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PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running most PowerPC operating systems, such as Mac OS X, Darwin and Linux. It is released under the GPL. It can be executed on Microsoft Windows, Linux and other systems based on POSIX-X11. The first official release was made on May 10, 2004.
The emulator features a Just-in-time (JIT) processor emulation core which dynamically translates PPC code into x86 code, caching the results. Despite running only on x86 host architectures, the JIT emulation core runs at least ten times faster than the architecture-independent generic processor emulation core, and is the key to achieving usable real-time emulation.
PearPC is currently in development and is advancing quickly in speed, stability and features. It is hoped to achieve the goal of 1/10 host speed, ie. the speed of a 300 MHz PowerPC G3 on a 3 GHz Intel Pentium 4, relatively soon. Individuals are making builds with more features like native CD-ROM support and even progress emulating sound has began. Popular PearPC sites that provide builds also include Altivec support for PowerPC G4 processors.
Controversy
Within five months of PearPCs release, another PowerPC emulator called CherryOS appeared claiming to offer more features and greater speed. However within hours of its announcement, questions were raised about the claims, with many suggesting that CherryOS is just a repackaging of PearPC.
Shortcomings
At the time of writing, the current version of PearPC is 0.4pre (CVS). PearPC, while its PowerPC emulation will handle most applications, and it has a good featureset, it is missing certain features needed for a full emulation:
- Sound emulation (Although a certain build of 0.4pre has this capability, it is fairly buggy.)
- G5 emulation (This would eventually be required if Apple decides to abandon compatibility for G3/G4 proccessors.)
- Direct access to the CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drives on Microsoft Windows operating systems. (Although this feature is implemented in *nix operating systems)
- .dmg support for use as an image (Currently to use a .dmg image you must first convert it into a larger .iso image with a program such as DMG2ISO)
Frontends
PearPC currently lacks its own GUI, except for a button labeled 'Change CD', so developers have made frontends for it. Two of these are PearGUI, which looks like a Mac OS X application (However it is incompatible with current versions of PearPC, and PearPCCP (PearPC Control Panel), which is compatible with PearPC 0.3 and above. PearGUI can be annoying, and its 'Create Disk Image' feature is being developed currently, but it makes up for that with a good GUI that fits in with PearPC. PearPCCP has a built in configuration wizard, and plenty of features, but doesn't match up to PearGUI in terms of its interface, and features a bug when setting the resolution (It uses 16 instead of 15, but that can be fixed by changing the 16 to a 15 before proceding.
External links
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