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iPhone is VERY powerful for emulation compared to a Core Duo 2 processor!

Jessica Lares

Jessica Lares

macrumors G3
Original poster
Oct 31, 2009
9,612
1,062
Near Dallas, Texas, USA
As I type this, I'm currently installing Windows 3.1 on my iPhone 4 via a DOS emulator (a DOSBox beta for jailbroken iPhones/iPad). When I tried it on my brand new MacBook Pro a few years ago, it wasn't great - just pretty much didn't really respond well to it, like it was too fast for it and just didn't like my hardware. Tried on my iBook a few days ago, was REALLY sluggish to install and hardly even worked.

On my iPhone, it installed in less than 5 minutes, looks VERY good on the screen - beautiful! I really am just amazed on how smooth it actually works.

I'm hoping that the mini vMac that loads the old Mac OS systems can compare to it.

But now, here's the thing I wonder - If it had the ability to run OS X Snow Leopard/Windows 7, would it run it better than the current Intel machines? That is the ultimate comparison test.
 
Jessica Lares said:
But now, here's the thing I wonder - If it had the ability to run OS X Snow Leopard/Windows 7, would it run it better than the current Intel machines?
Click to expand...

No. The fact that one thing you tried was faster on the phone than a Macbook Pro was probably just some idiosyncrasy of that particular software. While it is theoretically possible that an iPhone could do certain things faster than a modern Intel Mac due to architecture differences, in general the Intel Mac is going to be much faster.
 
Where to begin...
You're comparing two versions of a product that are not only years and versions apart, and compiled to run on completely different CPU architectures.
And in some twisted form of logic you somehow believe this makes them equal enough to obtain a valid comparison?

/Thread
 
Wow, Windows on an iPhone is ever stupider than Android on an iPhone.
 
rjohnstone said:
Where to begin...
You're comparing two versions of a product that are not only years and versions apart, and compiled to run on completely different CPU architectures.
And in some twisted form of logic you somehow believe this makes them equal enough to obtain a valid comparison?

/Thread
Click to expand...

Yes, because for the most part, emulation is SLOW, You have to use your RAM to not only power the program, but to power the environment. The iPhone seems to handle this a lot better, heck, it even runs the sound drivers. Applications load as fast or even quicker as they would natively, color looks nice on the Retina screen, and there's no problem even using the screen saver so far. I haven't got this good of a result with Parallels or VMware.

My next attempt will be to try out Windows 95 and the other systems that use DOS under it. I'll pull out all my old software and install them too just to see how it holds up.

It cuts off the sides, the screen is too wide for the built in drivers, sound works perfect, but still, it's impressive. The pointer is a little off, but that's good because it lets you control it better with your finger.
 
spillproof said:
I'm confused, what could you possibility do with Windows 3.1 on an iPhone?
Click to expand...

Run old software, I don't know. I just wanted to try it out to see how it'd work.

Applejuiced said:
Oh yeah, you can run Windows 7 64bit probably faster on the iphone than on a Phenom or i7 Intel. :D
Click to expand...

This works on the iPad too, so it's basically a Tablet PC. You can't use Windows 7 since it's DOS based, unless there's a Windows 7 capable emulator for old versions of Windows. That'd be interesting to see how an emulator would work inside an emulator...

Savage said:
Wow, Windows on an iPhone is ever stupider than Android on an iPhone.
Click to expand...

Maybe, but hey, it works and it works well.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Yes, because for the most part, emulation is SLOW, You have to use your RAM to not only power the program, but to power the environment. The iPhone seems to handle this a lot better, heck, it even runs the sound drivers. Applications load as fast or even quicker as they would natively, color looks nice on the Retina screen, and there's no problem even using the screen saver so far. I haven't got this good of a result with Parallels or VMware.

My next attempt will be to try out Windows 95 and the other systems that use DOS under it. I'll pull out all my old software and install them too just to see how it holds up.

It cuts off the sides, the screen is too wide for the built in drivers, sound works perfect, but still, it's impressive. The pointer is a little off, but that's good because it lets you control it better with your finger.
Click to expand...



I'm sorry but your a little off there. Emulation is not "powered" by ram or whatever you were saying. Emulation is code and driver and wrapper dependant. Emulators that are coded well, will run well and utilize the OS accordingly.


If an emulator is coded well for specific hardware, it will run nicely.
If not, then you get sluggish performance.
 
Jason Beck said:
I'm sorry but your a little off there. Emulation is not "powered" by ram or whatever you were saying. Emulation is code and driver and wrapper dependant. Emulators that are coded well, will run well and utilize the OS accordingly.


If an emulator is coded well for specific hardware, it will run nicely.
If not, then you get sluggish performance.
Click to expand...

Explain why XP emulation doesn't work well with a MacBook Pro then? I've never gotten it to play nicely with OS X.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Yes, because for the most part, emulation is SLOW, You have to use your RAM to not only power the program, but to power the environment. The iPhone seems to handle this a lot better, heck, it even runs the sound drivers. Applications load as fast or even quicker as they would natively, color looks nice on the Retina screen, and there's no problem even using the screen saver so far. I haven't got this good of a result with Parallels or VMware.

My next attempt will be to try out Windows 95 and the other systems that use DOS under it. I'll pull out all my old software and install them too just to see how it holds up.

It cuts off the sides, the screen is too wide for the built in drivers, sound works perfect, but still, it's impressive. The pointer is a little off, but that's good because it lets you control it better with your finger.
Click to expand...

Wow.. where do I begin. Actually I can't, because (I'm sorry if this is rude) you don't understand the basic hardware workings of a computer. RAM doesn't power anything... it's memory where a program resides while in use. The fact is Windows 3.1 and DOS probably require less than 16 MB of RAM, so this shouldn't be an issue on either a Core 2 Duo machine or the iPhone.

It being able to run sound drivers means that there was more programming/optimization done for the iPhone version. Actually, this explains why it would run better on the iPhone too. Period. A Core 2 Duo the A4 is not. And to answer your original question, NO it cannot run Leopard or Win 7 better than Intel hardware. If your really curious, Google the specs for the Core 2 Duo, and ARM Cortex 8 processors (of which the A4 is based on), and compare the two. You'll find their is no comparison.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Explain why XP emulation doesn't work well with a MacBook Pro then? I've never gotten it to play nicely with OS X.
Click to expand...

People have already explained this but you choose not to listen I guess... :confused: because the emulator software is less well written for the Mac OS. It has NOTHING to do with the capabilities of the MacBook Pro.
 
green86 said:
People have already explained this but you choose not to listen I guess... :confused: because the emulator software is less well written for the Mac OS. It has NOTHING to do with the capabilities of the MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

Hmm, ok, I get it now. So, even though something like Parallels is native Mac software, it still has problems because of the code having to work with the Mac environment and Windows/Linux at the same time? And it's poorly written at the same time?
 
Jessica Lares said:
Hmm, ok, I get it now. So, even though something like Parallels is native Mac software, it still has problems because of the code having to work with the Mac environment and Windows/Linux at the same time? And it's poorly written at the same time?
Click to expand...

Were you using Parallels when you tried to run Windows 3.1 on your Macbook Pro a few years ago?
 
Jessica Lares said:
I think so? It was either that or VMWare, I don't remember which one supports it. Didn't compare to the 4 hour install on my PPC the other day, but at least even that loaded drivers correctly.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Well, whatever the situation is, an Intel Mac is still going to be much faster than the iPhone in 99% of cases. You have just found one case where the emulation software you are running on the iPhone is faster at one task than some other emulation software on an Intel Mac.

There have been a number of scientific speed tests done on the iPhone vs. Intel Macs where the exact same algorithms are run on each device, and the Intel Macs win with no contest every time.
 
OP, post some screenshots of Windows 3.1 on the iPhone 4.

I'm curious to see how it looks.
 
wikoogle said:
OP, post some screenshots of Windows 3.1 on the iPhone 4.

I'm curious to see how it looks.
Click to expand...

Will do after it charges so I can stick it up to the iSight. I tried some old storybook software from a CD I just copied to my folders, pretty funny to see that 10 years later on.

The video is pretty choppy though, but I think that's just because of the machine actually being emulated and it could be fixed with a driver.

I'll make a video. Although pretty much it's like running Windows 3.1 on a widescreen with the two opposite panels missing.
 
Jessica Lares said:
Explain why XP emulation doesn't work well with a MacBook Pro then? I've never gotten it to play nicely with OS X.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing it's because you don't know what you're doing. I've got XP, Vista, and 7 working just fine on my MacBook Pro.
 
Runt888 said:
I'm guessing it's because you don't know what you're doing. I've got XP, Vista, and 7 working just fine on my MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

I know what I'm doing, I probably just expect too much trying to run an emulator and Adobe Photoshop all at once. Actually, Windows Vista worked okay, but the others didn't.
 
Video still processing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p2osxU267s

It runs in the background too, *SOMETIMES*.

photoon20100814at2220.jpg


photoon20100814at2221.jpg


I sold all my digital cameras, sorry for the horrible iSight quality.
 
Yeah, It really depends on how well the emulator is coded. I had a n64 emulator on my old windows xp laptop with the original core duo (not core 2 duo) and it ran perfectly, the I upgraded to a windows 7 laptop with the last coure 2 duo chip running at 2.6ghz and 4gb ran and the games in the same emulator ran like crap even though the computer was so much faster than the xp machine. Then I found a newer version of the emulator specifically for windows 7, and now everything runs perfect again.
 
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