Anyone has experience with PC-EM ?

[RetroBunny]

Hello everyone,

I used to emulate my MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 games using DOSBox, VMware, and other virtual machines out there. Unfortunately, I have several isses. DOSBox is rather unstable for me and most VMs don't support SoundBlaster drivers or any decent graphic cards. Most of the games I am trying to emulate are from 1990-1994.

I am now looking into PC-EM, which seems to be a PC Emulator emulating an 80486 processor with a retro bios and everything.

Does anyone here have experience with PC-EM? Any tipps, suggestions? I am curious .

[Overdoze]

PCem can emulate a wide range of machines, not just a 486.

[pmein1]

I use the 86box fork rather than PCem itself as it's updated more often and seems to support more systems. But as Overdoze stated, it can emulate 8086 upwards to PIIs etc alongside VLB/PCI gfx including SLI Voodoo 2 and sound including Adlib and SB.

The idea itself is very good - I run an emulated copy of my real 486 (except for the Panasonic CDROM) running 3.1 and a slower-than-real Packard Bell running 98 SE. It's just like building and using an old PC so all the old nuances have to be considered.

[Darkstar]

Suggestion: Use one of the other emulators based on PCEm, like 86box or VARCem. More bugfixes, bigger community and more active development (usually)

[Random_User]

most VMs don't support SoundBlaster drivers or any decent graphic cards.

Huh?! I am confused by that statement. Did you mean that the emulation and virtualization software doesn't support the drivers, that the virtual machine with a specific configuration doesn't support the drivers, or that the operating systems don't support the drivers?

[pmein1]

I think they meant that virtual machines present specific audio and video hardware to the OS which cannot be changed and are not old school, whereas 86box etc uses a range of emulated hardware like SB 128 and Cirrus Logic gfx etc to present hardware from that era.

[Microsoft Windows Fan]

I use the 86box fork rather than PCem itself as it's updated more often and seems to support more systems.

Latest builds of 86Box (Post-September builds) are kinda broken tho. At least for me. When i do changes in BIOS from BIOS Setup Screen of any rom and try to save the changes, it saves but when you do hard reset or shutdown the emulator and reopen again the BIOS resets itself. I really don't know why.

But when i tried a Pre-September build (Latest August build) i was able to save BIOS changes fine. Even if i do hard reset or close/open the emulator again, BIOS doesn't resets itself.

Anyways, my recommendation is to get 86Box Build 1641 (Which is the last Pre-September build) from here: http://ci.86box.net/job/86Box/1641/. But i didn't tested all Post-September builds so i don't know if there is any Post-September build(s) that is not broken.

[pmein1]

I currently use the dev version of the latest build (1750) and it seems to work well. Occasionally it'll crash and exit but not often, and when it does it's usually repeatable so can be avoided. Not seen any BIOS saving issues on any machine type I've tried so far.

[Overdoze]

No such issues on my end. I recommend you try to clear your config, nvr, etc. and start over fresh to avoid any breaking leftovers from old builds. Also, you're invited to report such issues to the developer in the support channel on IRC or Discord (see github repo for links). Or you can contact Battler here on the forum.

[Microsoft Windows Fan]

I currently use the dev version of the latest build (1750) and it seems to work well. Occasionally it'll crash and exit but not often, and when it does it's usually repeatable so can be avoided. Not seen any BIOS saving issues on any machine type I've tried so far.

No such issues on my end. I recommend you try to clear your config, nvr, etc. and start over fresh to avoid any breaking leftovers from old builds. Also, you're invited to report such issues to the developer in the support channel on IRC or Discord (see github repo for links). Or you can contact Battler here on the forum.

Huh, that's pretty weird. It might be because of my pc or Windows installation (i am using Windows 10 Home x64). I might either join to their Discord or contact Battler. Thanks for recommendation by the way. But let's not move too far from the actual topic.

[BaRRaKudaRain42]

Good emulator. It emulates wide range of machines. It flexible to configure. Supports systems up to Windows XP. But you need to rummage through the Internet in search of ROMs to it.

[AbandoSoftware]

I recommend the use of the 86box, because it is updated much sooner than the PCem.