice of Amiga based systems. Unfortunately only I cant see how transparent and petty it makes me look.
 

Offline psxphill

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #7 on: April 19, 2017, 02:17:47 PM »
Quote from: B00tDisk;824713
I think until 68k FPGAs get stronger you're still going to be out of luck for robust x86 emulation on the Amiga in pure software.


Someone could write a x86 JIT for 68k. Accurate VGA emulation will be a much harder problem to crack, although anything that just uses VESA framebuffer modes should be fine.
 

Offline bbond007

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2017, 02:33:19 PM »
Quote from: psxphill;824790
Someone could write a x86 JIT for 68k. Accurate VGA emulation will be a much harder problem to crack, although anything that just uses VESA framebuffer modes should be fine.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought PCTask & PCx already do JIT.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2017, 02:39:35 PM by bbond007 »
 

Offline trixster

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2017, 02:46:35 PM »
Tomb Raider in PC-Task on an 80MHz 060

https://youtu.be/QzKC0Aafnw8
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Online zipper

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #10 on: April 19, 2017, 03:44:13 PM »
Doesn't differ much from what I got running it on 50 MHz 060.
 

Offline Fransexy_

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Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #11 on: April 19, 2017, 08:00:50 PM »
Quote from: Motormouth;824612
What is the best software PeeCee emulator???

PCTask, PCx, Emplant e586(I know this used the emplant board for timing, but the x86 code was still emulated) or other(not including bridgeboards).

My personal experience is primarily with hardware emulators, bridgeboard which are not really emulators, more or less real PeeCees on a board and mac emulators.  I have alot of experience with Jim Drew's Mac emulators (ie emplant, emplant pro, and Fusion) all which I love, but these don't need the CPU to be emulated.

Are any of these fast enough and accurate enough to be useful let us say with a fast CPU expansion like the vampire?


To me the best is PCTask; it's a pity that is no more in development and it has not been open sourced
DON\'T TAKE LIFE SO SERIOUSLY AFTER ALL NOBODY GETS OUT ALIVE OF IT
 

Offline Pentad

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #12 on: April 19, 2017, 08:14:12 PM »
I too thought PCTask was very good back in the day.  I remember having Windows 3.0 or 3.1 running in it when I was at university and people were impressed.

I could be wrong but didn't the author also have a blurb in the manual (like in the fine print) about how pirates can burn in hell and other colorful metaphors? I'm fairly certain I remember reading that either in the manual or maybe in one of the text documents on the disk.

Good times,
-P
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Offline paul1981

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #13 on: April 19, 2017, 10:02:58 PM »
Quote from: trixster;824792
Tomb Raider in PC-Task on an 80MHz 060

https://youtu.be/QzKC0Aafnw8


I've seen this before and I was impressed. Tomb Raider native 68K would run rather well if it existed.
 

Offline Oldsmobile_Mike

Re: PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator
« Reply #14 on: April 19, 2017, 10:05:07 PM »
I'd imagine that would be much smoother if running at less than full screen.  Too bad they never ported a native version!  :(
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