Original Gta


The original GTA was DOS / Windows based (there were many versions of the DOS one, too, to support 3DFX and all sorts).

I wouldn't rate your chances of emulating that - you're looking at something like DOSBox but trying to get Pentium 90 (IIRC, that was the minimum spec for DOS GTA) performance, with integrated 3DFX card.

If memory serves, GTA is a bit of a slow pig on machines of the time even in 320x240x8bit. I can even remember playing mulitiplayer between a P133 with 3DFX and a P233 (over parallel-port, no less - DON'T ASK, but it worked with the help of a few antique utilities) and it was the CPU that held everything back, not the network speed.

GTA Windows - I dunno but I suspect the situation is the same, i.e. 3D acceleration hardware support in a windows emulator. For that you're talking a serious project like Wine or something. Not much of a chance of that being able to run fast enough to make the game work smoothly even in the worst resolution.

As far as I know, there are *no* GTA-specific emulators in existence either. So your best bet is DosBox. On that line, the DosBox wiki has two notes about GTA, one old, one new:

Old one: "The 8-bit colour version is playable but rather slow (on a 2.6GHz Pentium 4C with hyperthreading enabled). The audio is choppy, but still useful."

New one: "Even 24bit version running good with correct "core" settings (on Athlon 64X2 6000+). In high resolutions (800X600) FPS is quite low, but still playable."

So you're looking at a seriously beefy PC (neither report mentions 3D acceleration but it's certain that whatever they had, they would out-pace even the Pandora's 3D hardware). Not a chance on any handheld of the current generation. You might be able to do it on a modern PC or laptop, though, if you're prepared to suffer low FPS/res/etc.
 
GTA on my PC ran really fast in software mode, though quite a bit slower on my 3DFX card, though both were a HELL of alot faster than the awful PS1 version! Hopefully with Pandora the PS1 emulation can be speeded up to at least 60-100fps for some games (900mhz option)
 
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