qemu for a 233mhz is a bad idea guys

The virtualization aspect is mostly bound to how the (virtual) CPU is handled,
because it's the most critical part. Devices are emulated, translated (d3d on ogl)
or simply passed to the host with some checks.
Emulators have a read-execute machine cycle, whereas virtualizers try to run
the very most of the code (user mode) as is. The tricky part is catching the
non-usermode part.
In between those are techniques as code recompilation.

With all techniques you can provide a virtual environment in the end. Hardware
virtualization is an addition to the (host) processors that supports virtualizing
software, but isn't a standalone solution. Intel's VT is their next attempt for
the x86, while their virtual mode (v86) of the 386+ wasn't thought-through.

On emulations versus virtualization. I think the wikipedia article about Virtualization explains it quite well. Where virtualization merely means you hide the physical system, and show something that behaves different.

a technique for hiding the physical characteristics of computing resources from the way in which other systems, applications, or end users interact with those resources. This includes making a single physical resource (such as a server, an operating system, an application, or storage device) appear to function as multiple logical resources; or it can include making multiple physical resources (such as storage devices or servers) appear as a single logical resource.

Where emulation is more specific. With emulation, you do not necessarily hide the original system, but instead you imitate something (program/hardware), you let the software calculate how the original hardware/software would have acted, and give the same output the original hardware/software would have given.
So, emulation is a typ of virtualization. But virtualization is not necicerly done by emulation.
Actually i think a better description for virtualization would be changing the behaviour of a system w/a chaining it's hardware. But that definition would get into trouble when you use hardware for virtualization.

Also, emulation can be done by both hardware and software. Actually, anything that can be done by software can be done by hardware, as software is in fact run on hardware, and making specific hardware for some specific task is usually also a lot faster, and way more expensive to make. But that is a different topic.

leileilol wrote:

qemu for a 233mhz is a bad idea guys

I'm sure Abyss will be along any minute commenting on how well Windows Vista runs in Qemu on his 500mhz machine. 😀

How in the world would that work on a 500 mhz machine that no longer works any good?
Better try qemu on the 100 mhz pentium and see if it can run windows 95.
windows 95 on windows 95 now that would be awesome.

Bwuahaha!! DosFreak, your expectations have been exceeded.

abyss wrote:

.
windows 95 on windows 95 now that would be awesome.

I bet ME on ME would be SUPER AWESOME!!

Vista on vista and have them crash at the same time. Wouldn't be that hard.

abyss wrote:

Vista on vista and have them crash at the same time. Wouldn't be that hard.

And abyss is an expert in this, since he has used 64 bit Vista a lot on his 500mhz machine. He knows.

Wow, lots of replies. To the moderator guy with the vista thing as is avatar - I didn't mean to be rude, as to suggest I wouldn't donate or anything.The reason I wouldn't spend 20 bucks on a burnt CD of freedos is mostly because I, along with my family are on a rather tight budget - and getting this new computer is a pretty huge thing, and I'm suitably excited.

But as...well, I forget the username, but one of the earlier posters had said something about VDM sound, and how he ran Arena on it. How would you do that? I thought it was only for sound? Could I get some instructions?

I'm assuming that you have Win 9x. Even though there is an old alpha build of VDMS for 9x, it is mostly for Win 2k & XP. It won't give you much more than DOS drivers for your sound card in Windows will. It has Speedset for some speed throttling, but with such an old machine you might just be better off just trying other slowdown utilities.

Gibush wrote:

But as...well, I forget the username, but one of the earlier posters had said something about VDM sound, and how he ran Arena on it. How would you do that? I thought it was only for sound? Could I get some instructions?

Early Windows games (Win 9x) often expected a SoundBlaster driver to be present in Windows. With Windows NT and onwards, Microsoft even tried to provide a sort of SB emulation as part of the NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine - the thing you see when you run COMMAND.EXE) so old Win 9x games could still run on Windows NT. But the SB emulation didn't always work so well, and there were other issues with configuring NTVDM for EMS, XMS, etc, etc.

VDMSound (and SoundFX 2000) works with NTVDM to create a better way to run these old Win 9x games, and with excellent sound quality. Unfortunately, NTVDM was crippled in Windows Vista, so neither VDMSound nor SoundFX 2000 is a viable, long-term solution.

Using them is fairly easy. Install VDMSound (including the VDMSound LaunchPad), find your game, right-click on the COM/EXE file and you will find a tabbed configuration screen resembling the Windows Compatibility Setting Screen. Select the sound, memory, CD-ROM options, etc, etc. Save the settings, and right-click again, choosing Run with VDMSound.

Alright, thanks for the info. I have a problem with the installer though, it says it'll only install when I'm running as the administrator of my computer. How would I...change to administrator?

I don't know as much about emulation, or even DOS, as some of the people here, but I do like old games (I once slowed down a computer to AT-speed [like 7 MHz] to play an ancient Frogger port).
I've tried a bunch of slow-down utilities with varying degrees of success, but there was at least one that was very functional and very easy to use. I'll google "slowdown" later and post a link if I find what I'm talking about.

I'm sorry I took so long, I've had things going on and I kept forgetting.
The program I was mostly thinking of is SLOWDOWN (spelled all caps), and CPUKiller seems pretty good, and is a Windows program, but I got the feeling it would become nagware after the 30-day trial period.
MySlow looked promising, but it won't run on my stupid Vista machine.
and you've probably gotten that computer by now
I hope I've helped someone

ADDiCT wrote:

Oh yes, the Zuse Z1 had maybe also virtualization features. But i think we're talking about "normal" machines, and not computers from the 60's, right?

I used virtualization in the late 80s/early 90s on my Amiga computer, so I could run MacOS on it, since they both used 68k CPUs.

Atari ST had Mac emulation right after it came out as well.

Freddo wrote:

I used virtualization in the late 80s/early 90s on my Amiga computer, so I could run MacOS on it, since they both used 68k CPUs.

You mean Shapeshifter? I think that's classed as an emulator, as is Basilisk which is the follow on project.

http://shapeshifter.cebix.net/

How do you change to administrator? I'm sorry, what version of Windows is running? But again, you've probably gotten that computer by now.