Pentium II at 600Mhz with Voodoo 3 Emulated on 86Box with M6 Mac Mini

In a fascinating demonstration of emulation on a Mac Mini, an old Pentium II processor running at 600MHz was successfully emulated using 86Box, with Voodoo 3 graphics emulation added to the mix. The project showcases the impressive capabilities of Apple Silicon, specifically the M6 chip in the Mac Mini, which excels at maintaining consistent performance even at higher clock speeds.

86Box, a powerful emulator that closely mimics the hardware of old PCs, was used for the tests. The emulation process takes into account various factors such as CPU timing, chipset behavior, ISA and PCI buses, graphics chipsets, sound devices, and disk controllers, all of which contribute to the accuracy of software behavior. While the emulation may not always match the performance of an actual physical CPU, it provides a valuable tool for running period-specific software.

The results of the emulation tests reveal that the M6 chip in the Mac Mini can sustain a CPU clock speed of 600MHz without any throttling, holding a flat 100% emulation speed throughout the entire Cinebench 2000 and 3DMark 2000 SE runs. This is a significant improvement over the M4 chip, which starts to experience performance dips at 550MHz. The 600MHz setting on the M6 leaves a substantial headroom, resulting in an emulated CPU performance that is 20% higher than the M4's clock speed.

Interestingly, when compared to real hardware, the emulated 600MHz Pentium II shows performance results that closely match those of an 800MHz Coppermine, despite being overclocked to a slightly lower speed. This discrepancy highlights the complexities of emulating older hardware and the challenges in achieving perfect accuracy. Nonetheless, the successful emulation of the Pentium II at 600MHz on the M6 Mac Mini showcases the potential of modern emulation technology.