#EMPLANT's emulation
20 messages in this thread
<<The living books crash on my Emplant run an Apple CD150 and Apple divers.
(But run fine on my wife's 630 upstairs.)>>
Go figure! Hey, maybe I'm blaming the wrong guys! Possibly something is going
awry in EMPLANT's emulation. Hmmmm…
Honestly, if it weren't for the EMPLANT game incompatiblities (kids really have
a large impact on your life – geez) and the damn lateness of the 586 emulation
(which nobody really knows how fast it will be) I'd re-think this whole mess
and stick with the Amiga. Have you tried running Wolfenstein on the EMPLANT?
I've got a damn 040 (yeah maybe only 25 MHz, but still an 040) and a Retina
Z-III (in Blitter mode) and the game is excrutiatingly SLOW! I honestly can't
see where I could gain any more speed and along those lines, how the 586 will
either. Even 386 PC's graphics run faster (not just a little, but EXTREMELY
so). I can't wait to see the outcome of the DOOM incompatibility problem that
is supposedly being fixed.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F100-PW-220e Inside
Alan-
What about regular Mac apps and the Mac OS? Are they slow like Wolfenstein?
I'm about to get an 040 and I have, as you know, a RetinaZ3, so this really
concerns me.
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
<<What about regular Mac apps and the Mac OS? Are they slow like Wolfenstein?
I'm about to get an 040 and I have, as you know, a RetinaZ3, so this really
concerns me.>>
I'll put it this way, don't get too used to the snappy screens that you're
seeing right now on your Amiga while running the Retina in Blitter mode. While
the EMPLANT display is much more colorful and faster with the Retina than
without, it still has a lot to be desired. Running a MAC BenchMark program, my
graphic speed (8-bit) is about half of a normal Quadra. The OS is usable, as
are most apps, however, the screen just seems to lag a little. Wolfenstein has
so many pixels in motion that the screen lag is magnified.
Hey, if anybody is getting better results, graphic-wise, let me know. I've
noticed that since I've upgraded to OS3.1, I can't run EMPLANT in 24-bit mode
(GURU) either, so maybe I'm missing something.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F100-PW-220e Inside
I, too, am less than totally happy with Emplant.
My main reason for buying it was to run graphics programs. I have a
Picasso II, which Jim Drew personally told me at the last Toronto WOCA,
would work beautifully. Photoshop is slow. I keep getting multiple pointer
and other images on the screen that have to be wiped away.
With 2 megs of Amiga chip ram, 2 megs of video ram on the Picasso, and 16
megs of 32 bit ram on my GVP 040 accelerator, I would expect better
function. CD-ROM (Apple 300) is also very sluggish and QuickTime movies
are painfully jerky and slow.
Contrary to Jim Drew's claims, my daughter's Quadra is immensely faster
than my Emplant system, although we both have '040 accelerators.
Hank
<<I, too, am less than totally happy with Emplant…and QuickTime movies are
painfully jerky and slow.>>
Wait, hold the presses! Today, just messing around with a different video
driver (RetinaZIII 640×480 instead of the plain vanilla Retina). I actually
doubled my video speed on the EMPLANT. When checked with Speedometer 4.01
(MAC's benchmark program) sure enough my 8-bit graphic speed just jumped from
.16 to .38 (1.0 being normal Quadra speed) – Big Woop! At least now, when I
run Wolfenstein in it's tiniest window, it really flies <g>!
I've got a 4x Toshiba CD-ROM drive with caches out the wazoo, QuickTime 2.0 w/
Apple's Multi-media tuner, FWB's CD-ROM Toolkit (supposedly one of the best
CD-ROM accelerators around), and a Retina Z-III w/4 Meg VRAM in Blitter mode,
and QuickTime movies still look like an old Charlie Chaplin movie.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F100-PW-220e Inside
What res do you run the Mac side on? And how deep? I've got AP, for example,
on 800x600x3 on the blitter, and it just blazes even with an 030, but then
xiPaint at 800x600x24 can't be on the blitter and also has all those extra
bitplanes to deal with, so it's pretty sluggish. But then my Workbench, in
order to get WW to run right, is at 1152x900x3, and it's, while not quite as
snappy as AP, still surprisingly fast. I'd also figure that CPU has a fair
effect, so you must be getting better results than I do, since you have an 040
and I have an 030.
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
<<What res do you run the Mac side on? And how deep?>>
I run the MAC at 640 x 480 in 8-bit. Any resolution higher than that really
slows things down quite a bit. Using the Retina driver doesn't allow anything
less than 8-bit. Running Speedometer 4.01 (MAC Benchmark program), the best
graphics speed that I can achieve is less than half (36%) of a normal Quadra.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F100-PW-220e Inside
36%? (#($)(#097)($@_#)@(#_$*#$(*$#*$!)!))##@@)(@#)@($????
That's pretty lousy. Is the Retina driver one provided by UU?
Also, what version of the OS are you using? Is it possible to use 7.5, or is
there still that 256k ROM issue?
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
The Retina driver is UU's.
I'm using System 7.5 on the MAC without any compatiblity problems. The slow
results are using the Retina in 8-bit mode also.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F-100-PW-220e Inside
Do you have the Retina set on Blitter? Does it even show up in RetinaEmu, or
is it all handled by UU's end?
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
The MAC is set to blitter mode in the RetinaEMU program. It shows up as MAC
Video 0.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F-100-PW-220e Inside
Alan,
>Honestly, if it weren't for the EMPLANT game incompatiblities (kids
really have a large impact on your life – geez)
Yeah they sure do (son age 6 & daughter age 7). I solved the problem by
getting my wife a Performa 637 (The "7" just denotes the software bundle.
Its actually a 630) for Xmas. Now my wife is happy because she is becoming
the MAC/Claris Works expert at her elementary school (She teaches
kindergarten, and out school system just bought a quarter of a million
dollars worth of MACs). My kids are happy because they can play all there
games and use The Writing Center accessing them easily through "At Ease".
And I am happy because it takes all the pressure off my A4000! 🙂
The only thing I use on Emplant is Quicken, Mac-in-Tax, and some
graphics programs (Photoshop, etc.) and they all work perfectly.
Now my Ami is back doing what it does best: Doing my DTP stuff on
PageStream (2.2 not 3.0 yet 😉 ). Cranking out animations on Imagine. And
now doing digital, frame accurate, nonlinear video editing via MovieShop
and the VLAB Motion board!
…Warp Engine Engaged…
-Paul-
<<I solved the problem by getting my wife a Performa 637…>>
I don't have the luxury of having two systems (cash or space). Nor can I
justify it – projects are coming far and few between. With a Pentium, I could
still work on Imagine (in many cases faster than on my current system) and have
complete compatiblity with the games my kids want. I have an offer for my
complete system which I'm inclined to take, however, I'm going to base my final
decision on the performance of the EMPLANT 586e emulation. If it doesn't make
the grade, I bail.
Alan Henry – Digital Plastic
F100-PW-220e Inside
Paul-
How's your Emplant video performance? Do you have a video card like Alan and
me, is it half-Mac-speed like Alan's?
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
>How's your Emplant video performance? Do you have a video card like
Alan
No video card. Just an AGA 256 color screen on my 4000 with Warp
Engine. But I don't do anything on Emplant that requires rapid video
updating. Quicken, etc. are fine. Even Photoshop is not bad. The fast
computations makes up for the slower screen update. I can do a rotate
faster than om my friend's Quatra – so he says. Of course I am using only
256 colors. I suspect your slower speeds are while using thousands, or
millions of colors.
…Warp Engine Engaged…
-Paul-
OK, that sounds pretty decent. Must be that I'd get decent results with a
Retina. Can you use System 7.5 yet? I'd heard a while ago that that was a
problem.
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
Paul,
7.5 works just fine with the 5.1 version of the Emplant software.
Cheers, Marty
ProActive Images Inc.
"WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT ALL DAY LONG" – RW EMERSON
Cool! Thanks Marty – tell me, though, do you need 256k ROMs, or just the
regular 128k ones? (Or am I getting confused and the regular Emplant
requirement is for 256k ROMs and 7.5 needs 512k ones?)
Paul (aka Mr. Zombie)
Paul,
Emplant utilizes 256k ROMS with ALL of its MAC emulation software versions.
Cheers, Marty