Pc Emulator Is Possible.

[cozmic]

A while ago a topic was started about PC emulation on the GP32.


The conclusion was: The PC emulator would run too slow.

I guess that's not true.

I have got a handheld pc HP320LX, wich has a Hitachi SH3 processor@ only 33mhz.
It runs Windows CE over it (slowdowns) and STILL it can emulate an XT pc at an acceptable rate.

Games running at near full speed:
Ultima 4, Pengo, Spacequest, Kingsquest 3, Black cauldron, Robotron, Galaxian, Sim city, Crossfire, Dangerous Dave.

It's without sound dough.

So i guess it would be possible to emulate (at least) a XT on a (max) 166mhz machine?
Hoping a wizard coder starts a project

 

[Tristan]

Technically, ofcourse, it is possible. But hard to do. Because the CPU in the GP32 is a RISC processor, and a x86 processor is CISC. The difference between these two is that the x86 processor has ALOT of instructions, which all do very little. And the GP32 has a RISC processor, with fewer instructions, which do alot.

But you do have this:

http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

It says 'testing' in the ARM portion of the code, but if a good enough programmer were to look at it, something might come out of it. Ofcourse the programmer would receive insta-god status, girls, money, fame etc.

Edit:

DosBox is a better option, and you might even be able to run it right now, because it's been ported/recompiled to/for the Zaurus, which is binary compatible with gpLinux. Ofcourse, DosBox gives you 1/15th of your CPU speed, so you'd be running a 11MHz 386.

 

[cozmic]

IC, so the cpu emulator is still in beta status.

But i guess a 11mhz 386 would be enought to run dune2

 

[sixxie]

How fast were the CPUs in the various (ARM-based) Archimedes? ISTR a PC emulator running alright on an A3000 and definitely an A5000. Although at the time I had an original 4.77Mhz PC, so maybe my view of acceptable performance is skewed by time

 

[generalnmx]

Technically, ofcourse, it is possible. But hard to do. Because the CPU in the GP32 is a RISC processor, and a x86 processor is CISC. The difference between these two is that the x86 processor has ALOT of instructions, which all do very little. And the GP32 has a RISC processor, with fewer instructions, which do alot.

The Hitachi SH3 Processor is also RISC I believe.

But really nearly anything is possible, just like my thread before claiming a GP32 to GBA binary convertor was possible. It's the amount of time and resources that would be required that make it not only possible, but feesible. That's the question we should be asking.

 

[Inopia]

Technically, ofcourse, it is possible. But hard to do. Because the CPU in the GP32 is a RISC processor, and a x86 processor is CISC. The difference between these two is that the x86 processor has ALOT of instructions, which all do very little. And the GP32 has a RISC processor, with fewer instructions, which do alot.

RISC means reduced instruction computing, wich means fewer instructions that are supposed to execute fast (usually 1 cycle), and CISC means many instructions, wich are often expensive (>1 cycle). Even though x86 is considered CISC there's a huge difference between 286, 386, 486, pentium etc. I used to code assembler on the 386, and thats not much more powerful than a risc processor. In fact, a 40 mhz ARM9 is probably a lot faster than a 40mhz 386 when it comes to pure processing. The RISC instructions of the GP32 don't really do a lot. I mean, modern CISC processors often have math copros (native sqrt, sin), shit like MMX and other neat tricks.

 

[Exo]

I guess you talking about XT-CE ? http://www.xt-ce.com/

Its usefull and you can actually run windows 3.0
I had it on my HP 360LX and the performance was good but its only a 186 emu

 

[WhiteFalcon]

Cozmic: Dune 2 and X-Com run fine even on a 286 so it sounds very promising

 

[cozmic]

Yep its XTCE, Exo.

Only a newer version (called pocketdos)


Is the 360lx also running @ 33mhz?

 

[jmetal88]

Hmm... I wonder then..... would it be possible to port FreeDOS to GP32? The website is at http://www.freedos.org/ if anyone wants to check it out.....

 

[skeezix]

There is a Dune 2 port to Genesis of course, thats pretty good

jeff

To me a lot of it is.. DOSBox is great, but you'd need pretty good performance for the games I'd like to see in a mobile emulator (Wizardry 7 and other RPGs). The bottom end games that run on 10MHz PC areusually done better on Atari ST or Genesis or SNES anyway. (But original side scrolling Duke would be classy

 

[Exo]

360lx..
SH3 @ 60 mhz
White Blacklight still greyscale screen
8 MB Ram 10 MB Rom
Running Windows ce 2.0 (2.01 with sp1)

 

[PinkSpider]

360lx..
SH3 @ 60 mhz
White Blacklight still greyscale screen
8 MB Ram 10 MB Rom
Running Windows ce 2.0 (2.01 with sp1)

We dont have SH3 (tis arm) if im not mistaken :/

 

[Exo]

I know I was talking about the 360lx ..

XT-CE will work on an ARM with 600k free ram although I have not tested it as I dont have a windows ce device with an ARM cpu