leileilol wrote on 2023-02-11, 22:27:
PCem shines more on getting Win9x to work better than a virtualizer since it emulates more varied 90s hardware from the time
Except Virtual PC, I think. I have several versions tested, including their emulator versions on Power Mac (with Voodoo 1 or 2 pass-through).
The partially broken SB16 emulation and
the lack of an integrated Voodoo emulation aside, Virual PC was near perfect.
Okay, the missing USB support was sad, as well. The Mac versions had it all the time.
I think if Virtual PC for Macintosh was ported to PC, maybe updated, it would certainly have the chance to blow both PCem/86Box out of the water.
It had all the useful features even back in the 90s.
It even had Pentium II emulation.
Same goes for SoftWindows 98: It was very capable. 🙂👍
Here's an article that supports my opinion that Virtual PC wasn't that bad.
https://86box.net/2022/03/21/why-not-p3.html
If the OP runs Windows 8 on his monster PC, Virtual PC may still be run.
There also was the "XP-Mode" release for Windows Virtual PC..
The huge CPU power available to the XP guest could be used to compensate the lack of 3D support.
Maybe some DirectX or OpenGL software render could be installed.
There were multiple projects like this in the early 2000s.
That Mesa OpenGL thing could be useful, maybe.
leileilol wrote on 2023-02-11, 22:27:
Also XP's broken-ness for being the mainstream public gateway to the WinNT world (coupled with nVidia drivers breaking stuff) is how Vogons really got started. 😀
I'm completely irrelevant, of course, but I must say I liked Windows XP from the beginning, it gave my last Windows 98SE PCs a new life (back then).
It's like a version of Windows 2000 with added Windows 9x application compatibility, I think.
Edit: Back in the 2000s, personally, I discovered Vogons Zetafleet because of DOSBox, mainly.
However, at least one "friend" of mine was fascinated by VDMSound, so I gave it a try, too.
In the end, I kept using VDMSound for all the demanding things that I couldn't emulate in DOSBox due to the lack of CPU power.
In some way or another, the issue still remains.
I'm still using Virtual PC, because 86Box/PCem are too demanding - like DOSBox was back when I used VDMSound.
PCem/86box are fascinating, but they always continue to limit me because
they require high-end Gamer PCs with gigantic heatsinks.
A humble server or office PC could do just as good, if it only was allowed to use virtualization.
(The removal of XP support on the host side in in 86Box in 2019 or so was sad, too.)
I really hope PCem/86box will one day make use of hardware-assisted virtualization (optionally).
It's a shame that all PCs have that feature since ~2005 or so but it's not used.
Especially the advanced versions with IOMMU would allow neat things without worrying about things like the absence of V86 in Long-Mode.
With AMD-V or Intel-VT, there's no need for V86 anymore - because they *are* V86, just magnitudes better.
Edit: I know I was generally speaking and not answering the OPs questions directly.
Because, I simply can't. I have no hardware at hand to run current versions of PCem/86Box, anymore.
None of my XP/7 laptops can run them anymore, either.
Both versions, PCem and 86Box, got more and more hostile against Windows XP PCs over the years.
I'm afraid both their code is so bloated by now, that they wouldn't even run on my Xeon processor anymore.
Even if Windows XP was still supported as a host OS, which it isn't, sadly.
So all I can do is speaking about concepts and hope that it may be useful to the OP.
Edit: I've just did a quick check. The The OP's Ryzen CPU has about four times the single-core performance of a Pentium 4, Xeon 5150 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-P … 0X/m11003vs4087
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-Ath … 00X/m2246vs4087
https://technical.city/de/cpu/Xeon-5150-vs-Ryzen-9-5900X
Not sure if that's enough to get 86Box/PCem running as fast as needed.
But it might be enough for a Pentium II, I suppose.
I had trouble emulating anything higher than a fast 486 with the AMD Athlon 64 X2..
Sure, that was a while ago.. PCem v11 was it. But did PCem really evolve so much for the better since ?
Currently, about the fastest I can emulate with my Xeon 5150 PC is a Pentium MMX (PCem v12).
That's all I can say about the matter, no idea if its useful. If not, please just ignore this posting and go on.
Edit: Or let me put it this way - If a high-end PC can run bsnes or Higan fluently, then it should handle PCem/86Box nicely, too. 😁
Edit: I've just read the Higan article at Wikipedia.. I'm both shocked and depressed to hear what had happened to the developer. Why? 😢
"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//