qemu-3dfx
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kjliew
Games support temporarily unavailable through VOGONS forums
I had been banned from forums participation out of expressing my unbiased view over "a very sensitive project". Below is the post that got me banned, recalled entirely out of memory.
How about another lesson on "What GPLv2 really means"? At least, I am seeking permission before posting.
I think the project community unequivocal silence about the author's "strange" interpretation of GPLv2 had caused the downfall of the project. Everyone just loved freebie and it ain't anyone's business to engage in conflicts. The community silent condoning of the author's act caused the project to bleed talented developers. The project then became "stressful" and "depressed". (because of what?!) As the evil virtualization/pass-through evangelism marched into the domain of OpenGL/Direct3D Win98 games, the project collapsed out of a sudden "knee-jerk" reaction and together the forums went down with it.
Anyway, not all hope is lost as the author's official GitHub repo has yet to be archived. (Or perhaps, a celebrity-styled inspired hand-over ceremony is underway ... ) Perhaps after some period of cool-down and deep thoughts, the author will make a comeback to the project.
Hah, so this is why my PM wasn't answered there! How unfortunate... Well... there we go... Seeing that you managed to make it work for a M1 Mac recently, which changes would be needed to make it work for an Intel Mac? Dependencies to build and compile... and so on... these things, ya know?
It is with deep regret that my participation in VOGONS forums had come to halt out of the needs for the community to safely and honestly discuss contentious topics.
So here's the dangerous and dishonest chronology of events that led to the expulsion.
- A Win98 VM for games cordial suggestion for OP who already had Core i7-4700K + GTX770 in possession and looking to build Win98 gaming machine. Though old, that system would still be great for Win98 VM. The OP responded and rejected amicably. The post was deemed off-topic and deleted by the Moderator.
- Someone said Blood 2's known to break on NT+ OSes in various ways. I disagreed and replied - Don't blame the game. Blood 2 works fine on NT+ OSes. A virtualization friendly NT+ OSes such as Win2K/XP would have the game play at highest quality visuals and performance that PCem can only dream of. Inevitably the post was deleted instantly depriving the OP of truth.
And here's my last post in dissent
The Moderator has gone rogue. If someone had the honor to defend his/her opinion, then it would be as easy as to provide the saved game of Blood 2 to show how broken it is on NT+ OSes and "slap the jerk in his face". No one was mad about PCem being slow, it is the Truth, only the Moderator. Link to evidence https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=973973#p973973. The deletion of Marvin post even after the OP had responded amicably showed the Moderator acted as though getting good old games playing great on VM would be rubbing something to someone's face that he couldn't stand it. It is blaringly obvious that such behavior is highly unprofessional.
It seems that any of my attempts to challenge "incorrectness" would have been perceived as PCem disparaging remarks, either directly or indirectly. I value honesty and always welcome open discussion with facts and evidence. I stand by my arguments on PCem based on technical merits and no fear at reiteration:
- PCem is slow.
- PCem is hopeless on mobile CPUs.
- PCem Pentium II/Voodoo 3/Banshee emulation is useless at playing late 90's era Windows games in 3D acceleration.
I would be looking forward to the day when my arguments could be reversed and slapped myself in my own face. Unfortunately, PCem was abandoned. Perhaps the ambition would then be carried on by any of the forks.
It has come to my conclusion that VOGONS no longer welcome the efforts and discussion for preserving classic Windows games on QEMU Virtual Machine. I have the impression that the Moderator will lock and purge all discussion on QEMU 3Dfx/MESA GL pass-through once the GitHub Discussion is enabled.
So basically, you were banned from Vogons because a moderator is offended your solutions are superior to just outright emulation? Exactly whom would have their heads up their rear end about the limits of emulation on a forum like that? What a load of crap, the moderator should get over themselves, it's not like you're insulting the existence of PCem, unless reality itself constitutes that. Either way, complete and utter nonsense on the moderator's behalf. Someone shouldn't be a moderator.
PCem forum:
... and the dosbox glide patches are really spotty or really slow (and mame derived). http://pcem-emulator.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=4943&sid=8c3a1f00d07c1519582d480555785028#p4943
VOGONS forum:
PCem's a little better but not perfect on that either. ... https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1099811#p1099811
LMAO ... 🤣🤣 ROFL ... 🤣🤣I would have thought that the "Long Live PCem" fanboy would have said PCem "freaking fast(TM)" 3Dfx re-compiler is lightyears ahead of DOSBox "really slow (and mame derived)"
So the wake-up call has finally arrived for the "Long Live" to be "Long DEAD" for anything about PCem, the once heiled canonical GitHub, the Reddit and the very own forums. The author prefers to cave in the BBCMicro Arculator and let the shame called "PCem" die. The swollen ego inherently gathered nothing but mob of of boot-lickers, all CHEAP talks, spreading lies and zero actions to make PCem great again.
QEMU featuring qemu-3dfx is lightyears ahead of PCem for playing Very Old Game On New System. But VOGONS despised such existence. GOOD LUCK and may the Good Old Games continue to play on your Retro PCs.
the fungirl is obsessed about 3D gfx quality as much as NewRisingSun about composite gfx quality. Speed doesn't matter here at all. Wrappers using similar functions instead of the original ones are considered blasphemy i guess.
Haha😜 ... someone actually read this.
the fungirl is obsessed about 3D gfx quality as much as NewRisingSun about composite gfx quality. Speed doesn't matter here at all. Wrappers using similar functions instead of the original ones are considered blasphemy i guess.
I wish the fanboy would leverage such obsession to bring goodwill to the PCem project rather than spreading lies and falsehood about virtualization/pass-through. There got to be "free" competition to qemu-3dfx.😜 Otherwise, they are nothing other than the laughing stock.
There are no short of disparaging remarks out of PCem on its own -- an attention whore's project that killed itself because of losing the spotlight. I never said this myself🤣, but the community who defended PCem said it out inadvertently in reply to my deleted post at VOGONS about "A Lesson on Critical Thinking" of the chain of events led to PCem's downfall. In hindsight, the deleted post was all about TRUTH and the heavy-handed maneuver by VOGONS Moderator to suppress free speech had indeed become yet another evidence of proof.
Shame on the self-proclaimed "Honest" Moderator @vogonsorg who resort to lame excuses of banning and deleting posts instead of open debates with facts.
@Blad3forc3 You're spot on😁. The childish maneuver that it indeed slaughtered PCem to DEATH is beyond belief.
@Blad3forc3 Childish as it may seem, what brought you here to read them instead of caving at VOGONS😁? Thanks for the visit. The mighty Moderator @vogonsorg had indeed locked all threads about QEMU. Such reactions paint the TRUE picture on the wall. PCem has always been the laughing stock as SLOW as molested , do something to make it GREAT, will you?🤣🤣
Spoken out of TRUTH ... https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=969535#p969535 https://github.com/86Box/86Box/issues/2923
But wait til we get PCem fixed up and running on M1 with their ARM64 voodoo recompiler (which is still missing and still bug-ridden even for x86_64), then you will realize whether I was prejudiced or merely spoke out of truth.
... and TRUTH turned out to be an offence
Closed, op has been warned many times about comments toward other projects.
Great job! The All-Mighty VOGONS Moderator @vogonsorg.
The crystal-ball had given the insight on the future ... https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-Discontinues-HAXM https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=60950&start=40
Jan 10, 2019 — In future, I believe Intel HAXM will be fading away, as the 3 main OS camps now shipped with their own user-space APIs for hardware ...
Unfortunately The All-Mighty VOGONS Moderator @vogonsorg had purged all important qemu-3dfx related threads to destroy evidence of TRUTH and knowledge archives in preventing the learning of QEMU potentials on Game Preservation. What an unprofessional and shameful act!!
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1129984#p1129984
Lots of shitheads out there causing people to drop off of "social media"
So much for the self-proclaimed *honest* VOGONS Moderator who lied through his teeth. The shithead is right there moderating within the forums with his own conspiracy theorized delusions. And now, the Moderator himself exhibits the deliberately destructive behaviour for anyone to scrutinize one's abuse of power.
Technology and strength can crush all offenses. Please continue your research and present. Time will eventually do its justice.
The crystal-ball had foretold the future again ... https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-X86-S-64-bit-Only https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=94248
... Intel/AMD will drop 32-bit x86 support in CPUs and have the CPU RESET directly starts in 64-bit mode with flat addressing ...
From the shithead, Unprofessional Moderator of VOGONS @vogonsorg
QEMU TCG, DOSBox, pcem, bochs will work. Don't know about dosemu.
Long DEAD PCem shall be!! Broken and bug-ridden 64-bit build that neither the author nor whoever so-called "new" maintainer picked up the TRASH could have been bothered.
The next prophecy will arrive sooner than 64-bit legacy-free X86-S CPU -- The demise of 32-bit GPU drivers . Currently, all GPU vendors ship 32-bit UMD/ICD for DirectX/OpenGL/Vulkan on Windows. This is unsustainable as 32-bit development/validation continue to rot and deprioritize over time. Unless Microsoft is doing something to support ABI stub thunking from 32-bit user-space into 64-bit user-space to enable the reach of 64-bit only UMD/ICD DLLs, 32-bit Windows Games running native on modern 64-bit Windows will cease from getting any sort of GPU acceleration , hence falling back to WARP rendering.
A New Hope Before 64-bit Strikes ... Heil the rise in PEACE & ORDER for the 64-bit Legacy-Free Galaxy!! 🤣🤣
Peace and order indeed. You carry on spreading the hate while I use wine and play 3dfx games and Warhammer dark omen within an appimage shielded from not only any updates but your vitriol. Happy days as these appimages will play forever
Great, that's good for you!👍So why haven't you hold on your 3dfx games and Warhammer Dark Omen on the so-called "an awesome job" PCem but instead turned to WINE on Linux? You just slapped your own face on what you used to defend at VOGONS, didn't you? You have just been an evidence of TRUTH in proving how USELESS PCem really is for retro games .😁
Anyway, you're smarter and diligent by going for WINE on Linux compared to the FOOLS & RETARDED going after Core i7-13700 for playing their games on PCem. Have FUN and enjoy all your games on the new found peace. Oh yeah, never look back at QEMU as WINE on Linux delivers much more native performance for games that work.
No smarter because I appreciate the work done on pcem and not got a paranoid view of it. Anyway I have absolutely no need for this rip off shit here. My games are there for life without any dickwads trashing things.
The TRUE paranoid view of PCem is none other than its very own creator who frowned on GPL forks and so sensitive of being challenged along with mob of boot-lickers caving at PCem forum. It was such a BIG JOKE that I simply made FUN out of it. Unfortunately for one who can't swallow the TRUTH, "It isn't FUN anymore" 🤣🤣 It can't be helped, reality can be cruel sometimes. It has never been anyone's intention to have PCem killed, well, other than its very own creator perhaps. But when it happened, it happened. I stand by whatever I had said about it. There is nothing about appreciation or trash-talk, they are simply the TRUTH.
Let's presume the answer why VOGONS will become irrelevant. Is "presumption" the same as "lie"? Well, I can hardly agree.
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&p=1208557#p1208557
VOGONS will become irrelevant because Very OLD Games just won't work anymore on New Systems.
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=97050
VOGONSer: I can't play American McGee Alice on Win10.
@vogonsorg: Just copy the root of both CDs to the game folder. You'll also need to use a NOCD crack.
🤣Oh... really🤣 Is it TRUTH or FALSEHOOD? It isn't without reason that such Moderator is shamed as "Unprofessional". Perhaps it was intentionally left out that the OP should build a period-correct GPU circa-2000 to play the game. Perhaps the OP should also check out PCem and consider the upgrade to Core i9-13900KF, American McGee Alice may be attainable for 800x600 25 FPS with the fantastic Voodoo 3/Banshee emulation.
VOGONS shall remain a great place for old & vintage hardware gossips and hardware collectors glamor. Such no longer uphold the original spirit of VOGONS -- Very Old Games On New Systems. And, as always, the Unprofessional Moderator suffers the denial delusions that QEMU featuring qemu-3dfx will be the ONLY solution forward that perfectly preserves Very Old Games On New Systems, in pristine condition, for modern Windows, Linux and macOS.
One could hardly be blamed for arrogance or bigotry when TRUTH are presented rather than FALSEHOOD. Being TRUE makes one proud, as simple as that. PCem was no short of arrogance and bigotry. Stop GPL forking, it's amoral.🤣 Is [60fps] GLQuake on PCem TRUTH or FALSEHOOD?🤣 Oh, and be very mindful about "his/him" for the author of qemu-3dfx, one might have called for a misgendered harassment, too.🤣
@vogonsorg, QEMU featuring qemu-3dfx has never been in needs of any advertising. It has long been on the top search results for all the popular search engines (Google, Bing etc.) Just as Linus Tech "Comedy" Tips premiere wouldn't have made PCem live again for the simple reason that *USELESS* project has always destined for being 0xDEAD. It is deemed *USELESS* as perceived by its own Creator abandoning and not because of the EVIL virtualization/pass-through evangelist.
Today's 'snowflakes' don't allow discussion that hurts their egos. It's all about the 'hivemind' so in this case of PCEM they wanted so desperately for their project to work that they didn't even consider any possible alternatives to emulating CPU cycles better or multi threading even if it does 'kill' some accuracy. I think PCEM is sadly dead as the new owner seems not to be doing anything useful with it and acts like the previous owner when questioned plus the PCEM forums are full of advertising bots now. Most recent is one from British News Today. Not even sure if that's a legit site.
You can't be 100 percent accurate and expect to have a fully functional setup. I don't know why emulation places in the last few years have been full of dodgy people it feels like a bunch of Joey's with severe dementia running them where there is all this covering up identifies/fake deaths.etc
Some mod owners have faked their deaths only to be found alive later and others do these 'faux' outrages over usually smalls stuff.etc. One Zelda Mod URZ Zelda to recreate the 64DD (which was cancelled by Nintendo only released in Japan briefly) aimed to recreate what was likely to be the Zelda OOT disk expansion but the owner supposedly died in a car accident then was found alive years later which caused everything to be conspiracy theories from then out which is what happens when people don't have truth in their minds and heart. When this level is reached nothing but poo poo comes out of their mouths.
The online virtual world is a place of wonders, mysteries & chaos. Who cares if ones are living dead, dogs, A.I bots or aliens from outer-space. The PCem forums are particularly infested with folks abducted by friendly aliens civilization time-travelled from galaxies far, far aways, bringing together with them supercomputing capabilities lightyears ahead of current time for that many Games "work" on PCem.🤣 https://pcem-emulator.co.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=3476
https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/issues/3481 I have long figured out the root cause. It is the game to blame for not anticipating the right amount of memory it would consume during 3Dfx Glide rendering due to the peculiarity of DOS4G memory management. The Win95 Direct3D version is free from such mishap.
Such dosbox in "knight's shining armor 🤣" and righteous indignation imposed ~B~A~N~ out of TRUTH😜 benchmarking on its software 3Dfx emulation.
Taking this opportunity to archive the fix for 3Dfx games for fellow retro gamers. Land of Lore 2 Guardian of Destiny.
-- Original --
$ strings WESTWOOD/LOLG/LOLG.EXE | grep ,Swap
DOS4GVM=VirtualMemory:ON,VirtualSize:24M,SwapFileName:lolgswap.swp,SwapMin:20M,SwapInc:0
-- Fix --
$ sed -b -i -e "s/24\(M,Swap\)/32\1/" WESTWOOD/LOLG/LOLG.EXE
-- Post-fix verification --
$ strings WESTWOOD/LOLG/LOLG.EXE | grep ,Swap
DOS4GVM=VirtualMemory:ON,VirtualSize:32M,SwapFileName:lolgswap.swp,SwapMin:20M,SwapInc:0
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=1263937#p1263937
@vogonsorg Oh dear, "Proxmox" IS QEMU. So what about the *BS* on VMware ESXi🤣?! Did Broadcom just dump the bucket FULL of Shit on YOU🤣?!
Well you'll still need a graphics card if you want D3D/OGL/glide ...
Oh really?!! IS IT *TRUTH or FALSEHOOOD* 🤣?!! How about sparing the rest of the indigenous *BS* on thunderbolt, occulink etc. techno jargons? Oh, you forgot about the Green Goblins NVLink or the Blue Men CXL, too🤣! And do take a 2nd closer look at which forum the OP got started🤣.
I can't help but laughing out reading such Unprofessional Moderator *BS*'ing on enterprise virtualization solution "Proxmox" and GPU passthrough for someone just wanted to play their Good Old Games. What's left for the TRUE spirit of VOGONS...
The smallest you'll get with the above is a case that would fit an MATX motherboard.
I wish the OP is smart enough to Google around rather than being FOOLED by an "honest" Unprofessional Moderator. It can get as small as Intel n100 NUC at 8W TDP that fits the electricity bills well for many Good Old Games. No downvolt or underclock ever required.
Oh finally, someone just slapped his own face -- Virtualization is GOOD for speed and BAD for games -- obviously it implies nothing's left for VOGONS, just use "Proxmox" and best of luck in GPU passthrough.🤣 Hey, what about the 0xDEAD "PCem". The OP didn't mention that he demands his games at 30FPS or so.
Well, that makes him a sadist, too!! ...🤣🤣 https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=831237#p831237
Very interesting thread; honestly I am not that interested in feud battles and such; but after finding this project I am more interested in how to make it work and seems that everyone involved in making builds for this project on windows are unwilling to release the actual build for some reason.
This may be the first github project where there are missing steps in the actual workflow and there is no binary distributed directly; not sure what benefit brings to the cause to preserve games and improve the chance to run old games on modern hardware if people can't even run the thing (and can't even compile it because there is not a place to discuss about compile issues).
Are you planning to make your own discord or something like this, so it will be possible to share info? As you keep working on the code, clearly there is a need for someone else that make good docs and step for creating the binaries, as that seems to be the main complain. Thanks
@theshinyknight Oh Great, you've found your way to the *RED* pill. It is NOW your choice to take it and free yourself from the Matrix or keep the *PURPLE* pill from VOGONs😁. It is NOT so much about feud battle, but an evidence of TRUTH about the Crooked, Unjust and Unprofessional Moderator @vogonsorg and the humiliation to such hypocrisy. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. I welcome his defense to clear his name, if that matters.
There are places or forks that offer builds. You just have to practice Google-fu more and you seemed to be good at it by being able to locate this project. This is a FOSS project after all, (@vogonsorg NO advertisement deems necessary. The fact that nothing's left from VOGONS in the spirit of VOGONS is the BEST advertisement.😜) A small donation to support the project and Games Preservation will have QEMU binary package built & delivered for you. Details at https://github.com/kjliew/qemu-3dfx#donation For some who can't afford the time & devotion in the journey of FOSS, then the donation gets one covered for frustration-free retro gaming on modern hardware. It is STILL the CHEAPEST option and the BEST lifetime preservation for ones who enjoy Good Old Games relieved from the hassles of building & maintaining old PCs and re-imagine Good Old Games at their BEST & HIGHEST quality on modern CPUs/GPUs. This is NOT even a subscription... Have you ever looked at Proxmox subscription??🤣
Alright, enough of the FUNs in gossip. My recommendation for what matters to you related to your VOGONS post.
- Free up the space from DOS and Win98 machines. Use DOSBox and SoftGPU/QEMU VMs. Then you can have an overlapped machine for very high demanding, difficult Win98/XP games. You can sell off the parts for their good prices in EBay. It is better be NOW than NEVER. When SoftGPU and QEMU alike gain maturity and popularity in retro gaming, no one will ever pay good prices for used PC parts anymore.
- If you wish never to mix up work & play on your main rig even with VMs, then get an NUC as dumpster for FUNs. Whether it is an 8W TDP Intel n100 or 45W Ryzen HS-series, they are much, much more space & power efficient than whatever your existing setup. If you factor in the electricity bills, then they easily pay for themselves in today's economic circumstances.
- Just have everything on your main rig or even better get a good thin-and-light laptop as the main rig for power saving. Playing Good Old Games in VMs already provides the peace-of-mind isolation. And thin-and-light laptop enables you to bring along all your games for "Play Anytime, Play Anywhere".
GitHub is a better place than Discord for information sharing & archiving. I used to believe VOGONS was the right place. The Unprofessional Moderator screwed it up, purged all qemu-3dfx details and discussion out of one's own delusions and baseless conspiracy to enact the Matrix for whoever visited & participated. When you donated & supported Games Preservation, you are privileged to use GitHub issues with Games Elections. The details can then be archived and shared with the rest of the world in honoring your support. An example is up there for Land of Lore II: Guardian of Destiny.
@kjliew I get that there is some bad blood between you and Vogon; I just don't see what is the point in spending energy in it when it can be employed elsewhere ; that's just me of course. I am no virtualization expert so I just go by what I see and hear, and there are things I saw on your channel that show that this solution is performant, while I heard technical discussions backed by logic arguments that make perfect sense about why this approach is not working. Which is why I decided to touch "first hand" and get the code and build it myself to try, instead of just listening to people or watching videos.
Personally I have period-accurate hardware, so the problem is a non-problem about what is faster; I appreciate the idea to have a modern box playing different OS for gaming purposes, but beyond that aspect, my main interest in virtualization is for work purposes. As writing software for different platforms and testing it is a pain in the rear, having virtualization solves a lot of problems, so I appreciate build once and share it on other machines virtually, saving me the hassle to have to work around a ton of hardware and different build configurations. Also in terms of retro-hardware, if I want to try compatibility with old machines I don't have to go dig an old Matrox or Voodoo card to get something checked; and instead use a virtualized version of it. That is my main drive to be honest. Then if I can play games too, that is a big bonus but it is tangential, as it usually takes longer to adapt new things to old stuff than just get old hardware and run it (if you find it in working conditions, yes, I agree).
Appreciated the work you do, and it is fair to ask for donations; all projects accept donations after all; I just see anything on github as something I give away for free, as it is my free time; but that is debatable, and a personal choice so nothing to say there really. I built the project and I would say that the readme would benefit from some details that unless you know them, will make impossible to get the project to build. As it is your project I am not going to tell you how to write your own readme :)
I get your "mission"; if you care about preserving history, this is a good way to do so; GOG is doing the same, with the difference that if I want to play a GOG game on original hardware I have hard time doing so, which ironically pushes me to buy the GOG version and then download the ISO image from questionable sites to run it on a real machine... Ironic, I know.
I would suggest to avoid this idea of "privilege" and "election" based on donations; the very thing you want to do (open up old games and preserve them for future generations) is basically clashing in terms of logic if you then assume that to discuss about it you need to be part of a privileged group based on donations (whatever the amount is, 1c or 1M, doesn't matter). Having a forum or a Reddit or a Discord or whatever, allow you to have your project followed by more people, and have more people participate and help. Then if you want to make it a private endeavor, I would say you are making it harder for yourself, and that won't really help the cause you are championing much. Just food for thoughts.
@theshinyknight I fully appreciate and understand your viewpoint. Thank you for putting up the effort and time to write it up. There isn't much to argue. Every GitHub project has a vision and vision can always serve the course of EVIL or HEAVENLY Enlighted. It is sometimes rather hard to judge. For some, the Donation might be EVIL but it is pretty effective at fending off "entitlement" scumbegs. There is nothing wrong for qemu-3dfx to be on the DARK side, well, at least with an "honest"" proposition or criticism instead of Accuracy *BS* for playing games.
I am no virtualization expert, too, at least not in anyway would comfortably recommend Proxmox VE or VMware ESXi to anyone who just want to have FUNs on Good Old Games. I am not fascinated about "build experience", I had had enough in the past at younger age. The idea of DOSBox fascinated me and this project proliferates such ideal into the Windows era.
This is a FOSS project that empowers learning. There is nothing shy to say that the recognition of monetary incentives is the utmost encouraging, not "stressful🤣", when it offers the BEST solutions to address the constrains of cost, space, power, time, frustrations and never-before *Games Preservation* in pristine condition. Oh yeah, it would be even more wonderful without forcing ones to learn & build from source. Unfortunately, nothing is perfect, QEMU still lack any usable GUI on which many had frowned and we all live in an imperfect world, so to speak...
Now wearing the horned Devil's hat, let's have more people help out and participate in projects such as PCem/86Box, as one already 0xDEAD in dire need of resurrection, stirring the competition in giving the world possibility of choices in anticipation of 32-bit Apocalypse without fears of losing our Good Old Games.
@kjliew BTW I was not implying that asking for money for work you do is "evil"; after all I made a career out of coding, and I get paid to do exactly that; so I would not be wearing a mask and hiding behind it saying that people should work for free. As long as you put the cards on the table as you do in a clear way, there is nothing wrong. I may say that I have been dealing with a lot of projects where things were hard because they were hard even with step by step instructions; but with this project, things are hard AND there are also some areas where steps are not completely clear; so that is the only thing I may see as point of frustration for others.
If you explain top to bottom how to get to the final results and offer the option to get the finished product for a fee, that is exactly as if you were selling a hardware project you need to put together yourself, from a kit; but imagine if you were giving the option to buy a kit or you would give away only partial info about how to build the kit yourself... Probably people would get frustrated and drop the ball without invest time, not because it is hard to make this project work, but because there are missing pieces here and there.
I have been coding since the days of assembly on a Z80 and it took me a whole day to get this build going; so I can only imagine for the average person what it may take, if they have no prior experience, and this is a shame because those are people that will never try out what this project have to offer, and move to the "dark side" as you call it, of other virtualization systems.
At that point can you blame them for taking the "easier" way? PCemu may not be accurate or fast but at least it can work almost out of the box; I have yet to see a single tutorial where anyone can make this project work from the checkout of GIT to the actual run of 3dmark for W98 or XP, showing where every single piece come from and how is built; and that is because I think that beside you, there are maybe a handful of people that were able to do that.
Anyway; that is a problem on top of Qemu itself; so I think it is not worth spend time on it trying to solve it only from your side; if I can make a GUI I am happy to do so; and If I can make things easier for others I am also happy to do so; although my time is pretty limited I am afraid, so can't really guarantee much, but I will try
I was not implying that asking for money for work you do is "evil" ...
Don't worry about it. It is understood. Even if you did, it is fine with me. An old saying in literary philosophy "There is NO GOOD without EVIL."
The project had laid down clear expectations since day one. It expected those interested are already familiar at OS images preparation & setup for typical virtual machine use cases. It is a patch based on QEMU. Google is your BEST friend for QEMU general usability. For those who even had questions on what a "patch" means to them, I am sorry, it can't be helped. They need to level-up before coming back again or NEVER.
What makes this really works for me is to keep this project simple. You already got the idea, there is no plan to deal with any inherent problems on top of QEMU. Instructions stay in their simplest & invariant forms to stand the test of time. This isn't a professionally funded FOSS project, but rather in personal hobbyist nature of "DO LESS Keep it Simple".
If such simplicity resulted in the suspicions of "selling" the binary package, well, it was understood since day one, too, and so be it. Sometimes, a concealed EVIL mastermind was indeed a FUN to pull off, too.
"I deal in GOLD coins or RED blood or GREEN blood. My army fights for MONEY. The GLORY will leave to OTHERS." "YES, YES, that is understood..." ---- Warhammer: Dark Omen (1999) ----
Well, for those coming from the Linux traditions of "configure && make", it ALL seem fairly natural without even a single penny. Ironically, perhaps just time...🤣 It seems daunting for those on the Micro$oft EVIL Empire. But think again, aren't those already on the side of many Devils 🤣?!! So Welcome to the DARK side🤣... And then here comes the HEAVEN ... An alternative escape Beyond the GOOD and EVIL -- The Apple-walled Garden of Macs. 🤣🤣🤣 Oh GOD, Everyone just LOVES their $$$ 🤣🤣🤣