[verse]

Ok, I have a iMac G5 (non-Intel) and really want to run some PC games.  Does anyone know any good PC emulators other than Virtual PC...and where can I download them?

Any feedback would be nice, thanks!

[Inquisitor]

Yeah, Virtual PC might be your best bet. I don't think they ever ported Wine or any of its derivatives to PowerPC.

[Shadow0000]

If you're searching for an x86 emulator that runs on Mac OS X there are 2, as you named: Virtual PC, and the other is called Q, it is a port of QEMU and can run in both Intel-based Macs, as well as PowerPC Macs, here is the official page:

http://www.kju-app.org/kju/

One of the screenshots is showing the emulator running Windows Vista (Beta 2).

I don't think they ever ported Wine or any of its derivatives to PowerPC.

Wine Is Not an Emulator

[spartan_0214]

Just get a PC, it'll make you happier. It goes faster, it does more things, it's got a better interface.

just get a PC...



Sorry, spartan feels pity for your lack of access to a PC. Macintosh doesn't do much. Period. (IM,ummm...H...yea right,O)

oh yea, and without further ado:


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[Inquisitor]

Wine Is Not an Emulator

Details, details Or in this case, semantics, since my GUESS is he's looking fro a way to play PC games on his mac

Now that I think of it, I don't think DirectX plays well with Virtual PC.

[Shadow0000]

Just get a PC, it'll make you happier. It goes faster, it does more things, it's got a better interface.

just get a PC...

That doesn't help at all, I have seen people which runs programs like WINE and they report loosing like 3% of performance, even in heavy CPU tasks (a PS2 emulator for example), I rarely doubt anyone would want to expect so much cash just to see their game running at 1-3 FPS more.

There is a MAC OS X port of WINE, named Darwine, however it doesn't support sound and it's has problems with XP-only programs, here is the official page:

URL REMOVED

It's uses combined code from both WINE and QEMU.

[spartan_0214]

what's WINE?

[Shadow0000]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WINE

[spartan_0214]

I was comparing PC to Macintosh....

[Shadow0000]

That would depend on the use you give, I remember people who wanted to have a PowerPC based Mac so they could just emulate at better speeds other PowerPC based systems like the Nintendo GameCube, the Sega Chihiro or some of the seventh generation consoles, but that has changed lately, I doubt anyone would want to buy it now for those purposes.

[Inquisitor]

Anyway, since the Mac versus PC debate is older than Adam and Eve and not NEARLY as interesting, back to the point, yes?

What are you trying to do? I think taylor had OSX support for Freespace SCP at one point, so if all you want to do is play FS, hop down to the SCP forums.

There are a few other games out there (Lore included) that already run natively. You'll be better off, performance wise, running native games on the native system, and that, sadly, does imply you might be better off buying a PC if you want to play games, or going out and supporting all the mac devs who stuggled with poor Apple developer support and buying some of their titles

http://www.garagegames.com has some other, mac compatible, titles, might be worth checking out.

And that's cool on Darwine, I kinda lost touch with the Mac dev scene. Our sales on the platform were abyssmal, and each point release of the OS broke something different, so I kinda gave up trying to keep support up to date. We have a new mac guy, so, next time out, maybe it will be easier for us.

[Unknown Target]

Sorry to derail, but where can I get a working PS2/Xbox/Gamecube emulator? Last I checked (awhile ago), they didn't exist.

[Inquisitor]

If they exist, they certainly aren't legal

[Shadow0000]

That's misleading, let me clarify:

People lately have problems to understand that something which isn't legal, isn't neccesarily illegal, such things fall in law loopholes. Have any of you heard of "Region Locking" ?, no one can be enforced to buy a game that is not being selled in their own region, for example a japanese law can't be enforced to all of the other contries, so as they can't do much about it, some consoles, take the Sega CD and the Saturn as an example, simply try to fill those loopholes with region locking, remember that people argued that Sony can't complain about piracy on the PS1 since they decide to not include region locking. (the BIOSes are a different matter)

Emulators aren't illegal, laws are different for each country, just check your country laws, but please don't enforce your own laws to other countries (China seems to be too aware of this).

Sorry to derail, but where can I get a working PS2/Xbox/Gamecube emulator? Last I checked (awhile ago), they didn't exist.

Don't expect any of those emulators to run at full speed, unless you have an overclocked Conroe/GF 8800:

For PS2 there is PCSX2:

URL REMOVED

For GameCube there is Dolphin and GCube, and a few others:

URL REMOVED

Dolphin is really slow, you have more chances with GCube, but it doesn't have any official homepage

There isn't any good emulator for the Xbox, since there is lack of interest in the console, mainly for 2 reasons, there are a few exclusive games (probabily around 50), and the fact that it's hardware is mostly undocumented. There are 2 emulators, CXBX which only runs Turok Evolution, and Xeon which only runs Halo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cxbx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeon_%28emulator%29

And a DC emulator has been around for about 2 years.

[Nix]

IIRC, it's illegal to have a BIOS image if you don't own a console.  Having and developing an emulator isn't in itself illegal.  Yes, it's up to state laws, but the real legal bottleneck is ownership of such console, and having a BIOS image.  Without that image, you can't play the game through the emulator, therein is probably why people make emulators.  It's up to the user to get a BIOS image, whether they pirate one or dump their very own image from their legally owned console.

[Shadow0000]

Yes it's illegal (though I can't confirm if this localized or in all the world), but there is another problem with that:

Not all consoles need Bios, take the N64 as an example, the bios is useless since the cartridge's boot code it's calculated by the checksum of the cartridge, I have seen a few emulators which don't need the Bios to run games because they used methods to bypass it.

Again, in some places, is determined that an emulator becomes illegal if it doesn't emulate all of the security procedures that the real platform have (Bios/SubChannel/Encryption/others).

[Unknown Target]

Well I got PCSX2 working, but do I need the original CDs to play? I put them in, but the farthest I've got with Final Fantasy X was it being seen as a music CD...

[Taristin]

Erm, most of those require the game to be in image form, since the cdroms in computers are incapable of reading the disks.

Hence why they're generally illegal... You'd have to make a backup of it, probably via the PS2's network port, and your PS2 would need to be modded...


But this thread is likely going to be closed because of this talk et al.

[Shadow0000]

Erm, most of those require the game to be in image form, since the cdroms in computers are incapable of reading the disks.

False, and most PS2 games are in DVD-5 and DVD-9 format, unless there is some rip involved.

Hence why they're generally illegal... You'd have to make a backup of it, probably via the PS2's network port, and your PS2 would need to be modded...

Misleading again, modding a console is not illegal worldwide, but yes in some places (ex: Germany).

Technically you could be arrested for operating (playing) a game that doesn't correspond to your region, for example if you were to go to an arcade shop and play a game that's not from your region you can have serious troubles for infringement of copyrights laws.

[Inquisitor]

THAT'S misleading.

The law is defined locally. Chances are really good its not legal where he hails from