Commodore Free 4/Commodore_Free_Issue_04_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.emulators

Text File | 2007-01-01 | 8.7 KB | 300 lines

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Presented by Luke Lynde

[1] INTRODUCTION
Emulation Insights

Hi everyone, here is Luke writing an
article for you, all about Commodore
64 emulation. Well, I have a small
collection of Commodore 64 hardware
I use regularly (some of it, anyway),
but I still enjoy the convenience of
using emulators on the PC. I would be
a bit disgruntled if I was stuck using
emulators only, because I know and
appreciate the real thing! The main 2
emulators that are ruling the "C64 on
the PC" world are of course, WinVice,
and CCS64. Many others have tried
C64 emulation, with varying degrees
of success, but have fallen miles short
of these "2 leaders in the emu-scene",
as they are known - proudly standing
on the podium of a dazed emu-nation.
High tech, indeed...

Not only in this article will I talk
about WinVice and CCS64, I will also
make Suggestions for improvement, which
hopefully means the coders/creators
will hear about and utilise. If a
Suggestion I make is already
incorporated, and I am unaware about
it, I will no doubt feel a bit stupid.

If again, a suggestion is incorporated
in the program, but requires fiddling
around too much, a much more user-
friendly method is more appropriate,
for obvious reasons. Technical is good,
but a majority of people using
Emulators, are people who had a C64
when they were young, wanted to play
some games again, they don't want alot
of confusing settings (and tech-tech
jargon) because of the time away from
using the machine - you know the
story...

As suprising as it is what some people
know about computers, it is also just
as suprising what people don't know.
Nothing wrong with being tech-
minded, but someone asked me
recently where the CD goes in?! They
were talking about PC, if they were
talking about C64 - I would probably
forgive them (LOL)! Maybe in another
30+ years, emulation is going to be the
only thing left to use, but until then,
I fully support all those great
hardcore users who are turning on their
real C64's every day! As it stands
today, the people behind WinVice and
CCS64, should be applauded, for
support of the C64, even if it is on a
different platform. Man, when I started
on C64 in 1988, who would of thought
that around 20 years later, people
would be using a emulator on a PC.
Back then, PC's were total crap
compared to C64. IMHO it wasn't until
the Pentium processor (and Win'95),
that PC's started taking off in leaps and bounds.

[2] WINVICE
http://www.viceteam.org/


Well, WinVice is considered the best
Commodore emulator on the PC, but
has some annoyances which I will
include at the end of this section,
under the suggestions area. As with
CCS64, when you first


install this program - you have to make
about 10-20 changes to the settings, to
get it just the way you want. Some
people use less settings, some more.

You have a windowed mode, which is
really only good in 640x480 resolution
- something not common to many newer
PCs - but with Windows XP you can run
stuff in this resolution. Windowed mode
has no scanlines, whereas the full mode
(which takes up all the screen in 800x
600) has scanlines, making it appear
somewhat like a television set. This is
the mode I use. Modes higher than 800x
600 will show this full mode as
actually more of a window... however, I
feel there needs to be incorporated a
3/4 size mode.

The SID emulation is excellent, but I
prefer listening to SID on real c64 -
the emulation though provides a
different tempo and feel to the music,
which is also quite nice. Compatibility
is very high, with just about anything
C64 can be thrown at this emulator, and
it will handle it. D64 files are my
main collection, though I have other
types.

Pressing Alt-D takes you to full screen
mode, where all you see is the C64
screen. However when you need to
make any changes to the settings, you
have to press Alt-D again to get access
to the menu options. If the menu
options were available whilst in the
full screen mode, this would be
excellent. Printer emulation tends to
conflict alot with D64 images that have
been released recently, mainly demos.
Not so much older wares, if I can
recall. Anyway, the jerkiness of the on
screen movements are pretty bad, and
for this reason - whenever I play
games, I only use CCS64. For SID music,
I use WinVice. For Demos, WinVice -
then CCS64 (WinVice has better sound
than CCS64, but CCS64 is more
smoother). For Disk Magazines, WinVice
or CCS64. For Graphics, WinVice.

The Machine Code monitor in WinVice is
more fully developed than in CCS64,
btw. WinVice would be the sceners
choice, but I still like the latest
version of CCS64.

Suggestions to improve WinVice:

- Full Access to the menu system in
Alt-D full screen mode, ie. all the
miscellaneous options in drop down
menus.

- Instead of only a small (too small!)
window video output (no scanlines)
and full size video output (scanlines) -
have a window mode in-between these
two sizes (with scanlines option [3/4
size?]). Most people still use 800x
600 resolution on their PC's, so an in-
between video size, as suggested,
would be ideal. Even for higher
resolutions on LCD monitors, it would
suffice.

- Instead of dragging PRG files into
the emulator window, have an option
where you can double click on it from
the menu system, and it automatically
loads. The same goes for other similar
single file types.

- SID file player built-in, ie. double
click on a sid file for it to  load and run under a built-in SID player (like
PSID64). It would be cool if an inbuilt
SID player had some nice graphics
displayer.

- Movements on screen are very jerky,
surely this can be improved, as CCS64
have proven - some of it can be
eliminated.

[3] CCS64
www.ccs64.com

CCS64 is really nothing like WinVice,
in terms of program, but is an
authentic stand alone emulator of the
C64.

The graphic detail and sound quality is
slightly less than WinVice (the sound
being the most noteable of the two). I
really enjoy using this emulator,
probably mostly as the first C64
emulator I really used was the DOS
version of CCS64 made around 2001.
CCS64 has lower system requirements
than WinVice. The DOS version ran
comfortably on a Pentium 133
computer, I had. The latest version,
may only require a slightly higher
system. WinVice on the other hand, I
think you need at least 600+ mhz - for
use with basic settings. Interpolate
SID in WinVice, I know, even slows down
a 800mhz machine I have now.

With the Latest version 3.1 of CCS64,
if you have no 3D card - you may need
to switch resolution to 16-bit (Medium
color quality), or you get Direct-X
errors. I really don't understand why
this is not in the documentation,
because I found this out by mistake -
missing out on using the latest version
for some months.

Anyway, the menu system in CCS64 is
comprised of a real C64 character set
which I find an excellent and
innovative idea. The settings are easy
to apply and change, and you no longer
feel like you are in a windows point
and click environment.

Printer emulation is simple, but
provides limited compatibility in what
I have used it for. Drive emulation and
general CPU handling has greatly
improved since, say - the 2001+
versions, as it runs more programs than
earlier versions.

I always enjoy CCS64 for games, as it
handles on screen movements with a less
jerky feeling. It has something to do
with a PC monitor versus TV set refresh
rate, you can read about that in the
CCS documentation. If CCS64 was the
only emulator ever for the C64, I would
not feel disappointed about it.

CCS were actually a cracking group in
the early 1980's, though I only ever
heard of them through this emulator.
Their cracks seemed nice, glad to see a
member of the group made this
emulator as some university project, I
forget the details exactly.

Suggestions to improve CCS64

- Some interlace graphics look a bit
bad, needs a finer touch.

- SID emulation is still pretty poor,
though better than earlier versions,
maybe some collaboration with
SIDPLAY/RESID coders is needed?
Decent SID emulation could make
CCS64 the C64 emulator of choice.

- Machine code monitor, needs to
undergo final development.

- Can't fault much else about it, nice
stuff!

[4] IN CONCLUSION

Well there you have it. Kind of like an
Alien V Predator showdown, well not
really. Some features of one emulator
(WinVice) are better than a feature in
another emulator (CCS64), and vice
versa. Anyway, I think it better having
2 decent C64 emulators to choose
from, rather than one. If I dare to
give them a percentage rating, I would
give WinVice about 90%, and CCS64 about
88%. There is not that much between
them, from a novice users point of
view

Maybe the technical side points
towards a different picture. I look
forward to buying the new C64
keyboard coming out next year
anyway! Just joking, we  can only
hope that some eccentric billionaire
loves the mellow beeps like we do...
Catch you later!

Signing off, Luke Lynde
 (IQ-Dna/People of Liberty)