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Running Games and Apps.

VICE Emulator On Vampire

Sean Sk

Posts 488
01 Oct 2019 15:10


Has anyone managed to get VICE for M868K OS3 working with a Vampire? The last version to come out for that platform was 3.1. Later versions excluded a M68K release.

I was keen to try and get the VIC-20 emulator running. VICE requires AHI, P96 Driver, MUI and lowlevel.library, all of which I have installed. But I just cant seem to get it to run. All that comes up is a grey box. Trying to run it on a V600.


Simo Koivukoski
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 601
01 Oct 2019 16:13


Last time when i tried (it's been awhile), latest version didn't work even on WinUAE. If this is still a case, download the older version. It works OK on Vampire.


Sean Sk

Posts 488
02 Oct 2019 15:30


Thanks for your reply Simo. Yeah tried version 3.1, 3.0 and 2.4 and none of them worked.
 
The one that DID work was VicePlus 1.1 from Aminet, but it ran way too slow to be enjoyable unfortunately. A shame really, would have been fun to turn my A600 into a VIC-20. :)
 


John William

Posts 563
02 Oct 2019 18:31


It have been officially confirmed there is a bug in the latest version of VICE for Amiga 68k. I even went and posted a bug report ticket with picture to show them of the issue. However, almost 4 years+ since I have posted it...no effort have been made to fix this matter. This have nothing to do with Vampire. Nothing to do with core of the Vampire. This all have to do with the actual program itself...is broken and no attempt from the community have been made to resolve this issue for the Amiga 68k. As the interest to support the Amiga 68k is at the lowest priority.

My advice is to go lower version that works and it's compatibility with c64 game is nearly 99% and that is all you need. All the additional bells and whistles are unnecessary and you can do without in the Amiga 68k anyways.

However, I do recommend that you guys get Ultimate 64-II and a real C64. As I am authentic hardware fanatic person and only use emulator when I have no other choice.


Robert Downs

Posts 31
02 Oct 2019 19:41


AmiKit has removed VICE from their distro probably for exactly this reason.  Shame since I'd like to get a feel for how well C64 emulation works on 68k hardware.


John William

Posts 563
02 Oct 2019 20:43


Robert Downs wrote:

AmiKit has removed VICE from their distro probably for exactly this reason.  Shame since I'd like to get a feel for how well C64 emulation works on 68k hardware.

You know what people should do and I am not joking! I will even buy that hardware in a heart beat! You know how in the Apple world before the PPC Mac and in the 68k mac and even apple //gs world they have this chipset/card that gives backward compatibility to Apple // libraries.

This was designed so people can slowly migrate to the new machine, Mac 68k then PPC Mac, right?

Amiga never had that bridge ever when we moved from C64 to Amiga. I would like to bring that to the Amiga even if we are in 2019 via V4. V4 have expansion ports, right? Well...- wipes mouth -....let us use them!

I say if someone is to develop a C64 bridge card that have the CPU, SID and VIC II in it (uses the V4 RAM for the 64 KB) and this card have disk drive port, tab port and expansion port only.

You put it on the expansion card of the V4 and you use the keyboard/joystick/mouse of the V4 to be the keyboard/joystick/mouse of the c64. Inside the workbench (driver) is a little application when you open it..you can figure the hardware of this C64 bridge inside your workbench and click GO! (It asks, "Are you sure you wish to enter C64 mode?" You click YES)

The screen turns black for a moment and you are greeted with the famous C64 blue screen on your V4. You hook the real disk drive 1541-II or ultimate 1541-II or whatever, easyflash, etc and poof you load your C64 games on your v4. It support fastloader, etc.

It uses the DIGITAL-VIDEO of your V4 for both audio/video and it is 100% real C64 hardware!

Problem solved!

Now you are experiencing C64 on your 68k Amiga. This card is V4 exclusive!


Geoff Wells

Posts 43
02 Oct 2019 22:41


I know this is silly and I can't believe I'm suggesting this but I wonder if the Vampire has enough horsepower to run the DOS version of Vice in DOSBox or PCTask?  The layers of instruction set emulation are ridiculous but it might work.  I couldn't find the minimum hardware requirements for Vice and haven't tried it but it would be an interesting experiment.


Vojin Vidanovic
(Needs Verification)
Posts 1916/ 1
02 Oct 2019 23:22


Emulation of emulators is nonsense.

Maybe someone could backport VICE from OS4 or even x86 again?


Sean Sk

Posts 488
03 Oct 2019 00:05


John William wrote:

It have been officially confirmed there is a bug in the latest version of VICE for Amiga 68k. I even went and posted a bug report ticket with picture to show them of the issue. However, almost 4 years+ since I have posted it...no effort have been made to fix this matter. This have nothing to do with Vampire. Nothing to do with core of the Vampire. This all have to do with the actual program itself...is broken

   
This is true. Just like Simo mentioned in his post, I also had tried the various VICE versions in WinUAE ages ago but none of them worked. It got to the point where I needed to find out if I was doing something wrong. :)
   
Geoff Wells wrote:

but I wonder if the Vampire has enough horsepower to run the DOS version of Vice in DOSBox or PCTask?

   
Probably not unfortunately. The one version of VICE that did run natively in OS3 (from Aminet) I could only get to run at a maximum of 50% normal speed.
   
I know there are other C64 emulators out there for Amiga that don't emulate the VIC-20. But I was never really into the C64 much since I had a VIC-20 growing up and we never upgraded. So it doesn't have as much meaning to me. But I certainly appreciate it's popularity though.


Robert Downs

Posts 31
03 Oct 2019 02:29


I don't know what sort of purpose those three expansion ports can serve, but perhaps there is functionality there that would allow an FPGA Ultimate64 solution to plug into these and pipe I/O through the V4SA I/O.

I can dream. Right?


John William

Posts 563
03 Oct 2019 04:39


Robert Downs wrote:

I don't know what sort of purpose those three expansion ports can serve, but perhaps there is functionality there that would allow an FPGA Ultimate64 solution to plug into these and pipe I/O through the V4SA I/O.
 
  I can dream. Right?

Those three expansion ports are nothing more than PCI or male zorro ports. Simply develop a new card, shove it into that expansion port and poof you added a new feature..like lego. This is why i suggested that C64 board idea.


Michael AMike

Posts 152
03 Oct 2019 09:45


Magic64 works quite good on the V2, give it a try.


Simo Koivukoski
(Apollo Team Member)
Posts 601
03 Oct 2019 10:04


With Frodo C64 emulator you can use the real 1451-II floppy drive! :)

EXTERNAL LINK 


John William

Posts 563
03 Oct 2019 18:42


Simo Koivukoski wrote:

With Frodo C64 emulator you can use the real 1451-II floppy drive! :)
 
  EXTERNAL LINK 

That is an illusion Simo! It doesn't support fastloader!



Geoff Wells

Posts 43
03 Oct 2019 22:34


Vojin Vidanovic wrote:

Emulation of emulators is nonsense.

Agree 100%.  As noted, just a silly thought.

sean sk wrote:

Probably not unfortunately. The one version of VICE that did run natively in OS3 (from Aminet) I could only get to run at a maximum of 50% normal speed.

I didn't think so either but I thought I had read in another thread that PCTask on a vampire could get to the 486SX @ 25 Mhz level.  If that was the case it made me wonder.  Just getting overly excited about the processing power of the Vampire.  Need to get this into an ASIC!

posts 15