Why use WinFellow instead of WinUAE?

[S0ulA55a551n]

Could I just ask and I this is an honestl question and not a troll. But what deos Winfellow offer that WinUAE does not.

Why would you use WinFellow over winuae ?

[prowler]

Originally Posted by S0ulA55a551n

what deos Winfellow offer that WinUAE does not.

Latest version offers compatibility with older Windows versions and therefore older hardware.

[Mequa]

Also higher performance on low-end hardware (currently x86-only, but potentially other platforms if it is completely rewritten in C).

IMO, mobile devices could benefit from a port of both UAE and a rewritten Fellow. The latter could make smoother Amiga emulation possible on more phones and other pocket-sized gizmos which might not sport GHz-level performance yet. (While UAE would give more compatibility.)

A "PSPFellow" could massively outperform PSPUAE for many Amiga 500 games. Goodbye slowdown.

P.S.
On an old Windows 98 PC or laptop, a combination of WinUAE 1.4.6 (or earlier) and WinFellow (latest release/snapshot) is perhaps the optimum setup for Amiga emulation. Together they are a powerful force on old hardware!

[Bronko]

It's a nice idea, to port fellow to portable devices, but the task to rewrite it in C seems a bit too much for me, considering the next generation of portable devices, which will probably run an UAE port flawless anyway.

[andreas]

Originally Posted by Worfje

Gentlemen, a new snapshot release of WinFellow, named 'alpha v0.4.4 build 3', is available for download via:
http://fellow.abime.net/new_version/index.php

WHOA!
Thanks Worfje!
So there's life in the old dog yet!

(Who would've thought??)

Well, I'd strongly suggest to keep both: an assembly version and a C version. Please DO NOT remove the assembly version from your repositories!
There are many people with old laptops and barely a chance to smoothly run recent WinUAE on a, say, Pentium III! (Let alone a hypothetical C version of WinFellow). These will be infinitely happy if they can revert to a fluent (though non-portable) WinFellow build for their machines!

[Mequa]

It looks like Worfje and others (WinFellow site says Petter was assigned emulation core) already rewrote the Fellow custom chipset emulation in C years back, from the code remaining there is just the 68k emulator (and a few other little bits of assembler) to go. Its rewritten custom chipset emulation is STILL considerably faster than WinUAE for some chipset-heavy games on a low-end PC (e.g. Atom 1.6GHz + Windows 7, or slower).

I know WinFellow was hugely overshadowed by WinUAE, and Worfje had other commitments.
I think this would still be a worthwhile project though, if anyone with the relevant skills is willing to take it on.

Sure, next-gen high-end mobile devices will fly with UAE AGA emulation. Eventually dirt-cheap devices too.
In the meanwhile, there are still a lot of reasonably decent mobile devices (PSPs, low-end Android phones, ARM subnetbooks, etc.) which can struggle with playing Amiga 500 games in UAE, and may benefit from the faster custom chipset emulation in Fellow - which has already been converted to C!

Perhaps some 68k emulation code could be borrowed/adapted from the UAE source base to help complete this project (and maybe optimised later), to enable a cross-platform Fellow.
(Then maybe someone could draw on some XFellow code for eventual cross-platform builds.)

The last version of WinFellow to use a full assembly-based emulation core was apparently WinFellow alpha v0.4.3 build 1 (snapshot 2001/11/15). Similar to the old DOSFellow core.
This version is buggier and less compatible than the newer C-based versions (C is MUCH easier to debug and maintain!) It is also not fully compatible with Windows Vista and 7. The old builds and sources are still available though, and I agree belong in the archive. (It would be interesting to benchmark the two on old hardware for custom chipset-heavy games emulation - but the C version is still fast!)

[andreas]

Its rewritten custom chipset emulation is STILL considerably faster than WinUAE for some chipset-heavy games on a low-end PC (e.g. Atom 1.6GHz + Windows 7, or slower).

That's a fact.

Sure, next-gen high-end mobile devices will fly with UAE AGA emulation.

Might be, but one has to consider the small user base able to afford these when still new! Many of them will still use older hardware---maybe 5+-year-old hardware---so that's what I was intending to write, make sure you don't lock them out.

[prowler]

Originally Posted by andreas

...make sure you don't lock them out.

[TCD]

Don't think that it really suits into the news thread, so feel free to continue here instead.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Okay, thanks for clearing that up.


Always wondered why Amiga Forever cam with both. Only ever used versions of UAE.