FS-UAE for OS X PPC (Not officially supported)

Originally Posted by SnakeCoils

Latest FS-UAE 2.9.3dev for OSX PPC Leopard is up in The Zone! and ready for download.

Hi SnakeCoils,

I'd really like to use this in OSX 10.4. Can you help me learn how to compile and run this?

Thanks!

[SnakeCoils]

Hello,
I am not 100% sure about that but I believe the OSX support for FS-UAE starts from 10.5 on, this mainly because of minimum system requirements, for example the SDL 2.0 framework used by emulator is not supported under 10.4 therefore a build for Tiger is not possible. If you want to use FS-UAE in Tiger you can try an older version where the SDL 1.2 framework was used but I do not guarantee it will work since all the binaries I compile are built under 10.5 MacPorts environment.
I'm going to upload the 2.4.1 version to The Zone: of course, as all PPC builds of FS-UAE, the binary is untested under 10.4 but I hope it will work for you.

[SnakeCoils]

Latest FS-UAE 2.9.4dev for OSX PPC Leopard is up in The Zone! and ready for download.

[eastone]

@SnakeCoils
2.9.4 works really well on my G5
Thanks for your effort.

[SnakeCoils]

Latest FS-UAE 2.9.5dev for OSX PPC Leopard is up in The Zone! and ready for download.
Built with GCC 6.3 and SDL 2.0.1 modified with 2.0.3 headers.

[Cobe]

Thanks for this port and keeping ppc mac alive. I got dual 2 ghz g5 4gb a year or so ago but haven't been playing around a lot with it. So I'm pretty much a noob for this system, I only used system 7.5 back in 90s through shape shifter. And I just realized how much different fs uae is than winuae. It took me a while to load a adf.. And I don't know is there something to tweak but I can't get 100% A500 speed. It runs noticeable slower. This is just my first quick test. I'll have to spend a little more time with it. Just want to know what performances should I expect.

[SnakeCoils]

This is the typical configuration I use on my dual G4 for running A500 software:

[config]
amiga_model = A500
accuracy = -1
floppy_drive_volume = 0
video_sync = off
fullscreen = 1
fullscreen_mode = fullscreen
keep_aspect = 1
viewport = * * * * => 0 0 752 574
floppy_drive_0 = Arte.adf

The emulation speed is greatly affected by "accuracy" parameter, most of the software runs well with the lowest option but when hardware tricks are needed (like some of the most spectacular demos) the "0" or "1" level is required.
With the configuration above my system run the emulator between 80 and 90% of a real low-end Amiga, on a G5 machine things should be better.
You can try to tweak other parameters (see the complete list in the FS-UAE site) but in my experience the gain is not noticeable.
For Workbench operations the speed is very good just on PPC Macs but if you want full emulation at full speed you have to move to an x86 Macintosh, that's it.

[eastone]

Originally Posted by SnakeCoils

Latest FS-UAE 2.9.5dev for OSX PPC Leopard is up in The Zone! and ready for download.
Built with GCC 6.3 and SDL 2.0.1 modified with 2.0.3 headers.

Works well as usual

Thank YOU!!!!

[wXR]

Cheers again for making these!

[Methanoid]

I came here looking for PPC UAE and you have delivered.. thanks

[eastone]

Originally Posted by SnakeCoils

@eastone
On my configuration the performance of the A1200 demo you mentioned is not that bad , of course there are some slowdowns when the emulated AGA chipset....

WHDLoad version of that demo has no any audio slowdowns or gfx issues. Works better than E-UAE Jit.

[SnakeCoils]

Latest FS-UAE 2.9.6dev for OSX PPC Leopard is up in The Zone! and ready for download.
Built with GCC 6.3 and SDL 2.0.1 modified with 2.0.3 headers.

[Amiga1992]

I know this is probably a lot to ask, but my G5 is knda stuck on Tiger, is there any chance this can be made to work with it?

[SnakeCoils]

Okay, just for fun (and I mean just for fun, with no promise here) I have set up a MacPorts environment on my other G4 MDD with OSX 10.4.11 and then tried to compile the 2.4.1 source but it almost suddenly stops with this error:

power-mac-g4-di-mac-user:~/Desktop/fs-uae-2.4.1/macosx macuser$ make
../common.mk:14: Extraneous text after `else' directive
../common.mk:22: Extraneous text after `else' directive
../common.mk:22: *** only one `else' per conditional.  Stop.

For what I can guess the parser of "make" command is too old to handle complex or multiple boolean statement so an edit of makefiles would be needed to go further. However I suspect this is only the first of many problems I will encounter during the build process due to old environment or missing system libraries, so I think a OSX 10.4.11 binary of FS-UAE is not possible. Or at least not to my limited technical knowledge.

[Amiga1992]

Thanks for trying anyway and sorry for the late reply. I guess I should try to source a working copy of 10.5 somewhere, all I tried failed at one point or the other, and not having a DL drive does not help.

[Hypex]

Just discovered an update. Looks like it is out of the zone. New one soon?

[SnakeCoils]

I have just re-uploaded to The Zone the latest 2.9.6dev, after 60 days the files in The Zone are automatically kicked out but they can be uploaded again on request. I am not aware of new releases coming soon.

[Hypex]

Thanks SnakeCoils. I'll be giving this a shot soon. Haven't tried it in a while so I should check what's changed. :-)

[SnakeCoils]

Well, recently I have choosen reinstall on my beloved G4 MMD only OS9 and Tiger, with the proposal to abandon the compile of FS-UAE for PPC machines (that it has always been possible only on Leopard).
After a complete downgrade to 10.4.11 I have, just for fun, launched the little shoot-em-up Bitfighter, the version 0.19e is the latest to run on PowerMacs but requirement was, since it rely on SDL 2.0 for running, OSX 10.5 so I don't put too much hope in seeing it at work but... I was wrong! The game window was in front of me with all the animations and sounds and command responding!
This really amazed me because I was seeing SDL 2.0 running in OSX 10.4 PPC and this gives me the idea that MAYBE also FS-UAE could run in Tiger!
I am very little experienced in OSX programming so my tries would be more similar to a cut'n'paste of source code from 2.9.6 version hoping that in the end all went together and running...
The result of this Frankenstein experiment can be downloaded in The Zone but it is very very buggy so you are warned.
Things to know before using it:

- Untested, unsupported, without extra help I will not be able to fix anything
- Configuration files are ignored, the only way to tell FS-UAE what to do is to "Show Content" of the App and in the FS-UAE/Contents/MacOS create a "Config.fs-uae" with the usual parameters you are familiar with, including paths, fullscreen options, etc (it is included in the archive so you can stard modifying it)
- Keyboard and mouse input works partially, you will be able to use the virtual Amiga normally but you will not interact with the FS-UAE in-game menus (Ctrl+F12) where the mouse pointer will not have effect but inside the Amiga is correctly handled.
- The emulator itself does not benefit from running under 10.4, it has the same speed you can feel on 10.5
- If someone is interested I can explain how I have compiled the whole thing so if someone with more experience can try to fix the bugs.

Enjoy! :-)

[Amiga1992]

I'll have to test this, thanks Snakecoils!