Mini vMac with color + large screen

[pcamen]

I am a bit perplexed as to why it isn't possible to find standard builds of Mini vMac that have something higher

than 640x480 resolution.  I've seen some builds with 800x600, but that still is pretty minimal screen real estate.

Ideally, I'd be working with something that is at least 1024x768 but perhaps even 1280x1024.  And with at

least 256 colors. 

Is there anything about Mini vMac that makes larger resolutions unworkable, which might explain the lack of availability?

 

[Mk.558]

Are you talking about Mini vMac II or Mini vMac standard?

The double size display command usually works well enough for my older displays, but I imagine you're writing this because you have a huge display and can't read anything even at VGA size resolution?

 

[pcamen]

I'm not sure the difference between Mini vMac standard and Mini vMac II.  By II do you mean the Mac II builds of Mini vMac?

By double size display do you mean the Magnify 'M' command?  I absolutely have to use that on my UHD display otherwise it is ridiculously small and unreadable. 

My goal is to have more screen real estate, to make the emulator more useful.  I spent plenty of time on smaller displays of the era, but nowadays, the limited resolution is a PITA IMHO.  I'd rather work with something larger, at least 1024x768.   

 

[Gorgonops]

I've been looking at the Mini vMac mailing archives and the variations service, and it looks to me like vMac II still only supports 24 bit addressing? (IE, Mac II 68020 with up to 8MB of RAM) With only 24 bit addressing I *think* it becomes difficult to use more than 1MB of video RAM because of limitations in how the slot manager divvies up RAM address spaces. I'm not *100%* sure of that, but if I am that would seem to preclude using resolutions much in excess of 1152x870@256 color. (I see the "Variations" service does allow high/true color screens, and technically since it's an emulator it might potentially be able to assign up to 6MB into a linear framebuffer, but that would seem to be pointless if you can only have up to 8MB of system RAM.)

If you want gigantic true-color visuals in a 68k Mac emulator BasiliskII is probably your best bet unless there's some specific piece of software you're trying to use that works better under vMac. I know BasiliskII has kind of a steep learning curve to get started and it can be a pain to find a stable build but it's really a much more capable emulator.

 

[pcamen]

I've got Basilisk II running nicely, as well as SheepShaver Chubby Bunny.  I just figure that Mini vMac is a nice alternative for older games that may not run on the other emulators.  Just hoping for an alternative that has more screen real estate is all. 

 

[Gorgonops]

You could always pony up the bucks to use the alternatives service if you can't build it yourself, the drop down has resolutions up to 1080p. I can't imagine that works very well but it's there.

 

[LaPorta]

I'm not sure the difference between Mini vMac standard and Mini vMac II.  By II do you mean the Mac II builds of Mini vMac?

By double size display do you mean the Magnify 'M' command?  I absolutely have to use that on my UHD display otherwise it is ridiculously small and unreadable. 

My goal is to have more screen real estate, to make the emulator more useful.  I spent plenty of time on smaller displays of the era, but nowadays, the limited resolution is a PITA IMHO.  I'd rather work with something larger, at least 1024x768.   

I believe that Charles has a page on the site that talks about build-time options regarding screen resolution. If I can find them I will write back here.

EDIT: Here are the compile time options. It says that the screen size has to be a multiple of 32, but gives no maximum available.

https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/options.html#option_xres

Below that are the instructions for making different color depths and how to achieve them in Mac II emulation.

 

[K Trueno]

You can use this page to generate a custom binary with a resolution of your choosing: https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/var_serv.html

 

[pcamen]

You can use this page to generate a custom binary with a resolution of your choosing: https://www.gryphel.com/c/minivmac/var_serv.html

Yea, that is probably the way to go.  Previous attempts at building Mini vMac were not successful for me.  Just donated to get the Sponsor Code necessary.

 

[pcamen]

I've gotten a sponsor code and made a bunch of variations a higher screen sizes.  It maxes out at 4M VRAM, so the best I was able to to do is 1280x1024 @ 256 colors.  Any higher color depth than that and it revers to black and white.  Works pretty well though and video performance is  reasonable.