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First post, by gaffa2002

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Hello,
First time I'm attempting to mess with mac emulators and I'm particularly interested on the m68k ones. Please correct me if I'm wrong but it seems that 68k Mac emulation is kind of stuck in time.
As far as I know my options are Basilisk II or Mini vMac. I also saw some youtube videos of people playing older 68k games using QEMU, and it seems that it also supports 68k emulation.
So, what do you guys recommend for playing the following games (I use windows btw)?

-Prince of Persia 1 and 2
-Blackthorne
-Warcraft (with CD audio)
-Marathon 1,2 and 3

Another question, does Mac emulation runs better on an OSX operating system? Will a current Mac (or hackintosh) be able to play older mac games better than under windows?

Sorry if that was already asked, could not find anything similar and current using the search option.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 1 of 44, by Jo22

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gaffa2002 wrote on 2020-08-11, 20:40:

Another question, does Mac emulation runs better on an OSX operating system? Will a current Mac (or hackintosh) be able to play older mac games better than under windows?

Sorry if that was already asked, could not find anything similar and current using the search option.

Hi, it depends.. General speaking, a Power Mac with OS 9.x, a supported graphics card and a Motorola 68040 FPU emulator gives good results. Esp. in 640x480 resolution.
However, 32-Bit QuickDraw might be an issue with certain titles.

Ideal would be a Macintosh II with 68030, FPU and System 6.x to 7.x - or an emulation of that.

Anyway, these are my two cents, so to say.
I'm no Mac guru, haha.. 😅

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 2 of 44, by dr.zeissler

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A (very! expensive) macintosh II would be a very nice fit for 68K retro-gaming.
I bought an LC and put a IIe card in it...and have begun to test this thing against various software... https://youtu.be/YicfqCx5m-k
I really like OS6 because there is no multifinder and so the background is greyed out when playing the real old b&w stuff.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 3 of 44, by Jorpho

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I have the impression that 68k emulation was held back for a long time due to the lack of open-source BIOS and OS alternatives. But it doesn't seem like anyone particularly cares about the distribution of those components anymore.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2020-08-11, 20:40:

As far as I know my options are Basilisk II or Mini vMac. I also saw some youtube videos of people playing older 68k games using QEMU, and it seems that it also supports 68k emulation.

If 68k QEMU emulation is a thing, it's probably very new and I might question whether it works as well as Basilisk II or Mini vMac. QEMU is of particular interest these days because it can be used to run OS 9.1 and 9.2, which was previously not feasible, but those are both PPC – the last 68k-capable Mac OS was 8.1. (Of course everything up to OS 9.2 was still capable of running 68k software, but you wouldn't want to use a PPC emulator for that purpose.)

Mini vMac should only be used if you are interested in running really old B&W games, like those that used System 6.

For Marathon, you would almost certainly be better off using Aleph One instead of emulation. And for Blackthorne, you should probably use the DOS version (free from Blizzard's website!). See http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/blackthorne/ .

Another question, does Mac emulation runs better on an OSX operating system? Will a current Mac (or hackintosh) be able to play older mac games better than under windows?

I think the OS X builds of Sheepshaver might be more up to date than the Windows versions, but I haven't been keeping track of that very closely. I don't think the difference is enough to warrant going out and getting a current Mac for that reason alone.

Reply 4 of 44, by dr.zeissler

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btw. 68k emulation on PPC can be tweaked when using 3rt-party tools like "Speed-Doubler".
there is really a big difference between the mac-68k emulation on ppc an speed-doubler.

test yeager for example.

Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines

Reply 5 of 44, by Jo22

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-08-12, 17:07:
I have the impression that 68k emulation was held back for a long time due to the lack of open-source BIOS and OS alternatives. […]
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I have the impression that 68k emulation was held back for a long time due to the lack of open-source BIOS and OS alternatives. But it doesn't seem like anyone particularly cares about the distribution of those components anymore.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2020-08-11, 20:40:

As far as I know my options are Basilisk II or Mini vMac. I also saw some youtube videos of people playing older 68k games using QEMU, and it seems that it also supports 68k emulation.

If 68k QEMU emulation is a thing, it's probably very new and I might question whether it works as well as Basilisk II or Mini vMac. QEMU is of particular interest these days because it can be used to run OS 9.1 and 9.2, which was previously not feasible, but those are both PPC – the last 68k-capable Mac OS was 8.1. (Of course everything up to OS 9.2 was still capable of running 68k software, but you wouldn't want to use a PPC emulator for that purpose.)

Mini vMac should only be used if you are interested in running really old B&W games, like those that used System 6.

For Marathon, you would almost certainly be better off using Aleph One instead of emulation. And for Blackthorne, you should probably use the DOS version (free from Blizzard's website!). See http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/blackthorne/ .

Another question, does Mac emulation runs better on an OSX operating system? Will a current Mac (or hackintosh) be able to play older mac games better than under windows?

I think the OS X builds of Sheepshaver might be more up to date than the Windows versions, but I haven't been keeping track of that very closely. I don't think the difference is enough to warrant going out and getting a current Mac for that reason alone.

I think that's because Mac OS 9.0 (or was it 9.1 ?) is the last version not to depend on the MMU (for virtual memory).

Speaking of Mini vMac.. I'm currently experimenting with vMac on Win 3.1 in another thread.
It seems that at least for vMac, System 5 is the most stable version or version with the least requirements. Maybe this information can be useful for troubleshooting one day, not sure. 🙂

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 6 of 44, by Jorpho

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Jo22 wrote on 2020-08-13, 12:06:

I think that's because Mac OS 9.0 (or was it 9.1 ?) is the last version not to depend on the MMU (for virtual memory).

Yes, 9.0.4 is the last version that runs in Sheepshaver because Sheepshaver does not have MMU support. (The 9.2.2 version of the Finder can still be used with 9.0.4, though.)

It seems that at least for vMac, System 5 is the most stable version or version with the least requirements. Maybe this information can be useful for troubleshooting one day, not sure.

It seems to me that most programs of particular interest at least require System 6.

Reply 7 of 44, by ajacocks

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Actually, Mini vMac's Mac II emulation is excellent. It's officially beta, but it works really well. I've tried at least Prince of Persia 1 on it, and it ran great.

https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/dnld_mii.html

- Alex

Reply 8 of 44, by Jo22

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ajacocks wrote on 2020-08-13, 15:43:

Actually, Mini vMac's Mac II emulation is excellent. It's officially beta, but it works really well. I've tried at least Prince of Persia 1 on it, and it ran great.

https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/dnld_mii.html

- Alex

Thank you very much, Alex!
Looks very good and promising! 😃

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 9 of 44, by gaffa2002

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Thanks everyone,
I tried some emulators myself, here are the results:
Basilisk II:
-Prince of Persia 1 - Runs full speed with music and sound
-Prince of Persia 2 - Runs full speed, but music is slow
-Blackthorne - Does not run (error 1415)
-Warcraft - Couldn't try since I was too lazy to make CD-ROM work
-Marathon - Runs surprisingly well, but mouse twitches a lot (may be the KVM switch I use)
It runs pretty well in general, but it was kind of a pain to set up.

Executor (not exactly an emulator but I had to try it):
-Prince of Persia 1 - Runs full speed and with sound
The other games didn't work...Blackthorne hangs up while loading and the other games crash to DOS
Tried running on an retro computer with MS-DOS, it's the easiest one to setup since you don't need any Mac OS installation and ROM.

Fusion PC:
This is an old emulator from around 2000, and it also runs in pure DOS. It was a pain to setup... I used Dosbox to install the OS and copy the games, then copied the image to my retro machine. But it was worth it I guess:
-Prince of Persia 1 - Runs full speed and with sound
-Prince of Persia 2- Runs full speed and almost with functional music (it's a bit slow at some points, but still a little better than on Basilisk II)
-Blackthorne - Does not work, same error 14 I get from Basilisk II
-Warcraft - Runs full speed, but CD audio is not working
-Marathon - Runs fine, mouse also works better still sucks
So far this is my favorite 68K mac emulator simply because I can run it under pure DOS. Since DOS is a single task OS, it feels much more like I'm using a "real" Mac OS

Last edited by gaffa2002 on 2020-08-14, 17:40. Edited 2 times in total.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 10 of 44, by Jo22

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gaffa2002 wrote on 2020-08-13, 21:32:
Fusion PC: This is an old emulator from around 2000, and it also runs in pure DOS. It was a pain to setup... I used Dosbox to in […]
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Fusion PC:
This is an old emulator from around 2000, and it also runs in pure DOS. It was a pain to setup... I used Dosbox to install the OS and copy the games, then copied the image to my retro machine. But it was worth it I guess:
-Prince of Persia 1 - Runs full speed and with sound
-Prince of Persia 2- Runs full speed and almost with functional music (it's a bit slow at some points, but still a little better than on Basilisk II)
-Blackthorne - Does not work, same error 14 I get from Basilisk II
-Warcraft - Runs full speed, but CD audio is not working
-Marathon - Runs fine, mouse also works better
So far this is my favorite 68K mac emulator simply because I can run it under pure DOS. Since DOS is a single task OS, it feels much more like I'm using a "real" Mac OS

Good to know! 😎
I'm also doing all my experiments on (a special) DOS mainly..
So far, Mini vMac and Fellow (Amiga emu), No$GB (Gameboy), QB8086 (PC emu), MZemu (MZ-700/800 emu), VGB (Gameboy)..

Edit: Ironically I'm often running DOS on Macs (PPC) ..
SoftPC, Virtual PC v3, SoftWindows and a bunch of others..
On OS X Tiger, I also have a lot of console emulators installed.. 🙂

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 11 of 44, by Jorpho

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gaffa2002 wrote on 2020-08-13, 21:32:

It runs pretty well in general, but it was kind of a pain to set up.

Where did you get your version of Basilisk II? There has been a little development here and there and it is hard to keep track of just what is going on. (I think there are even new builds of Executor, but not for Windows.)

So far this is my favorite 68K mac emulator simply because I can run it under pure DOS. Since DOS is a single task OS, it feels much more like I'm using a "real" Mac OS

Eh, whatever floats your boat.

Reply 12 of 44, by gaffa2002

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Jorpho wrote on 2020-08-14, 03:22:

Where did you get your version of Basilisk II? There has been a little development here and there and it is hard to keep track of just what is going on. (I think there are even new builds of Executor, but not for Windows.)

I got Basilisk II from here https://www.emaculation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5282, the Windows 30-04-2020 build.

Jorpho wrote on 2020-08-14, 03:22:

Eh, whatever floats your boat.

I'm open to suggestions, I liked Fusion just because of being able to use it on a retro machine with DOS and Sound Blaster card, but to be honest, both Basilisk II and Fusion did not fulfill what I wanted (Prince of Persia 2 with correct music, Blackthorne working and Warcraft with CD audio).I already played all those games a lot on PC except for marathon (only a little bit of Marathon 2), I just wanted to see how different the Mac versions are.
BTW, thanks for your suggestion Aleph One for Marathon. Its the first time I'm being able to play this series of games with decent controls 😀

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 13 of 44, by Jorpho

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Not sure if you saw this old thread, but it does indeed appear that QEMU is a desirable option when it comes to Warcraft.

Not sure why Google doesn't bring up more information on "error 14", but https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Blackthorne suggests Blackthorne requires a 68040 CPU, which has to be explicitly enabled in the Basilisk II options.

Reply 14 of 44, by gaffa2002

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Thanks for the tips... I just tried changing the CPU to 68040 on Basilisk II but still same problem, btw I just figured out I typed the wrong error code, I'm getting error 15 and not 14, sorry 🙁.
I was aware of the thread you mentioned, unfortunately nobody could figure the CD music issue yet (the youtube video posted there had the music added by the uploader after recording...)

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 15 of 44, by Jorpho

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Hmm. A few sites such as https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/System_error_dialog_box suggest Error 15 is a "segment loader error". If you're using original media, perhaps it is going bad - and if you're not using original media, perhaps you should try that 😉 . Otherwise, maybe you need to add more RAM to the emulated machine?

Reply 16 of 44, by gaffa2002

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Tried changing the RAM size (8,16, 32 meg) but same problem. Maybe the copy I have is bad like you suggested.

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD

Reply 17 of 44, by Jorpho

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On that note, if you're not using an original Warcraft CD, it might be missing the audio tracks entirely. And if you are using an original Warcraft CD, you should try ripping it as a BIN/CUE and mounting it in QEMU accordingly.

(I can still hardly believe that no one has cooked up an appropriate package for running the Mac version of Warcraft with an absolute minimum of fuss, especially since it's almost running in Executor, but I guess that's where we are.)

Reply 19 of 44, by gaffa2002

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robertmo wrote on 2020-08-15, 05:18:

Prince of Persia 2 worked with proper music in Mini vMac II
Prince of Persia 2 and Mini vMac

Thanks! Just tried it and both POP games seem to be working perfectly now 😀. Unfortunately the rest of the games are not working on this emulator (Blackthorne still has the same error 15), but what I really wanted was to play the POP games so that's great.

@Jorpho
I am using the original Warcraft DOS/MAC CD-ROM and the audio tracks are there. Basilisk II has known problems with audio CDs on 64bit operating systems so that's the culprit I think (you can make CD-ROM work on the latest version, but without audio). It may work in QEMU as you suggested, maybe I'll give it a try when I can...

LO-RES, HI-FUN

My DOS/ Win98 PC specs

EP-7KXA Motherboard
Athlon Thunderbird 750mhz
256Mb PC100 RAM
Geforce 4 MX440 64MB AGP (128 bit)
Sound Blaster AWE 64 CT4500 (ISA)
32GB HDD