PearPC - PowerPC/Mac OS X Emulation on a PC

[MacBytes]

Category: 3rd Party Software
Link: PowerPC Architecture Emulator, capable of running Mac OS X, Linux, etc.
Posted on MacBytes.com

Approved by Mudbug

[Mudbug]

so I looked around the site, and tried to understand...

Can someone put into plain english what this means?

[x86isslow]

I think there was an older emulation of Mac OS on x86- for OS 8? This might be interesting.

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally Posted by Mudbug

so I looked around the site, and tried to understand...

Can someone put into plain english what this means?

What this release means is that FINALLY, a viable way to run Mac OS (PowerPC) on Windows (Pentium/x86) exists - a task that was once thought impossible due to internal architectural differences (such as internal registers, which are temporary places to store data that needs to be accessed quickly - x86 has 8 of these registers, whereas the PowerPC has 32). As the site states, this "emulator", as these types of programs are known, is still in early stages of development and is not yet ready for use in, say, a commercial product.

[robbieduncan]

Originally Posted by Mudbug

so I looked around the site, and tried to understand...

Can someone put into plain english what this means?

It's like VirtualPC but the other way round. It lets you boot PPC operating systems (like Linux-PPC or Mac OSX) on non-PPC computers (like x86 boxes). Unfortunatly it's really slow!

[backspinner]

... but will it really run OS X or just only the first pages of the installer? I thought that OS X checks the hardware before booting?

[0 and A ai]

Originally Posted by backspinner

... but will it really run OS X or just only the first pages of the installer? I thought that OS X checks the hardware before booting?

So does virtual pc. thats why the program emulates a pc

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by wrldwzrd89

What this release means is that FINALLY, a viable way to run Mac OS (PowerPC) on Windows (Pentium/x86) exists [...]

Actually you should have caps the viable and not the finally since.. this emulator already has a ppc emulation on it. http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SheepShaver.html

x86isslow -- many emulators have emulated 68k for a while.

article -- hurra... but until they have altivec and less then a 1/10 ratio no point in using it. even VPC runs pretty slow for any real use and it years (with money backing it) ahead of this.

[dombi]

How about some benchmarks...why are they always so hard to find? Do any of these solutions have benchmarks to see how quick/slow they are?

[wrldwzrd89]

Originally Posted by Benjamin

Actually you should have caps the viable and not the finally since.. this emulator already has a ppc emulation on it. http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/SheepShaver.html

Okay, I see your point - you are right. It should read:

What this release means is that finally, a VIABLE way to run Mac OS (PowerPC) on Windows (Pentium/x86) exists [...]

Shall I edit my original post?

[gregnacu]

Originally Posted by dombi

How about some benchmarks...why are they always so hard to find? Do any of these solutions have benchmarks to see how quick/slow they are?

They don't list any benchmarks on the site, but they do mention that it is about 500 times slower by Raw CPU cycle speed. The Harddrive and CDrom access emulation speeds were not nearly this bad though. Basically, if you installed OS X on this version of PearPC, you'd run your mouse over the dock and it would take a significant number of seconds for the magnification affect to draw itself.

That is one more reason why Mac's have a much easier time running Windows through an emulator... their UI is positively simple compared to OS X's. Transparencies, shadows, smooth animations, magnifications, live updating of data changes across multiple applications... All of these things take processing power, and the Mac has a LOT more of them than Windows has. (Mind you with Quartz Extreme, a lot of it is offloaded to the video card) the site didn't mention anything about offloading the graphics to the PC's video card.

I'm interested to see if Apple will try to sue them. They must be using some sort of proprietary Apple ROM technology to allow it to run the Mac OS. A Mac is a comprised of a heck of a lot more than just a PPC Processor.

[Cooknn]

[EDIT]
Disregard my question below. I found the answer here

How do I get OS X installed on the PC HD?

[Spazmodius]

So, by 500 times slower, are they saying it will run on a 3.2GHz P4 as if that machine were, maybe a 5-10MHz G3? That's absurdly slow. I appreciate the author's candor, but that's so slow I have to wonder if the guy made a mistake or something. Basilisk II can emulate a 68040 on my 1.1GHz PIII machine so fast, it actually runs Sys. 8.5 apps faster than any 680x0 processor ever made. It's faster than some of the early PowerMacs, probably at least as good as a 120MHz 601 or equivalent. That's GOT to be faster than a 5-10MHz G3...if such a thing ever existed (it didn't, obviously). I fail to see how such a slow emulator could tolerably handle even System 9.x's UI, and would probably be renedered completely inoperable for 10.x. Sounds really quite useless, if the speed estimates are accurate.

[Benjamin]

Originally Posted by wrldwzrd89

Okay, I see your point - you are right. It should read:
Shall I edit my original post?

no, not at all, it just shows that the other emulator just didn't have the drive to push development to getting os x on to x86 via emulator. no drive no PR. I was just pointing out that others have tired but obviously not hard enough.

[Nermal]

I wonder how much of this is new, or whether it's just a merge of SheepShaver and Mac-on-Linux.

SS allows you run run PPC software up to OS 8.6 on Linux. I've tried it, and it's not too slow, although it's not stable either.
MOL allows you to run up to OS X on LinuxPPC.

I think maybe PearPC is just a mixture of both - the CPU emulator from SheepShaver and the rest of the emulation from MOL.

Sorry about the grammar, I just got up

Edit: It specifically states that the video driver is from MOL. However, I suspect there's actually quite a lot of MOL code in it.

[davecomp]

i got it. its running on my AMD 1.3 ghz but it is very slow i will post pictures onece its booted

[Nermal]

Originally Posted by davecomp

i got it. its running on my AMD 1.3 ghz but it is very slow i will post pictures onece its booted

I have it too. I'm going to try it in Virtual PC

Edit: I gave up waiting for Linux to install in VPC so I'm trying it on the "spare" laptop, a Celeron 2400.

[Blackheart]

Isn't there something in OS X's EULA that prohibits installation on a non-apple computer?

[SPeedY_B]

Interesting, very interesting
Will wait to see how this one develops (ie: Gets kiled by Apple, or actually develops into something that works )

[Nermal]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Isn't there something in OS X's EULA that prohibits installation on a non-apple computer?

It must be installed onto an Apple-labelled or Apple-licenced computer. You know those two white Apple stickers that come with every Mac? Guess what you do with them

[Frohickey]

Whats the point of all of this, aside from a college project?

[Nermal]

It'll give people a chance to try out the Mac OS without having to invest in a Mac. It needs to be fast enough to show off the Mac OS, but slow enough for them to get frustrated with it and buy a real Mac

[iMeowbot]

Originally Posted by Spazmodius

So, by 500 times slower, are they saying it will run on a 3.2GHz P4 as if that machine were, maybe a 5-10MHz G3? That's absurdly slow. I appreciate the author's candor, but that's so slow I have to wonder if the guy made a mistake or something.

Yeah, that really is what speed you currently get, about 10 MHz. Other than this being version 0.1, there are some other problems that will make it hard to emulate PPC on x86 at good speed. First, PPC has more registers, so the emulator has to shuffle more stuff in and out of memory. Second, there is no automatic endianness conversion available like the one that Virtual PC uses on the Mac (which no longer exists in the G5, the reason VPC broke).

Additionally, the writers of this emulator are trying to keep their program portable, which rules out some of the sleazier optimization tricks, at least in the short term.

[Nermal]

Just letting you all know that I successfully booted Mandrake 9.1/PPC. I didn't actually install it, but successfully booted into the graphical installer. Running on a Celeron 2400, it was a bit sluggish.

[MacRumors]

Several readers have noted a new opensource project that is generating some interest.

PearPC 0.1 is an early version of a "an architecture independent PowerPC platform emulator capapble of running most PowerPC operating systems". The emulator offers emulation for various PowerPC operating systems including Mac OS X 10.3 (screenshot).

According to reader reports, the application does appear to work, but is slow and clearly at an early stage of development so of limited use at this time.