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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Tue Feb 11, 2020 4:16 pm

Hi all, thought I would look into C64 emulation again after many years of Amiga focus. I have the C64 Forever 2012 discs, but remember VICE being quite good. Anything changed or new in C64 emulation land?

User avatar
3D-vice
Germany

Posted Wed Feb 12, 2020 6:30 am

Not really. Emulators like VICE, FRODO, or CCS64 are still the most commonly used ones (at least in Europe), and there are numberous version for all sorts of hardware, such as a vaiety of hand-held retro consoles. If I remember correctly, even THE C64 uses one of those, but heavily customized.

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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Wed Feb 12, 2020 7:11 am

I forgot about Frodo. Looking at the websites, seems CCS64 has not been updated in a while and FRODO is on its way to a complete rewrite.

Also found Hoxs64. That is quite actively developed it seems. Think I am gonna give all of them a go.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Feb 12, 2020 10:18 am

I'm on OS X. I often like to use Virtual 64, which was most recently updated in 2019. It requires Commodore 64 ROM files to run, which you can grab elsewhere. The ROMs are not part of the emulator package due to copyright restrictions.
virtualC64.png
I like this emulator mainly because it's so drop-dead simple. It wasn't targeted towards engineers to figure out how to install the thing just to play a quick game of something. If you just want to run typical C64 files (d64, prg, etc.) it does the job very well.

Professor Hoffmann:
The VirtualC64 project is based on three major goals. First of all, I am trying to achieve high compatibility by emulating all components cycle accurately. Secondly, I want to create a fun-to-use emulator that presents itself as user-friendly as it can get. Last but not least I am trying to maintain a well-documented and easy-to-read codebase that makes it easy to add new features. If you agree with VirtualC64's philosophy, you are welcome to join the project. The core emulator is written in C++ and the graphical user interface is a native Cocoa application written in Objective-C. Please note that I don't want to port the emulator to any other operating system yet. VirtualC64 is open source software published under the GNU general public license.

I also use VICE for OS X. It can emulate virtually everything you throw at it: C128 mode, PET, VIC20, NTSC/PAL, various disk drive formats - you name it - and it works great. The amount of work and effort put into VICE is nothing short of inspirational. For the most variety and options, VICE is the bomb.

User avatar
Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Wed Feb 12, 2020 11:37 am

My vote would for sure go to VICE. I have used it for years and years and it seems to work great. Frodo is another I used years ago but I haven't looked at it since then.

The C64 does indeed use a version of VICE to power its emulator as does C64 Forever, but Cloanto developed a front end of sorts for it the same way that Amiga Forever uses WinUAE.

User avatar
fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Wed Feb 12, 2020 5:02 pm

intric8 wrote:
Wed Feb 12, 2020 10:18 am
I'm on OS X. I often like to use Virtual 64...
I have a Mac as well, so yeah definitely will give that a go. I do have the ROMs from the C64 forever 2012 discs which makes things easier.


User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:00 am

On a semi-related note, Professor Hoffmann - the creator of Virtual C64 mentioned above - is also actively working on a Mac OS X user friendly emulator for Amiga called vAmiga.

His work is open source and can be found on Github.
vAmiga emulates a Commodore Amiga 500, 1000, or 2000 on your Mac.

Development has started in January 2019. By now all basic functions have been implemented and the focus is shifting towards compatibility improvements. Due to the early development phase there are no official releases yet. Pre-releases can be downloaded in the Releases section.
As I mentioned before, his software is not the most full-featured stuff out there. But for what it does it does very well and is aimed at the "common man" rather than the uber-technical, which I actually really appreciate. Sometimes in our little work it feels the products available are aimed at engineers. It's nice to see some efforts like professor Hoffmann's, too.

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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:52 pm

I just noticed thta CCS64 has a 404 error when trying to download that program. Anyone having the same issue and why this might be happening?

User avatar
3D-vice
Germany

Posted Tue Feb 18, 2020 4:02 am

fxgogo wrote:
Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:52 pm
I just noticed thta CCS64 has a 404 error when trying to download that program. Anyone having the same issue and why this might be happening?
I just tried to download CCS64 Version 3 from http://www.ccs64.com/ (using a Win10 PC) and it works flawlessly...





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