Oh! That makes sense, yeah that's an issue that also annoys me a bit.
I kinda haven't used much Windows on the Mac as I just remote into my home server...
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Emulation on Apple Silicon is quite amazing
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I kinda haven't used much Windows on the Mac as I just remote into my home server...
Yes, as Janichsan said, it's the stuff that Parallels itself installs.
Yes, I also really don't have any need for Windows anymore. I was just wanted to see how Windows ran on UTM and it was very good. Whatever I needed Windows for in the past, there are now Mac equivalents that can get the job done and often times do it better.
Instead of Redream you could try Flycast. I think the release for Mac on GitHub is broken, but one of the latest builds should work:
Flycast CI Builds
flyinghead.github.io
I've tried Xemu just for fun and didn't expect much. Halo 1 runs surprisingly well, until you get explosions and enemies, when the slowdowns hit. Halo 2 has problems with the textures, but that's most likely a problem of Xemu itself, since Halo 2 uses a lot more tricks.
Overall it is very impressive that a hardware that has a CPU that is similar to a 733 MHz Pentium 3 runs at this speed at all. I'm guessing there are a lot of high-level emulation cheats at work, otherwise I can't think why it should run this well.
For emulation of older PC operating systems it's interesting that 86Box (a fork of PCem) does have an official Apple Silicon port now (PCem only had an unofficial alpha port and at the moment there is a bigger change in the project):
Emulator of retro x86-based machines
Before I actually got my M1 MBA, I planned to use PCem to emulate older games that run well with 3Dfx, since PCem (and 86Box) have emulation for the early cards. But initial tests on PCem and DOSBox-X revealed that these emulations are most likely too slow for 3D games.
Funnily enough, I got at least one older game working on Windows on ARM (via Parallels) by using a glide wrapper instead.
QEMU has an interesting concept, but for some reason is way too slow for PC emulation. PowerMac emulation is comparably much faster, but it still lacks the features to be really interesting.
At the moment, the only usable option for PowerMac emulation is SheepShaver, and that only works up to MacOS 9.0.4.
We'll have to wait and see what DingusPPC is capable of, but that'll take a while...
As for controllers, I'm using one for the Xbox One. I didn't try a 360 controller, because that needed an external driver on my Mac Pro and that worked more or less well, and I don't think it has been updated to work with newer MacOS versions.
Do you still have the floppy drive? Then KryoFlux could be an option:
I've never worked with the product, because at the time it was interesting to me, I would have needed it for professional use, and in that case the software would have been too expensive. IIRC, for personal use the software is free, so you'd only have to buy the hardware.
As I said, I have no personal experience with it, but from all I heard about it, it seems to have the best compatibility of any product I know of. And according to the Download page it even has current MacOS software.
What is the spec/make of your 3.5" floppy.....?
I am toying with Hatari, but don't know whether it can access a physical disk, or if it only works with downloads.
I have loads of old Atari ST games, but sold the computer.....
What is the spec/make of your 3.5" floppy.....?
I am toying with Hatari, but don't know whether it can access a physical disk, or if it only works with downloads.
I have loads of old Atari ST games, but sold the computer.....
I think it was sold by VST... It looked like this:
Atari ST floppy disks have the advantage that they use FAT12, so they should be readably with any floppy drive.I have loads of old Atari ST games, but sold the computer.....
The only problem might be if you didn't use TOS to format the disks, but certain tools to have more space (e.g. 1.6 MB instead of 1.44 MB).
While the bootloader contains the number of tracks and the sectors per track, Microsoft operating systems only checked one byte (some sort of format indicator) to determine what format it is. As soon as you deviate from that, they cannot read the disk, although it is perfectly fine.
I'm not sure how the FAT12 support in MacOS does this (if it actually has any).
As far as I can see (AetherSX2) , it's for Android.
Are you saying I can install this, without any BIOS from the old console, and easily play my old PS2 games, if I can manage to make ISOs from the old CDs? On My M1 Mini? What about controller input?
The Apple Silicon versions can be found here:
desktop/mac • AetherSX2 Download Archive
Yet another directory listing, powered by Directory Lister.
www.aethersx2.com
Bios file is needed.
My guess is that a USB 3.5" floppy drive should be able to read it fine in macOS and you should be able to use them with an Atari ST emulator.
Btw, I loved my old Atari 1040 ST. I still remember purchasing the TOS 1.4 upgrade and swapping out the ROM chips to upgrade.
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I'd say it depends on the fact if the disks are copy-protected then.
Since I only had b&w monitors for my STs, I had very few commercial games. Those that I had used hard to photocopy sheets with security codes, but I'm not sure if other games used some floppy disk tricks instead.
Not sure if this is relevant, as the games always ran from floppy......😜
Not looking to copy or duplicate them.
The usb drive will just be reading them, in the same way the Atari ST did.
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I think what KingOfPain was getting at was that a USB drive may not 'handle' the copy protection the same way that a real Atari did. So when the game tries to determine whether it's running from the original disk, it might fail the check and think it's been copied.
Yeah, the emulators work quite well. I installed Mednafen and later Retroarch expecting issues with video and sound. They all booted up fine with the ps1 and saturn games that I tested. I use a wireless Xbox one controller and it easily pairs with bluetooth. Prior to mac, I was using Ubuntu Linux on a Dell Xps 13 and I wasted hours getting sound outputted correctly.
If you are a fan of PS1 games, I suggest giving DuckStation a try.
If you have Parallels/Windows running, you could just check WinFellow, which has a native ARM64 version.
I like it too (especially the look of the GUI) but I think development goes too slow. I even threw some money at it monthly for a year or so, but stopped because of the slow pace. Also that the developers refused to implement scaling/stretching from 4:3 to 16:9 I'd like as an option even if it's not the ”proper” way to view the game.
But it works to stretch the games with the emulators from Richard Bannister (at least in conjunction with his Emulator Enhancer) and they are also Apple Silicon native! https://www.bannister.org/software/index_emulators.htm
For Amiga emulation I would recommend vAmiga. I'm not sure if this is what the original poster tried or not. You definitely need a Kickstart ROM for better compatibility, and you have to set up the emulated hardware first. But if I got it running with my fleeting Amiga knowledge, the emulator should be usable ab almost anyone.
GitHub - dirkwhoffmann/vAmiga: vAmiga is a user-friendly Amiga 500, 1000, 2000 emulator for macOS
vAmiga is a user-friendly Amiga 500, 1000, 2000 emulator for macOS - dirkwhoffmann/vAmiga
github.com
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For those still looking for specific system emulators, I can recommend this site:
emulation.gametechwiki.com
It's mostly up-to-date (somehow they missed the recent release of Hatari, though) and emulators with Mac ports are clearly marked (can sometimes be outdated).
Unfortunately, there is no distinction if the emulators run natively on Apple Silicon or not, and the "Recommended" column seems to mostly mean "recommended for games".
But as a rule of thumb, if you pick one of the recommended emulators at the top of each list that also happens to be marked with the Apple logo it typically runs quite well.
Emulation General Wiki
It's mostly up-to-date (somehow they missed the recent release of Hatari, though) and emulators with Mac ports are clearly marked (can sometimes be outdated).
Unfortunately, there is no distinction if the emulators run natively on Apple Silicon or not, and the "Recommended" column seems to mostly mean "recommended for games".
But as a rule of thumb, if you pick one of the recommended emulators at the top of each list that also happens to be marked with the Apple logo it typically runs quite well.
Cemu is now working on Apple Silicon!!