PCTask vs PCx vs Emplant e586 what is the best PeeCee emulator

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I'd imagine that would be much smoother if running at less than full screen.  Too bad they never ported a native version!  

[nicholas]

Tomb Raider in PC-Task on an 80MHz 060

https://youtu.be/QzKC0Aafnw8

Tomb Raider on a Vampire 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHM2i_53kHE&t=19m

It's atrociously slow.

[zipper]

Wow, 1/12 fps....

[psxphill]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought PCTask & PCx already do JIT.

I guess I didn't keep up to date. PC task 4 does (it doesn't seem to appear in the pc task 3 manual) and the commercial version of PCx does.

[Motormouth]

It looks as if quite a few of you have experience with PC-Task......
I tried it may may years ago, but this was an early version.  I do remember I could get it to work with the picasso II at the time, with I could not with Emplant e586, using the pre-cybergraphx (obvious also pre-picasso96)  rtg drivers that came with the picasso II.

I find it interesting that the tomb raider results on the native 68060 80Mhz is significally faster than the vampire.

Is the JIT aided by the MMU or FPU?     Does tomb raider perhaps use the FPU calls to accelerate graphics, how is PC-task 80486 FPU emulated via?  perhaps 68882 compatible code?

[paul1981]

Tomb Raider on a Vampire 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHM2i_53kHE&t=19m

It's atrociously slow.

I fast forwarded the video a bit and was then looking at Lara Croft's arse for what seemed an eternity. :laughing:

[Dandy]

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).

...

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

Well, my first attempts to run M$ soft on my trusty old A500 were back in 1989.
IIRC, I tried DosBox first and a bit later PcTask v2.

I stayed with PcTask for a while and then got me a Vortex AtOnce286 classic.
This gave me the best experience so far and I used it a lot with M$-Dos, Word v4/4.5/5, DBase, Fortran77 and QuickBasic. I could even run a Windows version for 286 cpus in monochrome mode.

Then I built my A4kPPC tower in 1997/98 and could not use the Vortex 286 add-on with that anymore.
So I got me a registered version of PcX and could run Win 3.1 with that. But soon the requirements to run run the latest Win versions increased and PcX was no longer sufficient, as I could not run Win9x.

When the PC world moved on to WinXP I got me an WIntelXP box, put it beside my A4kPPC and networked them, as I meanwhile had added a MediatorPCI busboard with 10/100 mBit NIC.

I used a registered version of Darren Eveland's 'RDesktop' and 'smbfs' to exchange data between them and have to say that this config allowed me to get the most out of 'both worlds'...

Meanwhile I have a Win10 core i5 quadcore box and my A4kPPC - but they are roughly 80 km apart. Currently the A4kPPC is the only computer I have here in my apartment in Cologne, while the WIntel box is at my other home.

Should I decide to get a new WIntel box for Cologne as well I will certainly go the RDesktop route again and not bother thinking about emulating a modern PC (capable to run Win10) on classic Amiga hardware...

Using emulation software may be nice to demonstrate the capability of the Amiga back in the eighties and possibly ninetees, but I'd say its pretty useless if you want to use it for serious work that requires Win10 - even on NG-Amigas...

[fishy_fiz]

*deleted double post*

[fishy_fiz]

Sure, pc emulation on a classic Amiga, or even "NG" options isn't an alternative to having a physical PC if one wishes to use an even moderately recent version of Windows, but there's a universe of cool, useful older software out there for dos and win9x.
Despite having a dedicated Win9x box (I like seeing how useful older systems can be in the modern world) I actually use Dosbox + RunInDosbox for some productivity software on my AROS box. According to Sandra SiSoft plus a few other tests I get roughly 550mhz interger and 750mhz fpu p3 type speeds, which is more than enough for things like Paintshop Pro, 3d Studio Max, console ROM hacking tools, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, etc, etc.
The ppc options are more along the lines of a mid to higher spec 486, but even that's enough for some productivity stuff and early 90's games.
Even slower again, but 68k machines are also capable enough to run some software that doesn't exist on the Amiga.
It all depends on what sort of software a person wants to run, but in my opinion PC emulation can be useful on Amiga-oid systems.

[psxphill]

Sure, pc emulation on a classic Amiga, or even "NG" options isn't an alternative to having a physical PC if one wishes to use an even moderately version of Windows, but there's a universe of cool, useful older software out there for dos and win9x.

A cheap modern bridgeboard, that could also run a 68k emulation and work as an accelerator would be pretty amazing. Even if it was only i3 or atom.

[Dandy]

Sure, pc emulation on a classic Amiga, or even "NG" options isn't an alternative to having a physical PC if one wishes to use an even moderately version of Windows, but there's a universe of cool, useful older software out there for dos and win9x.
...
Even slower again, but 68k machines are also capable enough to run some software that doesn't exist on the Amiga.
It all depends on what sort of software a person wants to run, but in my opinion PC emulation can be useful on Amiga-oid systems.

That's why I used emu software in the past.
But today the (Amiga-)hardware to run them simply is too underpowered for my taste.

Look, my A4kPPC has an 68060 @ 50mHz - that's the max you can get from any physical classic Amiga on the 68k-side without overclocking.

This is simply too slow to run anything beyond Win 3.1 in emulation - at least, if you want to do serious work with it.

Despite having a dedicated Win9x box (I like seeing how useful older systems can be in the modern world) I actually use Dosbox + RunInDosbox for some productivity software on my AROS box. According to Sandra SiSoft plus a few other tests I get roughly 550mhz interger and 750mhz fpu p3 type speeds, which is more than enough for things like Paintshop Pro, 3d Studio Max, console ROM hacking tools, Unreal, Unreal Tournament, etc, etc.

Which cpu does work in your AROS box and at which clock speed?

The ppc options are more along the lines of a mid to higher spec 486, but even that's enough for some productivity stuff and early 90's games.

Which PPCs are you referring to?
On my CSPPC there is a PPC604e @ 200mHz.

Aside from the fact that no emulation software exists for WarpOS, what speed could I expect from an Win10 environment emulated on an PPC604e @ 200mHz?
There are only 68k versions of PcTask and PcX - no versions for WarpOS or even NG Amiga OS 4.x, AFAIK.

No idea if Bochs runs on PPC604e - I could not find a list of supported cpus.
Same for QEMU...

[SnkBitten]

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.

This had me look up Softwindows for 68k Macs, and it works surprisingly well on my Amithlon system under Shapeshifter.  I haven't tried it on my  A4000T yet.  Version 1.03 appears to be the last 68k version before it moved to PPC and supporting higher than Win 3.1.

[fishy_fiz]

@Dandy

The AROS box is using an i7-870 clocked at 3.8ghz. I used to use an i5-760@4ghz, but ended up with the spare i7 system so figured why not. The performance for the 2 is currently nigh on identical currently, but the i7 will be a bit more future proof for when I changed to 64bit AROS (multi processor support in the future).
Regardless, they're both pretty old machines, but I'm more than happy with them for AROS.

As for the ppc options, sorry, I actually meant the "NG" machines.
Probably the best option for os3.x is the WOS version of Dosbox I did some years back. Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of the binary, but I did send it to a few people so hopefully its made its way onto the net (or at least some peoples hard drives) somewhere.
Performance wise I'd guess something along the lines of a 50mhz 386 on a 200mhz 604e.
Besides Bochs though there's nothing on any Amiga-noid system that could run anything beyond Win9x anyway. Speed Aside bochs is the only option that let's you assign enough RAM to even glacially run WinXP and above on classic systems (although bochs is 68k only for os3.9).

[fishy_fiz]

@snkbitten

Just did a browse now and also found softat, realpc, and softpc.
I'm not sure if they're 68k or ppc, but I suspect both depending on version numbers.

Also are you sure there's no Softwindows2 for 68k? I might be mistaken, but I seem to recall there was. It was a few months ago though so its quite possible my memory and reality are different.

[SnkBitten]

@snkbitten

Just did a browse now and also found softat, realpc, and softpc.
I'm not sure if they're 68k or ppc, but I suspect both depending on version numbers.

Also are you sure there's no Softwindows2 for 68k? I might be mistaken, but I seem to recall there was. It was a few months ago though so its quite possible my memory and reality are different.

There could be, but all I could find was Softwindows 1.0x for 68k and 1.02 with a serial number (but bad disk.img files).  So a combination of 1.02 for the application (and serial) and 1.03 for the disk image files.

[Motormouth]

I stayed with PcTask for a while and then got me a Vortex AtOnce286 classic.
This gave me the best experience so far and I used it a lot with M$-Dos, Word v4/4.5/5, DBase, Fortran77 and QuickBasic. I could even run a Windows version for 286 cpus in monochrome mode.

I have a GVP PC 286 which is  basically a Vortex AtOncePlus.  It actually work fairly well especially for CPU bound tasks as it has a real 80286.  There is for one "major" problem.   The video is very slowwwwwwww.  It uses the amiga's hardware to emulate the video.  I noticed you had to use monochrome mode.....  I had 3.11 (not with workgroups ie needs a 386) running with monochrome Olivetti video.   I found the video updates slowly.  

Further GVP PC 286 does not work with the VXL 030, (I only had a GVP A500 HD8+ but obviously works with the GVP A530).  I wonder if work with the vampire.   The vampire should surely improve the video emulation speed assuming it is compatible.