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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Amiga Emulation => Topic started by: spinal on November 06, 2006, 08:49:05 AM

Title: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: spinal on November 06, 2006, 08:49:05 AM
I was recently given an old thinkpad 380ed (166mhz, 80mb ram 2gb hard drive) and I was thinking of turning it into a dedicated amiga emulator, having the os load straight into the emu, giving the illusion ofr an amiga laptop.

What whould be the best OS+emulator combination for such a maching?

I have currently msdos, win3.11, win95, win98, winxp. and am not afraid to download any of the free os's out there.

Am I likely to get any reasonable speed out of the emulator?
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Colani1200 on November 06, 2006, 09:47:47 AM
Quote

spinal wrote:
Am I likely to get any reasonable speed out of the emulator?


I think it will be painfully slow. I guess the only way to turn this into an Amiga-like Laptop at a reasonable speed will be running AROS natively.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: spinal on November 06, 2006, 10:07:39 AM
I'm not expecting a lightning speed situation here, I remember my old A600 was quite slow.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: kidkoala on November 06, 2006, 10:38:55 AM
I guess he's right, Aros is probably the best solution since it doesn't emulate. Emulation is a very resource-demanding way to use a computer, a high-spec. computer is needed to emulate a low-spec. system (like Amiga, without offending anyone).

I've tried to install Aros from floppy to my Commodore 486DX laptop, with no luck. Then again it was merely a try I just put the floppy in to see what happened. Loading grub went fine but system halted halfway through Aros boot-up.

If you try let me hear whwat happened, I've thought of asking the guys over at Aros-exec or something what to do, I'm sure it's feasable.

FreeDos works great on the laptop thought, playing high-mem games and even using a mouse was no trouble.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Speelgoedmannetje on November 06, 2006, 10:44:06 AM
Maybe the old "Fellow" emulator is fast enough? For Amiga500/600 emulation that is...
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Speelgoedmannetje on November 06, 2006, 10:45:36 AM
Quote

spinal wrote:
I'm not expecting a lightning speed situation here, I remember my old A600 was quite slow.
Not in that way slow, slow as in continuous hickups, not synchronous video/audio and so, I mean: as in unusable.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Piru on November 06, 2006, 11:03:20 AM
Best solution is either Fellow or WinUAE. As pointed out, it won't be fast. For best performance you should try dos + fellow. It only emulates A500, but it should be faster than UAE. It won't be as compatible though.

AROS is no emulator.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: spinal on November 06, 2006, 11:29:56 AM
I'm hoping to be able to play some ye-olde games such as lemmings and cannon fodder. I gave fellow a go running from win95, it seemed a little slower than my old 600, but i might be wrong. The only thing is my laptop creen does not stretch lower resolutions, so 640x480 is centered witha black border around it :(
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: LoadWB on November 06, 2006, 01:36:10 PM
Depending upon the laptop, there should be a Function key (Fn+ something) that will stretch that out, or possibly a setting in the BIOS.  If it's a key, it will look like a little monitor, one solid monitor transposed with an outline of a monitor, or it may say "Screen" or "Font".

Maybe the manufacturer's support web site can help with this (good luck:-))
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: kidkoala on November 06, 2006, 03:56:10 PM
@piru

nobody said aros is en emulator..
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Colani1200 on November 06, 2006, 04:02:39 PM
Quote

kidkoala wrote:
@piru

nobody said aros is en emulator..


Which sadly reminds us of the probably most important Aros bounty (http://thenostromo.com/teamaros2/?number=7) still being unassigned. Anybody?
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: InTheSand on November 06, 2006, 06:21:17 PM
Quote
spinal wrote:
I'm hoping to be able to play some ye-olde games such as lemmings and cannon fodder.


I hate to say this, but given the 166MHz CPU speed, you might be better off installing Win98 + sound drivers + graphics drivers + DirectX and using it for DOS and early Windows games directly, rather than Amiga games via emulation...

Both Cannon Fodder and Lemmings are available in ye-olde PC versions, and your laptop should also run classics like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D with no problem...

 - Ali
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: spinal on November 07, 2006, 10:55:27 PM
Quote

LoadWB wrote:
Depending upon the laptop, there should be a Function key (Fn+ something) that will stretch that out, or possibly a setting in the BIOS.  If it's a key, it will look like a little monitor, one solid monitor transposed with an outline of a monitor, or it may say "Screen" or "Font".


Neither :( Ill look at the website next.
Title: Re: best emulator solution for old paltop?
Post by: Merc on November 08, 2006, 03:20:56 AM
I first ran UAE on a Pentium 75 and it wasn't *totally* unusable, so on a 166 I would imagine it would be OK... but I would expect a lot of games to be slower than normal.  

I'd say give it a try and see how well it works.  You might be able to degrade the settings a bit (decrease the sound quality & framerate) and make it fast enough for your uses :)