PS2 Bochs x86 Emulator port

**KarasQ** · 07-27-2011,02:21 PM

I was a little bit upset that PS2 was missing any x86 emulator, while other consoles or platforms already have even more than one. I was wondering how fast it would work and I thought it would be awesome to just run MS-DOS or any Windows OS on Playstation 2. So here it is standalone Bochs 2.3.5 emulator for PS2. It's not too fast unfortunately, but it doesn't require Linux.

Here you can watch me playing with Windows 3.11:
Windows 3.11 on Playstation 2 - YouTube

Seems to be stable after dealing with some memory aligment issues. I know it's probably useless but just another proof of concept or a toy for bored PS2 users :P I also successfully run Windows 95 after 25 minutes of booting

If you want to play with it, just download ps2-bin-bochs-2.3.5.zip extract and copy BOCHS folder to your pendrive root folder. Store your hdd images in mass0:/BOCHS/DISK folder and remember to configure mass0:/BOCHS/bochsrc.txt as you need (just set up HDD image) and run PS2Bochs-2.3.5-packed.elf by your preferred method.

The program starts with default parameters (arguments) "-q -f mass0:/BOCHS/bochsrc.txt". If you need, you can try to run it with other parameters through RadShell (I didn't test it).

Options the PS2 Bochs was compiled with:

Code:

Bochs x86 Emulator 2.3.5
 Build for PS2 ported by KarasQ
System configuration
 processors: 1 (cores=1, HT threads=1)
 A20 line support: yes
 APIC support: no
CPU configuration
  level: 5
  TLB enabled: yes
  SMP support: no
  FPU support: yes
  MMX support: no
  SSE support: no
  CLFLUSH support: no
  v8086 mode support: yes
  VME support: no
  3dnow! support: no
  PAE support: no
  PGE support: no
  PSE support: no
  x86-64 support: no
  SEP support: no
Optimization configuration
  Guest2HostTLB support: no
  RepeatSpeedups support: yes
  Icache support: no
  Host Asm support: no
  Fast function calls: yes
Devices configuration
  NE2000 support: no
  PCI support: no
  SB16 support: no
  USB support: no
  VGA extension support:  none

The sound and network don't work. Kebyoard works fine, mouse I guess it's not working, I doubt PS2 SDL port has USB mouse support compiled in but maybe...
Physical access to PS2 CD/DVD driver doesn't work, but you can read ISO images from CD/DVD file system. I was running DSL Linux ISO image, very slow.

You should be able to allocate up to 20 MB for guesst host. If you set more it will probably crash at startup. Don't run with fullscreen option as it's broken (It was fixed in higher Bochs version). You can change to fullscreen mode by pressing Scrol Lock key when you already run emulator, but don't try to come back to normal screen mode by pressing it again, PS2 will hang on.

If you want to compile your own version just check out http://ps2dev.karashome.boo.pl for source code (patch).

REMEMBER TO MAKE DATA BACKUP FROM YOUR PENDRIVE BEFORE YOU RUN THIS SOFTWARE. I DON'T GUARANTEE CORECT WORK. I DON'T TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DATA LOSE OR HARDWARE DAMAGE. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Tell me about your expirience

Enjoy.

**TnA** · 08-01-2011,07:55 AM

Nice work!

I wonder how well Dosbox would work, or if your bochs-port could work even better with other compiling-options, or some 'fixes'.

**KarasQ** · 08-02-2011,06:24 AM

I could try once again with DosBox port. I compiled it some time ago, but there was a lot of problems. Every time I tried to run emulation It threw exceptions, now I know it might be because of memory aligment issues. I had the same problems with Bochs. I wonder myself how fast DosBox would be. Also, I can try to compile Bochs with all 'Optimization configuration' options, but I think that without dynamic recompilation cpu core it won't be much faster.

**TnA** · 08-04-2011,11:44 AM

Wow,... 2 new PC/x86-Emulators for PS2 at once.
That would be very nice...

Don't work too hard, KarasQ.
Not that you get the 'Burnout-Syndrome'.

**TnA** · 08-05-2011,06:01 PM

You know what would be cool?

'Swap-Support' (emulated RAM) into a file or so, on different devices.

That feature in a standalone-ELF (minimized RAM and CPU-Cycles by it's structure not needing linux and the RTE) combined with some optimisations,... it could run even better (Windows in 95 in under 15Minutes? ~dream~

).

Btw.: I'm going to hit up a news/frontpage-post/article about it, ifthat's o.k. for ya.

**KarasQ** · 08-07-2011,06:25 AM

Originally Posted by TnA

Btw.: I'm going to hit up a news/frontpage-post/article about it, ifthat's o.k. for ya.

Sure, maybe someone else would be interested in x86 emulation on PS2

Originally Posted by TnA

'Swap-Support' (emulated RAM) into a file or so, on different devices.

That feature in a standalone-ELF (minimized RAM and CPU-Cycles by it's structure not needing linux and the RTE) combined with some optimisations,... it could run even better (Windows in 95 in under 15Minutes? ~dream~

).

That will resolve lack of memory space issue but also I think it will slow emulation down a lot. It's too bad that PS2 dosn't have at least 64 MB

.

Btw. I compiled Bochs with all inner optimizations. I don't know yet if it's stable or faster/slower, I have no access to PS2 at the moment :P

**xan1242** · 09-03-2011,05:12 PM

(Sorry for a bump...)

What are changes in v2?You didn't put a changelog...

**KarasQ** · 09-04-2011,05:29 PM

I had to do this two days ago. I don't know, maybe I'm blind, but I can't find an option to edit my posts, even though it says at the bottom, in Posting Permissions I may edit my posts... I could do that before. I thought it's temporary issue, but it's still not fixed so I post changes in new post:

Changes log:

Code:

Bochs 2.3.5-v1:
	- Initial version, basic port
Bochs 2.3.5-v2:
	- compilation with all optimisation options
	- fixed SDL bug: fullscreen option at startup crashes emulation
	- changes in default configuration file to make it more stable (less RAM) and
          faster (fullscreen option by default)

In v1, changing screen mode on the fly by SCROLL LOCK hangs emulator, but
please notice it's not a bug. It's caused by lack of memory to
reallocate screen. To fix this, you should change amount of memory
in bochsrc.txt to smaller value (less than 20 MB). In v2 memory is defaultly
set to 18 MB because of this issue and because of optimisations options
which take some more memory.

Options the PS2 Bochs 2.3.5-v2 is compiled with:

Code:

00000000000i[     ] CPU configuration
00000000000i[     ]   level: 5
00000000000i[     ]   TLB enabled: yes
00000000000i[     ]   SMP support: no
00000000000i[     ]   FPU support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   MMX support: no
00000000000i[     ]   SSE support: no
00000000000i[     ]   CLFLUSH support: no
00000000000i[     ]   v8086 mode support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   VME support: no
00000000000i[     ]   3dnow! support: no
00000000000i[     ]   PAE support: no
00000000000i[     ]   PGE support: no
00000000000i[     ]   PSE support: no
00000000000i[     ]   x86-64 support: no
00000000000i[     ]   SEP support: no
00000000000i[     ] Optimization configuration
00000000000i[     ]   Guest2HostTLB support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   RepeatSpeedups support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   Icache support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   Host Asm support: yes
00000000000i[     ]   Fast function calls: yes
00000000000i[     ] Devices configuration
00000000000i[     ]   NE2000 support: no
00000000000i[     ]   PCI support: no
00000000000i[     ]   SB16 support: no
00000000000i[     ]   USB support: no
00000000000i[     ]   VGA extension support: none

Originally Posted by TnA

(...) it could run even better (Windows in 95 in under 15Minutes? ~dream~

).

Well, dreams come true!

In v2 Windows 95 boots 12 minutes

. But even it's faster, it still sucks

Windows 3.11 boots the same, but seems to respond and load applications faster!

EDIT

WOW, I can edit this post, so there is time limitation for editing posts? What if I would like to edit first post in my threads ;>?

**Ryudo** · 09-07-2011,01:02 PM

fix my ps2 when I try this emulator insurance, I saw a video on youtube and I was surprised, you can not do with each win 95?

**psxscenefan1** · 09-07-2011,10:37 PM

Originally Posted by Ryudo

fix my ps2 when I try this emulator insurance, I saw a video on youtube and I was surprised, you can not do with each win 95?

Win95 probably won't happen, at least with how this method is done.

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