Apple IIGS emulators: Difference between revisions

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It was the first machine from Apple to use the Apple Desktop Bus and the first to provide a colour version of QuickDraw since the first colour Macintosh was not available until 1987. However it does not provide a high-resolution square pixel mode.
It was the first machine from Apple to use the Apple Desktop Bus and the first to provide a colour version of QuickDraw since the first colour Macintosh was not available until 1987. However it does not provide a high-resolution square pixel mode.
==Processor==
The central processor is a 65816, a backwards-compatible 16-bit update to the 6502 that was also used in the Super Nintendo. It runs natively at 2.8Mhz but will slow down to ~1Mhz when in classic Apple II emulation mode or when writing to video memory.
==Graphics Capabilities==
In addition to RGB emulations of the existing Apple II artefact composite video modes, the IIgs adds 320x200 and 640x200 RGB colour modes; the former in various combinations of 16 colours per line and the latter at 4 colours per line (including a hardware dithering mode that acts a little like 16 colours per line). Each line may use any of 16 palettes, making a total of 256 colours on screen without raster-linked palette changes.
There is also some support for 'fill mode', in which colour 0 means "repeat the last non-zero colour", designed to aid in fast single-colour fills.
Colours are selected from a 12-bit RGB 4,096 colour palette; the IIGS therefore has the same total colour range as its contemporaries the Commodore Amiga, the Atari STE and the Acorn Archimedes.
However it is subject to a number of deficiencies: there is a single buffer for video only — double buffering is not supported — and it supports neither hardware scrolling nor hardware sprites; and as all writes into video memory clock the CPU down to 1Mhz these are expensive to perform in software.
==Audio Capabilities==
The IIGS provides a 32-channel wavetable Ensoniq sound chip, which uses 64kb for samples.
The OS by default configures this as 15 stereo channels and uses the remaining two channels as interrupt counters; the IIGS is therefore often described as a 15-channel machine.


==Emulators==
==Emulators==
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{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
{|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
!scope="col"|Name
!scope="col"|Name
!scope="col"|Operating system(s)
!scope="col"|Platform(s)
!scope="col"|Latest version
!scope="col"|Latest version
!scope="col"|Active
!scope="col"|Active
!scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
!scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
|-
! colspan="6"|PC / x86
|-
|-
|[[KEGS]]
|[[KEGS]]
|Multi-platform
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}}
|0.91
|{{KEGSVer}}
|{{✗}}
|{{✗}}
|{{✓}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|-
|[[GSplus]]
|[[GSplus]]
|Multi-platform
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}}
|0.14
|{{GSplusVer}}
|{{✓}}
|{{✓}}
|{{~}}
|{{~}}
|-
|-
|[[GSport]]
|[https://david-schmidt.github.io/gsport GSport]
|Multi-platform
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS}}
|0.31
|{{GSportVer}}
|{{}}
|{{}}
|{{✗}}
|{{✗}}
|-
|-
|[[MAME]]
|[[MAME]]
|Multi-platform
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows|Linux|macOS|FreeBSD}}
|{{MAMEVer}}
|{{MAMEVer}}
|{{✓}}
|{{✓}}
|{{✗}}
|{{✗}}
|}
|}
==Processor==
The central processor is a 65816, a backwards-compatible 16-bit update to the 6502 that was also used in the Super Nintendo. It runs natively at 2.8Mhz but will slow down to ~1Mhz when in classic Apple II emulation mode or when writing to video memory.
==Graphics Capabilities==
In addition to RGB emulations of the existing Apple II artefact composite video modes, the IIgs adds 320x200 and 640x200 RGB colour modes; the former in various combinations of 16 colours per line and the latter at 4 colours per line (including a hardware dithering mode that acts a little like 16 colours per line). Each line may use any of 16 palettes, making a total of 256 colours on screen without raster-linked palette changes.
There is also some support for 'fill mode', in which colour 0 means "repeat the last non-zero colour", designed to aid in fast single-colour fills.
Colours are selected from a 12-bit RGB 4,096 colour palette; the IIGS therefore has the same total colour range as its contemporaries the Commodore Amiga, the Atari STE and the Acorn Archimedes.
However it is subject to a number of deficiencies: there is a single buffer for video only — double buffering is not supported — and it supports neither hardware scrolling nor hardware sprites; and as all writes into video memory clock the CPU down to 1Mhz these are expensive to perform in software.
==Audio Capabilities==
The IIGS provides a 32-channel wavetable Ensoniq sound chip, which uses 64kb for samples.
The OS by default configures this as 15 stereo channels and uses the remaining two channels as interrupt counters; the IIGS is therefore often described as a 15-channel machine.




{{Apple}}
{{Apple}}