Recommended emulators

[DJ Deedahx]

I know this may come off as some sort of shameless advertisement, but it has become apparent that nearly every single BetaArchive member who comes here for help with a certain Windows 3.1 beta is undoubtedly using VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. While the RTMs of Windows 3.1x work well enough on the aforementioned software (from my observations), that's not an excuse to assume that the betas will work just as well on them Please keep in mind, betas are pieces of UNFINISHED software that are not guaranteed to function properly in every single use case.

So for that, I will try to clarify why VMware and VirtualBox would not be a good choice to run these betas...

- VMware and VirtualBox are HYPERVISORS, not EMULATORS. That means they will use your host computer's specifications for that virtual machine. For instance, if you install Windows 2000 Professional on VMware with an Intel Core i7* @ 4.00 GHz, the clock speed in the Windows 2000 properties screen will match the clock speed of the host PC itself. On emulators, however, you get to pick what BIOS and CPU you wish to emulate.

In addition, some betas may experience multiple issues due to being run on hypervisors (one reason could be that the clock speed of your PC is too high), which leaves no other option but to use an emulated CPU & BIOS.

Also, this is a problem that is VirtualBox-specific: BIOS dates are a lot harder to change due to no actual access to the machine's BIOS. There exists a VBoxManage hack to change the time, but that should be found in another topic.

With that aside, here are a few emulators I've tried:

- DOSBox: This was the first way I got to experience Windows 3.1 running on my computer, but it operates solely in a command line interface and, as far as I am concerned, has no easy way to change the emulated system specs and such.

- PCem 10.1: This is a new version of the PCem emulator, developed in tandem by Battler, TomWalker, and TheCollector1988. It is very flexible and has a variety of BIOSes, CPUs, and motherboards to choose from, many of which are being added regularly after internal testing. I myself was very surprised by how well the builds I couldn't run on hypervisors ran on PCem. It was more like a dream finally accomplished. Kudos to the developers!

So, with that said, the emulator I would absolutely recommend using for maybe all beta builds from Windows 1.0 to 2000 (???) is PCem 10.1.

Battler did a more in-depth list here >> http://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewto ... 72&t=35409

Download link: http://citadel.rol.im/pcem101_experimental.7z
Help channel: #pcem-x @ irc.ringoflightning.net:6667

Feel free to PM me, Battler, or TheCollector1988 if any assistance is needed.

*Please stop asking why I would think PCem needs an i7. It does not, and I have used it in this post only as an example.

[ovctvct]

I know this may come off as some sort of shameless advertisement, but it has become apparent that nearly every single BetaArchive member who comes here for help with a certain Windows 3.1 beta is undoubtedly using VMware Workstation or VirtualBox. While the RTMs of Windows 3.1x work well enough on the aforementioned software (from my observations), that's not an excuse to assume that the betas will work just as well on them Please keep in mind, betas are pieces of UNFINISHED software that are not guaranteed to function properly in every single use case.

So for that, I will try to clarify why VMware and VirtualBox would not be a good choice to run these betas...

- VMware and VirtualBox are HYPERVISORS, not EMULATORS. That means they will use your host computer's specifications for that virtual machine. For instance, if you install Windows 2000 Professional on VMware with an Intel Core i7 @ 4.00 GHz, the clock speed in the Windows 2000 properties screen will match the clock speed of the host PC itself. On emulators, however, you get to pick what BIOS and CPU you wish to emulate.

In addition, some betas may experience multiple issues due to being run on hypervisors (one reason could be that the clock speed of your PC is too high), which leaves no other option but to use an emulated CPU & BIOS.

Also, this is a problem that is VirtualBox-specific: BIOS dates are a lot harder to change due to no actual access to the machine's BIOS. There exists a VBoxManage hack to change the time, but that should be found in another topic.

With that aside, here are a few emulators I've tried:

- DOSBox: This was the first way I got to experience Windows 3.1 running on my computer, but it operates solely in a command line interface and, as far as I am concerned, has no easy way to change the emulated system specs and such.

- PCem 10.1: This is a new version of the PCem emulator, developed in tandem by Battler, TomWalker, and TheCollector1988. It is very flexible and has a variety of BIOSes, CPUs, and motherboards to choose from, many of which are being added regularly after internal testing. I myself was very surprised by how well the builds I couldn't run on hypervisors ran on PCem. It was more like a dream finally accomplished. Kudos to the developers!

So, with that said, the emulator I would absolutely recommend using for maybe all beta builds from Windows 1.0 to 2000 (???) is PCem 10.1.

Download link: http://citadel.rol.im/pcem101_experimental.7z
Help channel: #pcem-x @ irc.ringoflightning.net:6667

Feel free to PM me, Battler, or TheCollector1988 if any assistance is needed.

Offtopic Comment

So Pcem-x needs a core i7? My motherboard doesn't even support i7, I don't even have i3, but I could get an i5 however. But I really have to upgrade my CPU, it's too crappy(2 threads only).

But it's true, Pcem is much better than vmware or virtualbox, because it's an emulator.

[Battler]

Actually, Tom Walker (the main developer of PCem) has an i5, so PCem definitely doesn't require an i7. And I have a Pentium Dual-Core E5700, but PCem still runs fine on it.

[DJ Deedahx]

Actually, Tom Walker (the main developer of PCem) has an i5, so PCem definitely doesn't require an i7.

Well, I used an i7 only as an example

But yeah, he's right. I have a slightly subpar AMD A8-4500M and PCem manages to run well on it.

[ovctvct]

Uh, forgot: does pcem work in linux too? I am dualbooting linux with windows, so I'd really prefer running it natively rather than using wine.

[Battler]

- ovctvct: It can be compiled for Linux too, using Allegro. It is however to note that it gets much more actively developed for Windows, specifically x86 Windows, even x64 is lower priority.

[DJ Deedahx]

specifically x86 Windows, even x64 is lower priority.

I assume the x86 version can use a maximum of 4 GB, am I correct? No known pre-2000/ME beta build would really need that much memory anyway, so I can definitely understand why.

[mallard]

-ovctvct: From my experience with PCem(-X) on Linux, it's pretty awful. The -X variant is particularly bad; I've not been able to get it to do anything useful at all, it just crashes. Despite the UI glitches, the Windows version on Wine works far better than the "native" version.

- DJ Deedahx: There are performance benefits to 64-bit code even if you don't need lots of memory (and remember that an emulator needs significantly more memory than the "guest" OS, especially if it does things like dynamic recompilation; PCem does).

[computebrute]

Why would you even think that Pcem requires an i7?

[Battler]

- DJ Deedahx: The absolute maximum you can assign a guest is, as far as I remember, 512 MB for mainline PCem and 768 MB for the experimental branch.

[James]

-ovctvct: From my experience with PCem(-X) on Linux, it's pretty awful. The -X variant is particularly bad; I've not been able to get it to do anything useful at all, it just crashes. Despite the UI glitches, the Windows version on Wine works far better than the "native" version.

- DJ Deedahx: There are performance benefits to 64-bit code even if you don't need lots of memory (and remember that an emulator needs significantly more memory than the "guest" OS, especially if it does things like dynamic recompilation; PCem does).

I can't even get PCem(-X) to compile on Linux at all; and I'm running Arch Linux. It just whines about Allegro and fails to compile, even after installing all the libraries. I think it needs to be rewritten, but none of the developers of PCem are really into Linux and FOSS, so we're pretty much shanghai'd.

[Battler]

- James: Why don't you help us getting the Linux version in order then? I'd like to point out that out of all the people who want to run PCem on Linux, none has so far offered to give us a hand in fixing it. And I don't mean that as an offense, I do realize people have lives, etc.

[Moshifan100]

Is there a version of PCem available for Mac OS X?

[computebrute]

Is there a version of PCem available for Mac OS X?

You could try it with wine perhaps... most likely wouldn't work.

[Battler]

- computebrute: But mallard above said PCem does work under Wine.

[James]

- James: Why don't you help us getting the Linux version in order then? I'd like to point out that out of all the people who want to run PCem on Linux, none has so far offered to give us a hand in fixing it. And I don't mean that as an offense, I do realize people have lives, etc.

I intend to at some point. I've got kind of this problem of having the C++ capacity of a flailing ape; that and I think PCem should be rewritten in C++ first before trying to port it to Linux verbatim. TBH, you could probably get away with leaving the code as is, but rewriting the GUI in GTK+ or Qt, rather than Allegro.

Is there a version of PCem available for Mac OS X?

No, there is not. I've toyed with the idea of creating a fork for OS X based on OBattler's code structure, but as I said above, I have not much in the way of C experience.

[DJ Deedahx]

Why would you even think that Pcem requires an i7?

I've already said it before, read below.

Well, I used an i7 only as an example

PCem does not by any means require an i7.

[Battler]

- DJ Deedahx: And computebrute was simply stating he wonders why anyone would think something as ridiculous as PCem requiring an i7, especially since you never said it requires an i7. In fact, the i7 wasn't even mentioned in the PCem section, but in the VMWare section, so it seems that ovctvct massively misunderstood things.

[flyers80]

It would be great if PCEM would support the copy-protected discs with kryoflux images support (CT Raw) and Supercard Pro (SCP)
But I fear will never happen

[TheCollector1988]

It would be great if PCEM would support the copy-protected discs with kryoflux images support (CT Raw) and Supercard Pro (SCP)
But I fear will never happen

86Box does all of this, about copy-protected disks, in its 86f handler.

[flyers80]

86Box does all of this, about copy-protected disks, in its 86f handler.

I tried it, but when I mount a disk with protection the emulator crashes

its 86f handler.

There are tools to create or convert to this format?

[TheCollector1988]

86Box does all of this, about copy-protected disks, in its 86f handler.

I tried it, but when I mount a disk with protection the emulator crashes

its 86f handler.

There are tools to create or convert to this format?

Battler has it, check out his signature in this forum for more information, about softhistory

[tarlabnor]

It would be great if PCEM would support the copy-protected discs with kryoflux images support (CT Raw) and Supercard Pro (SCP)
But I fear will never happen

Nothing is carved in stone at this moment, but there is a good chance that such convertor (at least for these two most used flux formats) to 86f format will appear at some point in the future.

its 86f handler.
There are tools to create or convert to this format?

There is. It's still under development and testing though.

Here's the archive with standard (yes, it might have some additional advanced features) empty 86f floppy images that you can use with 86box. 86f format imitates a real floppy surface. For more information I'd recommend you to visit softhistory irc channel on ringoflightning.net

p.s. If you find a bug, please submit it here via PM or on softhistory irc.

[flyers80]

Nothing is carved in the stone at this moment, but there is a good chance that such convertor (at least for these two most used flux formats) to 86f format will appear at some point in the future.

I shall wait patiently

Here's the archive with standard (yes, it might have some additional advanced features) empty 86f floppy images that you can use with 86box. 86f format imitates a real floppy surface. For more information I'd recommend you to visit softhistory irc channel on ringoflightning.net

thanks for the information

[vicvan]

@flyers80

Only PCE (IBM PC 5150 emulator) support copy protected track.
No other emulator is possible.