[General Topics] Menneisyys:
2. Windows Mobile Professional / Classic (Pocket PC) emulators

2. 1. PocketCommodore64 (current version: v2.52)

Without doubt the best, most featureful & compatible C64 emulator is the commercial PocketCommodore64. It has (almost) all the bells and whistles a gamer would ever need; for example, touch screen used as fire button, freely redefinable control keys (including fire), rapid and auto fire, a plethora of different screen modes (including total screen off for simple music playback), stereo (!) sound, support for both NTSC and PAL modes, support for VGA Pocket PC's etc.

It's way better than any other C64 emulator on Windows Mobile and has a very high compatibility rate with games.

It’s constantly improved; the developers are already working on the new, even more compatible and advanced 3.x series. It’s still not known when it’s released; now, there already are internal alpha test builds.

Unfortunately, currently PocketCommodore64 has no MS Smartphone-compatible versions. Some time in the past, there was a beta for low-res Smartphones, but it was never released outside of a few beta testers. The screen limitation was the biggest hurdle, but the poor CPU performance and system interruptions were also factors in not releasing it. As most issues should be negated in the newest Smartphones (particularly now that QVGA models, like the HTC Vox / S710, are becoming more and more common), hope there will also be a Smartphone version too – even as early as the forthcoming 3.0 version.

The only problem with the emulator (in addition to the high CPU usage) is the lack of multiplayer capabilities, which, on the desktop CCS64, is already implemented. Bluetooth local multiplayer was originally promised, but the limitations, that is, the packet speed problems, forced it to be dropped on initial release. Now, it exists only as an Easter egg, but I don’t know how it can be activated (I’ve tried to click everywhere in the GUI to find “hidden” icons / buttons).

Unfortunately, the above-mentioned Bluetooth multiplayer incompatibility, during betatests of multiplayer-enabled PocketCommodore64 versions, was not a question of transmission rate. This means for example Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) Bluetooth, as opposed to earlier non-EDR versions, won’t help. It seems to be an issue of interval between Tx packets supported by the hardware and operating systems. Only emulation, not typical games, would be affected by this limitation, which is why there are commercial games with this feature, but few emulators. The developer has, however, promised to look into the possible solutions again for version 3.0.

A review; another one at AximSite; AximSite thread.

In the previous sections, I’ve already compared the capabilities & features of this emulator to the other (free) C64 emulators; in here, I won’t go on with this. Also consult the Chart for more comparative info.

Note that the emulator has a pretty extensive manual. It's pretty much usable and up-to-date. Note that it refers to a slightly older, 2.0 version and some things have changed in the meantime; most importantly, there is no longer a separate "accurate timing" version.

2.2 PocketHobbit 1.0

This free emulator, based on well-known multiplatform C64 emulator Frodo is a typical example of “you get what you pay for”. While it has some advantages (for example, the much lower CPU usage, the somewhat better scene demo compliance and, of course, the transparent keyboard in Landscape mode also visible in the screenshot below - see n0p’s excellent DOSBox port for something similar) over PocketCommodore64, in general, it’s way worse. It’s slower (at the same clock speed / frameskip settings), not VGA-aware (which will especially be a problem in Portrait mode, where it, unlike the two other C64 emulators, doesn’t “cheat” using 200 rows – see the example screenshots in the Chart demonstrating this), it doesn’t allow for joystick fire button reassignment etc.

All in all, it’s, while having certain strengths, a mediocre title. You should only check it out if you are absolutely sure you can’t purchase PocketCommodore64 and/or need to watch some demos, which might be more compatible with this title and/or absolutely need a title that doesn't force you to underclock your Pocket PC to save battery life.

2.3 ComeBack64ce 0.5

(note that zimmers.net only has an even older 1999 version HERE; THIS page too has an outdated version)

This is the worst c64 emulator for Windows Mobile. It’s really lacking features and the compatibility issues (it’s not at all compatible with VGA devices and, what is more, it’s also completely lacking WM5+ support) are a showstopper for many current Windows Mobile users.

The worst limitation, in addition to the inability to run on WM5+ and/or VGA devices, is the lack of floppy emulation. Therefore, if, for some reason, you still want to use it, you need to know how you can extract individual .PRG (executable program) files from a d64 disk image. Get D64 Editor; that is, THIS file (also linked from HERE), unzip it, and start setup\SETUP.EXE. After installing, start it (ignore the font error messages), drag a d64 image on it, select the program to export, right click it and select File Export. Select a target directory; the file will be exported as an <originalfilename>.PRG file, which can already be read by ComeBack64ce.

Probably the only plus of this emulator is the clever Portrait mode: it, by not sticking to the 8:5 aspect ratio but displaying all the default 200 rows (as opposed to 150), avoids having to drop 50 horizontal pixel lines and, this way, presents a much better rendition in Portrait mode than the other free emulator, PocketHobbit. Otherwise, it’s clearly worse than even PocketHobbit, let alone PocketCommodore64.

3. Windows Mobile Standard (MS Smartphone) emulators

Unfortunately, none of the Pocket PC emulators can be hacked into Smartphone. See the “MS Smartphone compliance?” row in the Chart for more info on my hacking attempts.

There is only one native C64 emulator for the MS Smartphone, PocketHobbitSP2003. Fortunately, it’s pretty nice.

3.1 PocketHobbitSP2003 Alpha 11

This emulator works flawlessly on both low(er)-end, 176*220 Smartphones and high(er)-end QVGA ones. Note that if you plan to use the latter, you will need to “hack” the main executable of the emulator as described in HERE. Should you be afraid of this, I’ve made the hacked, high-resolution emulator HERE. That is, if you have a QVGA Portrait device like the HTC Vox, get THIS instead of the official version.

If you’ve used to the Pocket PC version, you’ll find the usage of this emulator a bit strange at first. Fortunately, after a bit getting used to, it will turn out to be REALLY easy-to-use. If you are unsure about getting started with loading programs off D64 / T64 files, just make sure you read my mini-tutorial in section “1.3.1 Loading programs into the emulators”.

It runs pretty well even on low-end, “slow”, 201 MHz TI OMAP-based Smartphones. I’ve tested it on the 176*220 HTC Oxygen / s310 and the QVGA HTC Vox / s710 (with the hacked QVGA version on the latter). Worked flawlessly; highly recommended.