PearPC

For those interested in what is capable in PearPC, here is a screen shot of the BlitzMax Fireworks demo running on my P4 3.2Ghz.

PearPC is running in 1024x768 full screen.

Getting an outstanding framerate of 3-4 FPS...w00t :-P

[edit] I increased the framerate up to around the 10-20 fps mark by going back to 15bit depth and changing my refresh from 10ms back to 40ms. [/edit]

I checked the PearPC web site. Seems in order to use it, you still have to aquire OS X. I would still like to see the Linux version released, at least I could use that without spending more money.

I am actually testing if PearPC + OpenDarwin works ... don't know ... emulator OS installation is not thaaaat fast ;)

The whole idea of OS emulation makes me shudder, TBH.

*shudder*

There, I told you it did! :P

but... big10... yer not emulating the OS... Yer emulating a power pc. :)

YEh, that is worse though, havning to emulate the hardware

See now I am doing it.

*shuder*

I have PearPC and I have borrowed OSX from a college, how do I find the blitzdemo.zit file, and how do I install the demo?

I have none what so ever knowledge of OSX.

I imagine OS emulation can be a tricky business, but hey, it beats having to have the hardware support needed to run it.

I had a look at PearPC too. I found out you needed a MAC OS X 'user image' file to run it, though. And I've never actually used a MAC, so I wouldn't know where to get one. So for the moment I'm rather stuck without BlitzMax still. But I can wait...

The demo is downloadable via the products page on this site, if you have networking up and running on your PearPC setup then you can just download it and extract it.

Failing that, you can create an ISO image containing the .sit file and anything else you might need (bear in mind you need the XTools stuff as well, downloadable from the apple website, but also should come with OSX if you have all the disks).

Once you've created the ISO, you can edit your config file and mount the ISO as a CDROM, then start your PearPC.

*EDIT*

if you want to create your own HDD image file, I created a utility to do this (will need formatted in the OS).

You can format it using a DOS FAT and then access it with a program like WinImage to transfer files back to windows. (this would obviously be easier if you have networking setup).

I started mine fresh without a user image. I just installed MacOSX.

If you grab a user image you will not need the MacOSX disks because it will already be installed in the image.

Started working on my first Max game in PearPC today. It's pretty slow (5-10fps), but it's worth the trouble to get a head start before the Win release.



The syntax has changed for the better, and I'm elated that they finally got a proper 'option explicit' in there. There's a lot of stuff still confusing me. Am I sopposed to be using pixmaps for sprites?

Use images -- pixmaps are for low-level access only (loaders, image editing, etc). Images are in the graphics card's native format, so are faster but not directly addressable.

If you need to edit an image, you use LockImage to return a TPixmap, edit that with Read/WritePixel, then unlock.

That looks cool, BTW!

Hi James,
Glad you like it :). I used images first but they appear aliased and the SetColor command affects them. I've tried SetBlend MASKIMAGE and also loading the images with the MASKEDIMAGE flag, neither work. In fact any blend mode besides solid blanks out all image rendering after it. Probably just poor emulation though. Thanks for the help

*edit* Might be something to do with my PNG alpha channel?

I did get to work.

What I meant with getting the file, was getting it from my harddisk.

I did a network setup om OSX and that way I got the file on my system.

I have yet to try the BlitzMax demo.
[Edit]I did try it now, I have no keyboard in PearPC[/Edit]