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PC-Task vs PCx

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Giorgio Signori

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Mar 23, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/23/99
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Hello,
has someone tried both PC-Task v4 and PCx?
I have the first, and was wondering if PCx is faster. I use the emulation
mainly for old games on my 040@25. Games like Day Of The Tentacle run smoothly
until they have to scroll... So, is PCx faster than PCTask?

Giorgio Signori "Yure^DKG" ICQ:20451038 \ PowerUP 040+603@240 SCSI \
Enigma Amiga Run - Italian Amiga magazine \ EAR HP:www.skylink.it/ear \
Home Page: http://space.tin.it/io/giorsign \ System Shock Solutions PR \


Mitchell, Peter (EXCHANGE:LON40:1N22)

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Mar 23, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/23/99
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Giorgio Signori wrote:

> Hello,
> has someone tried both PC-Task v4 and PCx?
> I have the first, and was wondering if PCx is faster. I use the emulation
> mainly for old games on my 040@25. Games like Day Of The Tentacle run smoothly
> until they have to scroll... So, is PCx faster than PCTask?
>

I have PCx and would not recomend it in the current form - the MMU support is
disabled,
so its only good for running Windows 3.1 in protected mode. Ok for the odd game
of
solitaire but not much else!!!

Apart from this performance with my 060 feels OK, but with my old 040 it was just

too slow.

I here that PC-Task is far superior in this respect.

If the PPC version of PCx ever appears things may change.

Cheers

Peter

--
Peter Mitchell - Senior Design Engineer.
Dept. 1N22, Nortel Technology, New Southgate, London, UK.
Integrated Network Managment Group
email: pp...@nortel.ca


Jesus Reyes Martinez

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Mar 24, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/24/99
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On Tue, 23 Mar 1999, Mitchell, Peter (EXCHANGE:LON40:1N22) wrote:

> Giorgio Signori wrote:

Hey Yure!



> I have PCx and would not recomend it in the current form - the MMU support is
> disabled,
> so its only good for running Windows 3.1 in protected mode. Ok for the odd game
> of
> solitaire but not much else!!!

My opinion is the same. PCx is not really fast with serious programs,
although it is really fast with ANSIs using an internal driver for MSDOS.
It speed ups a lot MSDOS screen, but no more. The CPU emulation is far
faster on PCTask, specially with the Dynamic version.

> If the PPC version of PCx ever appears things may change.

I hope so :D

+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+
| Jesus Reyes Martinez | Eucalyptus Beta Tester |
| E-Mail: alu...@csi.ull.es | AWeb-II Translator |
| Web: http://pagina.de/tlm | CUAE NR: 240 |
| IRC Nick: TLM - ICQ UIN: 7077759 | A1200T PPC603e/200 48Mb |
+-------------------------------------+--------------------------+


admv...@my-dejanews.com

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Mar 24, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/24/99
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If you **really** have to have a PC , why not buy one ? A 486/66 second hand
is about £90 inc monitor, and it makes any current PC emulation on an amiga
look very very silly.

People who waste time and effort on PCx and PCTASK are deluding themselves,
wasting remarkable time and effort for very little return. Mac emulation is at
least mostly worth doing if you have a use for a 68k mac emulation, the speed
is similar and its semi-sensible. PC emulation is *not viable* and not worth
doing IMHO.

The cost of PC`s now , even for powerful units are pretty cheap , if you need
a pc , why not buy one , learn more about them, add them to your home
internet, whatever/whatever/whatever. Shove linux on it if you really
*havetohateMS* - but don`t sit there trying to turn your 060 amiga into a
300mhz pentium2. You could put the brightest, highly intelligent people and
give them limitless funding - it still would`nt work.

Rant Over.

In article <Pine.SOL.3.96.990324101719.29152E-100000@gofio>,

-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
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Ancipital

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Mar 24, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/24/99
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On Wed, 24 Mar 1999 12:51:39 GMT, admv...@my-dejanews.com wrote:

[sniptabulous editing!]

>People who waste time and effort on PCx and PCTASK are deluding themselves,
>wasting remarkable time and effort for very little return. Mac emulation is at
>least mostly worth doing if you have a use for a 68k mac emulation, the speed
>is similar and its semi-sensible. PC emulation is *not viable* and not worth
>doing IMHO.
>
>The cost of PC`s now , even for powerful units are pretty cheap , if you need
>a pc , why not buy one , learn more about them, add them to your home
>internet, whatever/whatever/whatever. Shove linux on it if you really
>*havetohateMS* - but don`t sit there trying to turn your 060 amiga into a
>300mhz pentium2. You could put the brightest, highly intelligent people and
>give them limitless funding - it still would`nt work.
>
>Rant Over.

Oooh, someone's been taking the articulate and sensible pills by the
handful! *duck*

You are, of course, completely correct. You can pick up an old pentium
for a couple of hundred quid, and run all the GatesWare on it.. Better
yet, it willmake a lovely file server for your little home lan, under
leeeeeenux.

Emulation is a lot of fun in and of itself, and I know that under the
turing type model of computability, any normal procedural computer can
emulate any other, but in this case, it's not the best idea, if you
want to get real work done.

I once tried running PC-Task with win95 from a zip, just for snicks..
it worked, but it was BLOODY slow.. previous to that, I used it with
an old version of turbo pascal under ms-dos for my own nefarious
purposes :)

I know that macheads habitually run PC emulators, but you can afford
to- VirtualPC on our G3 runs at quite an acceptable clip.. I wouldn't
want to run Thief on it, but it chews up and spits out things like
OfficeTalk *gag*.

I guess it's all a question of perspective, and lack thereof.
Expecting an Amiga to effectively emulate a machine many times faster
than it (especially one with a totally different CPU architecture),
and carry out useful work is frankly, a little bit bonkers; moreso if
you spend many times more than the cost of a cheap PC to do so.


Now where did I put that copy of VMWare? <g>


Ancipital- Inedible Buddhas reality control #1
http://www.buddhas.org is currently tqt- back soon.

To unmung email addr, remove all instances of "aremadeoffish"

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Mike Leavitt

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Mar 24, 1999, 3:00:00 AM3/24/99
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Hello Giorgio Signori

> Hello,
> has someone tried both PC-Task v4 and PCx?
> I have the first, and was wondering if PCx is faster. I use the emulation
> mainly for old games on my 040@25. Games like Day Of The Tentacle run smoothly
> until they have to scroll... So, is PCx faster than PCTask?

I use PCTask4 myself. I tried both demos before deciding. The PCX demo does
let you set up a HD segment, but it was really buggy -- the commercial version
is probably better. Running dos apps thry seemed about equal in speed. This
was on an 030/16 two years ago. I installed Windows 3.1, and it was slow as
sin on PCTask until I upgraded to an 060/50 with scads of ram. Now it is
quite responsive. I'd download the PCX demo and try it, as it does let you
set up a HD pseudo partition. I wish I could give you more current info, and
I wish I had the features comparison, which also made me choose PCTask. The
only thing I can remember is that PCTask is silent, while PCX produces some
sound. BTW, there is little screen improvement on PCTask with a Picasso II
and P96. Everything now shows on the screeen, but it looks like a 640x480
screen on a 800x600 setting (small and does not fill the window), and will not
go beyond 8 bit.
--
Mike Leavitt ac...@lafn.org + team Amiga +


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