PCem 8.1

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I somehow forgot to write about this in the shuffle.  But the fantastic emulator PCem,  has a new website, a new release, new forums, and public software versioning!

So what is new in 8.1?

  • New machines – SiS496/497, 430VX
  • WinChip emulation (including MMX emulation)
  • New graphics cards – S3 Trio64, Trident TGUI9440AGi, ATI VGA Edge-16, ATI VGA Charger, OAK OTI-067, ATI Mach64
  • New sound cards – Adlib Gold, Windows Sound System, SB AWE32
  • Improved GUS emulation
  • MPU-401 emulation (UART mode only) on SB16 and AWE32
  • Fixed DMA bug, floppy drives work properly in Windows 3.x
  • Fixed bug in FXAM – fixes Wolf 3D, Dogz, some other stuff as well
  • Other FPU fixes
  • Fixed serial bugs, mouse no longer disappears in Windows 9x hardware detection
  • Major reorganisation of CPU emulation
  • Direct3D output mode
  • Fullscreen mode

And even better the latest versions allow NTVDM to run on Windows NT (for those who need it..) and a slew of other OS/2 & NT related fixes.

I really like PCem as I can run things like EMM386, and of course running the real BIOS makes it feel all the more real.  The soundcard & video card choices in 8.1 are simply AMAZING.  Just be aware some combinations of video cards & CPUs are incompatible.    So if something isn’t working, it’s probably a CPU/video card combo.  Also I really enjoy Return to Zork on this setup, it feels pretty good!  And the AWE-32 setup for Doom rocks!  I haven’t tried it’s Gravis Ultrasound support yet, but I would imagine it should be comparable to DOSBox at a minimum.  All I find PCem lacking is networking.

You can download my latest binary snapshot here(megaco.nz).  I’ll eventually figure out something better about this later.

11 thoughts on “PCem 8.1”

  1. Awesome work on compiling PCem with the latest revision! 😀

    The only think that needs to get working somehow is SLiRP networking which is found in Qemu 0.9.0. 🙂

    There also needs to be a icon for the latest revision of PCem. I had PCem 8.1 r91 which had the transparent icon featuring a IBM 5150 PC computer with keyboard and the latest revision replaced it. 🙁

    • I saw it run the resource compiler, but I didn’t look to far to see what it was doing. I’m just happy it still runs and I can use my DOOM.

      • I’m very happy with the latest revision of PCem too even though I haven’t tested Windows NT 3.51 or Windows NT 4.0 right now.

        I managed to extract the PCem icon from the PCem v8.1 r91 binaries under the name PCem.ico and I have it stashed one of my hard drives right now.

        Hopefully, NE2000 networking capabilities, Windows NT and OS/2 guest support will be implemented officially in PCem v9 soon. 🙂

    • No… and when compiling I change the &F accelerator in the rc file to F&ile so I can use alt+f to edit text file in dos edit… Otherwise it’s annoying.

      I’ve heard of the filtered version, never looked at it though.

    • The Control-Alt-Delete shortcut is required to login to Windows NT 3.1 and up. Since I have the version that lacks this shortcut, it’s impossible to use Windows NT without having to press Control-Alt-Delete on the host machine. >_<

      • oh.. I guess you could look at the keyboard, and substitute another key for delete. you may just have to fire up a debugger. or look closer at the source.

        • I’ve been trying to use the source, while I can compile it easily since the author of the PCem-plus provided directions and mingw.zip I just couldn’t figure out how to debug it.

          I’ve made a project in Visual Studio in hope to get it working but there are tons of errors, it doesn’t recognize most of the syntax the author has used in source … damn VC++.

          A great feature PCem is missing is snapshots !

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