QEMU Classic Retro Games From Install to Play in 15 mins on MacBook Air M1 -- Gothic 1

Channel:

KJ Liew

Subscribers:

448

Published on February 14, 2022 5:05:25 AM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cTy6CLkZbE

Game:

Gothic (2001)

Duration: 14:34

562 views

6

Gothic 1 by Piranha Bytes, a German Game Studio production, an excellent RPG game that many have had fond memories of playing. This is another popular game that enjoys overwhelming community support with system packs, players mods and textures pack enhancement which make the game fully playable on modern Windows. Nevertheless, with QEMU Virtual Machine, the game retailed CD originality has been preserved and all one needs is the final official patch 1.08k patch. It is also a slow RPG games with 25 FPS cap. Though there are ways to remove the FPS cap, I personally found it to be unnecessary for such game. The game remains fully playable around 12~15 FPS and look nice, too, in "pristine condition". Not every game got to be 60 FPS to have an enjoyable experience.

For Apple M1, it is an interesting scenario because the game 400MHz CPU requirement seems to be a little steeper than what the CPU could handle without virtualization. Fortunately Apple M1 GPU is extremely capable and the big-pipe of memory bandwidth from on-package DDR coupled with QEMU WineD3D for true 3D acceleration, all these sort of make up the performance gap of CPU emulation.

This is inherently a wake-up slap to "the other camp" whose fans always preach the BS of "There'd probably still be a CPU bottleneck" or the falsehood of accurate emulation. Without harnessing the GPU prowess and overloaded CPU with "freaking fast, fake" software rendered 3D acceleration would surely bottleneck the CPU. Yeah, QEMU is always less accurate, but who the F would care for playing good old Windows games?

As always, QEMU is not the only option to play the game on Apple M1. Thanks to the game's community support, Parallel Desktop virtualizing Windows 10/11 ARM64 can also have the game played on Apple M1. Microsoft XTA (X86-To-ARM) translation on virtualized Windows is still 20~25% faster than QEMU TCG. Well, it is definitely not in solo hobbyist's interest to challenge Parallel Desktop business model. So when Parallel Desktop works out great, there is really no reason to look into QEMU or anything else. The price for 1-year subscription is reasonable, just make sure you finished the game before renewal. Or, have your boss pay for it "For Work Purposes" and "Occasional Funs" called "Work Life Balance"... ;)

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