What the fastest possible x64 emulation way of OS4 today ?

@geennaamQuote:

No their hardware is a bit weak. The best experience is currently achieved with current Ryzen CPUs or M1/2 CPUs.

I use the latter, even on the cheapest MacMini with M1 (699€) about my values are reached and AmigaOs4.1 feels really very good under emulation. Benchmarks prove that the emulation is far beyond real hardware (Pegasos2/Sam460/AmigaOne).

Also running Qemu under Linux would not speed up the emulation, Qemu is not dependent on the operating system used but on its hardware, the faster the hardware the better the emulation.

Since host and guest use different CPU,s x86/ppc we can only emulate it and not virtualize it using e.g. KVM Linux or Apple's hypervisor (virtualization framework).

@Maijestro

I consider my PC with it's 4GHz 10th generation Core-i5 as averaged spec'ed. But apparently this is not nearly sufficient for QEMU.
The Ryzen 5600 of derfs is ~30% faster in PC benchmarks. I see the same difference with the CPUBench test script. So it doesn't look like there's a specific benefit for Ryzens. But it could be that the QEMU TCG and JIT will benefit from the much larger caches in Ryzens in certain scenario's. I have only tested the basic workbench experience.
Yet, I doubt that this 30% processing power difference would make that much of a difference overall. It's looks like the GFX part is the issue in my case.

And this is comparing with my sam440/Radeon9200. The X5000/RX580 is completely in a different league. Even while running with 3440x1440 resolution.

But I also observe stability issues. Like Walkero already mentioned do I also observe ethernet issues. Communication simply stops. Especially when I transfer megabytes of data with for example youtube. But also running the CPUbench.script multiple times will result in an endless execution of the Drystone test. Doesn't matter if the emulated CPU is G3, 7447 or 7457.

For me, QEMU is nice if you want to check out what OS4 is about. For now, it's more like a CyberstormPPC experience then a SAM460 experience imho. But I will monitor the progress of QEMU and I'm sure that it will get there eventually.

@geennaam

There are different opinions about it, I can only reflect my experience that I have personally made under my hardware and it is very good. The working speed is consistently positive. There are many example videos from me already.

Many users believe that if they use their 4 year old laptop with Qemu Peg2 they will get a faster emulation than under real hardware (Peg2,Sam460) and that on a CPU that works completely different. This cannot and will not work.

Of course, it is an emulation and there are many limitations that do not exist on real hardware. But that has already been discussed here.

In order to solve problems we would have to investigate them further and also report these errors. Or reproduce them clearly. I do not have this problem with the workround of the older Pegasos2 rtl8139 driver in use.

Errors can also be reported under:

http://zero.eik.bme.hu/~balaton/qemu/amiga/index.html

There is already a bug tracker there.

We don't know exactly where this bug comes from and it would probably have to be investigated directly from the Qemu site, but also from the AmigaOs 4.1 site.

If no one wants to support the Qemu Peg2 Project then nothing will change.

Maybe someone has an idea how we can better investigate the problem ?

@white

Together with smarkusg we have recompiled the SDL version of Uae, this version works under G4 CPU 7447/7457, supports fullscreen and UAEGFX.

Since you have already set up a 68k system under AmigaOs 4.1 with uae could you please test this version?

UaeQemuPeg2G4SDL

@Maijestro

The fact is that the bulk of PC users do not have the top of the line processors. The i5-10400 was only released 3 years ago and I own one since two years. Its successor (11th generation) is only marginally faster and was only launched two years ago. My work laptop is a 9th generation i7 which is still more than capable of running all the (CAD) software that I have to use for my profession. I think the life cycle of a laptop in my company is 4 or 5 years. PCs aren't updated as frequent anymore in households because a phone and tablet fulfill their role nowadays.
Another fact is that MAC computers are niche and your M1 MAX even more so. Buying a MAC with M1 MAX to run an amiga emulator isn't a viable approach. But if you happen to own one than you're just lucky in this specific case. Given the long PowerPC history and recent x86 history of apple, I wouldn't be surprised that their ARM cpu's contain some features to assist emulation.
I bet that a POWER9/10 will be able to emulate a PegasosII even better. Because a lot of PowerPC instructions have a direct counterpart on POWER and therefore don't need nearly as much instruction for emulation as on other ISAs. And it's big endian too. But buying a POWER9/10 to have a good emulation experience doesn't make sense either. Unless you happen to own one just like you and your M1 MAX.
So I stand by my conclusion that emulation is too slow for the average PC owner unless you happen to own a very powerful one. If I'd known up front that the experience is acceptable on only the fastest hardware then I would not have bought AmigaOS4 for PegaososII.

About the choice for PegasosII emulation:
The PegasosII was originally developed for MorphOS. Not for AmigaOS. So not many amigaOS4 users will own a PegasosII.
It is also openfirmware based which is also different from recent NG amigas (mostly u-boot based).
The hardware is also very limited compared to recent NG Amigas.
In other words, you're trying to emulate a niche within a niche.
This is the reason why we cannot really help you debug a pegasosII emulator.
Radeon HD/RX gfx cards need to be initialized by the firmware. I doubt that the pegasosII firmware is capable of initialising a RadeonHD or RX. Even the more recent SAM440 can't initialize a RX (yet). So an iommu solution for a pegasosII sounds very challenging to me.

Reproducing the issue on my system is easy: Run CPUbench.scipt in a shell. Once it has completed run it again in the same shell. The second or third time, it will hang at the drystones benchmark. The system will not freeze. It just will not finish the test anymore. But this can be related to the windows build and might not happen on your MAC.

@geennaam

Ok thanks first of all for the detailed explanation. It is not only about the Pegasos2 emulation, but also Sam460, unfortunately this is still very slow at the moment, I guess their hardware is just much more complex than the 20 year old Pegasos 2 hardware. Nevertheless both emulations could profit from it. Sam460 uses the firmware "uboot" which would be more like a real AmigaNG. If you had a working graphics driver that was supported by qemu sam460 and AmigaOs 4.1, it would most likely be usable with the Pegasos2 emulation. And we are not talking about full 3d accelerated drivers or RX drivers that is not needed. What would be sufficient is a driver that can display 32 bit screens and maybe support 2d acceleration.

As you wrote, I was just lucky to buy my Mac M1 and to get involved with the AmigaOs4.1 emulation in the first place.

That you had to buy an AmigaOs 4.1 Pegasos2 version for it is of course stupid. If it's any consolation I had to buy 2 licenses without having proper hardware for it. But I showed from the beginning everything on my Mac with M1 and info I always gave with, I did not know myself that it runs on i5,i7 etc. so limited and sluggish.

Still what the Mac M1 I bought exclusively to work the Qemu emulation took place only out of curiosity, but since it already works very well I am of course glad that I have dealt with it at all.

The test with the CPU benchmarks script I will try to reproduce later on my hardware and will let them know if the same error occurs here.

@geennaam
I took a moment and did 6 tests. Everything works, nothing crashes.
I don't know how to prove it to you but I made some screenshots.

https://i.imgur.com/xnoEYXN.png
https://i.imgur.com/WKqsUbW.png
https://i.imgur.com/xjqeSJX.png
https://i.imgur.com/r6u9V41.png
https://i.imgur.com/YbUWpKI.png

Linux x86_64 as with neofetch - you have on the side on the console.
Linux kernel I have profiled with some patches that I need for example for anbox , letencynice ....
I also have a Mac mini. I do not use Windows because I do not have to. I have wine under Linux, and a remote desktop for Windows.
For gaming I have a Playstation - I replace it every generation and have peace of mind.

PPC emulation is not straightforward and as you know yourself can make heavy use of the host processor.
I would compare Qemu Amiga emulation to a new PC game if I may use such a comparison.
Every new game has new requirements. It will run on an older PC but with limitations.
Sam emulation Qemu pegasos was created about 2 years ago so you can say that such a device can be used as a starter.
Laptops X86_64 is already a tragedy. All Apple notebooks >= M1 can handle it.


As for the Pegasos II. it seems to me that it is the best documented hardware for emulation. That's why the author used it.
I'm happy with it. Morphos is able to run on a simple ATI card emulation, linux ppc works and AOS.

Apple hardware is less niche than Linux for desktops. Linux is driven by the power of OpenSource. Even Apple and Window to make it more fun. I remember the days when Microsoft called linux "the devil" and what is it doing now ? ;-O

Don't dismiss Qemu emulation of Pegasos 2. Try some more Linux with a live cd where qemu-8 will be available. Check cpu profile for performerence,

If you have any problems, let me know and I can help

@geennaamQuote:

I could not reproduce it, I ran the script 3 times in a row and it ran completely all 3 times. However, I started the script directly by clicking on it. How do I start it directly through the shell, just in the shell by drag and drop does not work.

@all

I'm sorry if I've given you a wrong impression which is not true for your hardware. I will leave the topic Qemu from now on and only ask for support if it is needed directly under AmigaOs4.1. My intention was never to offend or annoy anyone. Since I like to use AmigaOs4.1 as much as others do under real hardware I felt very comfortable here and could also show approximately what is possible with AmigaOs4.1 and how things already work.

Thanks for the help so far with some software under AmigaOs4.1.

@Maijestro

You are not annoying me. On the contrary, I am curious where this might lead to.

It's just this thread gives the impression that you can emulate an Amigaos4 system on modern PC hardware. And in my opinion, this is not the case.
So it's just a fair warning to anyone with an Intel Core i3, i5 and I7 from the 11th generation and older. You'll get a system that works but it will feel slower than a sam440. The 12th generation made a bigger step in performance and is on par with the Ryzen 5000. So if you have one of those then it might work better for you.

The shell is a command line interface and works just like the window cmd or powershell or whatever you use on macos.
Open it by clicking on the shell icon in the docky bar. Change directory to where you have stored CPUbench. Then type CPUbench.script and press enter. Once finished, you can either type the command again or press "arrow up" and run the script again. Like Linux, use can use "tab" to complete a command. Unlike Linux, you do not need to use "./" or sudo.

For me, if a really powerful X86 or Arm computer is running OS4 well and is cheaper and easier to buy than a dedicated PPC computer, it is a good solution for someone who would like to test and run OS4. Of course, it will lack all the extra things that a dedicated machine does, and it might be slower. I consider that as a very good entry-level solution.

On the other hand, maybe after some work, it gets equally good. If a virtio-vga driver provides support for hardware acceleration and a virtio-net driver supports everything out there, then we might end up with a very good environment. Maybe not, but I believe worth a try.

Will it make my dedicated PPC hardware obsolete? I don't think so. But even if it does, if it helps to get a bigger user base, I don't see why we shouldn't embrace it. It might be a faster way to move to x86 systems, not natively but if it works well, it is enough for me.

@Walkero

Totally Agree.
Emulated is not in contrast with Real Hardware, they will never be the same experience. Instead Emulated hardware could help easily to grow the user base and sell more software and sustain devs.
I really hope dome skilled dev could develop virtio-vga and virtio-net support.

@flash
@Walkero

I see it the same way, almost every household already owns a PC and the fewest want to invest in additional hardware like an AmigaNG system which is unfortunately also very expensive.

@smarkusg also used and tested the Qemu AmigaOs4.1 emulation in the beginning, now he is already developing for AmigaOs4.1, there are some projects already running, but I am not allowed to give details. What I want to say is that there could be more users and also developers.

Also I don't own any real hardware, because I don't have the space for it, but I really wanted to use AmigaOs4.1 and this emulation was the fastest way for me to realize it. In addition, the new development of hardware for Amiga is slow.

@walkero
i agree with what you said
clearly it's always better to have real hardware this is normal.

For example I'm emulating with Yuzu at 60fps
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

but it is clear that if I had the nintendo switch I would not think about emulating it.

@Maijestro @smarkusg
tried E-UAE but its always too slow
Thank you.
(( E-UAE The current one works fine
Can I use both "SDL" version
And also the NON-SDL version
I created two different configurations.

Obviously if it is possible to have a better version it would be really very nice

So I'm trying the whole system and applications of all kinds
They work very well.

I have fully configured the system and it is really functional.

So much so that I can see YouTube videos in full screen with Odyssey.
With the G3 cpu which I prefer because I do many things without having to pay attention to some blocks that instead occur with the Apollo 7 cpu.

The only problem with any emulation that I've ever tried is Odyssey.

I thought it was a WinUAE problem but this happens with Qemu too.

But at this point I don't know what the problem is.

When I quit Odyssey after watching even ten consecutive videos or even just one.

I'm talking about Odyssey to watch YouTube videos without using YT.rexx or anything else.

This error occurs capable of paralyzing the entire system in practice it completely breaks the audio of AmigaOS.

And at that point every application no longer works.

I guess it's due to compiling Odyssey because I haven't found anything that can fix this.

Here is Odyssey's message:

(( Odyssey Process ))
(( Wait Until Child Ends (Shell)
(( Error Process "WebCore" File PID=118 ))

the PID changes every time I tried with "SYSMON" to stop the process but it doesn't help.

This is a real plague for emulation because when you use Odyssey to watch videos and then you quit.
All you have to do is restart the entire emulation otherwise every application you launch slows down or doesn't work.

I tried instead of AC97
ES1370 which emulates the "sound blaster" but the problem remains is in "Odyssey" which has some problems with the emulation.

Someone more knowledgeable might help
Even launching Odyssey from shell for example with some useful parameters.

Very soon a nice video showing all the good things about Qemu is its speed.

As for the "Benchmarks" in emulation they can give an idea in general.

But there are too many factors to be able to calculate in emulation and therefore they do not faithfully reflect what the applications that are used do.

The same benchmarks for example with a "real Ryzen" vary from time to time with the "BenchMarks" dedicated to the real PC.
And so they remain just a starting point to understand a little
But then it's all applications that really test Qemu in this case.

@geennaamQuote:

I started the benchmark script now directly from the AmigaOs4.1 shell and did the whole thing 3 times. As already mentioned, this error does not exist here.

@white

For me the speed of UAE was acceptable, an A1200 (040) was emulated correctly and the things I tested via "runinuae" were very usable, e.g. the game Heirs of the Earth and some demos.

I didn't test a 68k Amiga system on it and also not the uaegfx support.

@Maijestro

It would be nice to find someone in person to talk about this emulation but unfortunately this is not possible.
And so we talk about it in the Forums of course.

As I said I talk about the defects to improve the emulation
and possible solutions.

I'm not talking about the things that work.

E-UAE works very well now that I understand things a bit.

Alien Breed The Killing Ground 3D 2
It runs full screen without batting a beat it's really fast.

But back to the flaws
Did you notice for example that if you configure "PicassoMode"
with Silicon
at most you can reach the resolution of 800x600 at 16bit

but this is useful for AmiCygnix because once configured "PicassoMode" the colors are right with AmyCygnix and you can choose various "drivers" to use it.

Have you done this test ?

Have you tried Odyssey to see the videos and see if the problem listed above occurs ?

Do it these are important tests for emulation purposes.

Here is Odyssey's message:

(( Odyssey Process ))
(( Wait Until Child Ends (Shell)
(( Error Process "WebCore" File PID=118 ))

Here is the error I am talking about

I put a video of the episode "San Junipero" "Black Mirror"
a good episode for me.

Here you can see the error tonight I have some time and I continue to configure the system.

I have tried all versions of Odyssey from the first Beta 01 up to the version released on OSDepot the latest one.
They all give the same error (Process WEbCore etc. etc. )

https://youtu.be/d6S_4sSZ8X4

I did some tests Picasso96 supports Silicon 501 but it has slightly different resolutions.

I have activated the "composite" and now Odyssey allows you to watch videos in full screen
I have activated the "fullscreen script" and selected an appropriate user-agent.

The speed has improved considerably.
Perhaps by improving " sm501.c " you can get even more performing results and somehow correct the resolutions .

Clearly with the x64 pc probably the command line is different in some way from the "MAC" computer

here is my completely experimental command line don't pay attention to the line selection dedicated to the connection I'm doing some experiments to make AmiCygnix work.

here the one i am currently using:
qemu-system-ppc -cpu g3 -M pegasos2 -bios /home/white/Scaricati/pegasos2.rom -m 1024 -serial stdio -device sm501 -drive if=none,id=hd,file=/home/white/Scaricati /32gb.raw,format=raw -device ide-hd,drive=hd,bus=ide.1 -netdev user,id=vmnet8 -device rtl8139,netdev=vmnet8 -vga xenfb -drive if=none,id=hd1, file=/home/white/Downloads/coffin.raw,format=raw -device ide-hd,drive=hd1,bus=ide.1 -display gtk,gl=off

A small note on the connection it is true that there is some bug surfing for a long time sometimes the connection is lost.

And I must have used a dozen different commands to try to get AmiCygnix to work.

Here the test with Odyssey in full screen on Youtube:
I'm still using the G3 for the moment.

(( in the video you can see the resolutions that can be set in Picasso96 ))

https://youtu.be/SeyjoOqGL48

@white

I too can reproduce this error every session with Odyssey.



Does this error also occur under real hardware with AmigaOs4.1, or is it an emulation problem?

@Maijestro

I don't think it occurs on real hardware otherwise it would have been fixed by now.

I'm guessing it's something related to some routine for accelerated graphics cards.

But you should ask "Kas1e" probably.

I imagine that a version that takes this error into account could be compiled but it is unlikely that it will be taken into account.

This error has been present for years for those who emulate 4.1

I've noticed that sometimes the problem doesn't occur with certain user-agents.

Probably the standard ones and not for mobile devices

basically without using the classic YouTube without the ".m" suffix

But you are the first one who is going beyond the classic installation and is going deeper into the emulation of 4.1.

In recent versions of Odyssey there is the option to change the user-agent
It is not present in the older ones.

But you can do this for example
Add this at the bottom of user-startup:

SetEnv OWB_USER_AGENT "Mozilla / 5.0 (Nintendo WiiU) AppleWebKit / 536.30 (KHTML, like Gecko) NX / 3.0.4.2.13 NintendoBrowser / 4.3.2.11274.US"

this for example allows you to use "nintendo" as user-agent
and if you want you can also associate your mobile as it really happens is to start your videos with your mobile with the associated code

you can enter the user-agent of your choice between the quotation marks

SetEnv OWB_USER_AGENT "user agent"

you can make it permanent with:

SetEnv OWB_USER_AGENT SAVE "user-agent"

but only do this when you've found your setup right.

You need to do some practice to do this
Remember that you have to completely restart the emulation for it to be activated. not the simple "restart".

this is what Wayfarer uses if I remember correctly:
Dalvik/2.1.0 (Linux; U; Android 5.1; AFTM Build/LMY47O)

here you can find some to try:
https://deviceatlas.com/blog/list-of-user-agent-strings

remember that if you see everything "white" and the YouTube site does not show previews change it it means it is not compatible.

I hope you can find a suitable user-agent that avoids this Odyssey "BUG"

I have found that this method in emulation is much more efficient than using the spoffing built into newer versions of Odyssey.


this is what I currently use:

Dalvik/2.1.0.(Linux; U; Android 6.0.1; Nexus Player Build/MMB29T)

this allows you to view the video in full screen

if you use the IPhone 6.1 one you won't be able to do it in emulation.

But still not the best choice but it works well.

Oh I forgot with this change in user-startup
when you launch Odyssey you can start browsing immediately without choosing the user agent from the menu, it is recognized automatically