SheepShaver is an Open Source PowerPC MacOS run-time environment. That is, it enables you to run PowerPC Classic MacOS software on your computer, even if you are using a different operating system. However, you still need a copy of MacOS and a PowerMacintosh ROM image to use this program.
SheepShaver is distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Performance within MacOS X for Intel could not be evaluated. However, you may read about the following benchmarks run on a Linux platform. They show that performance with the current CPU emulator using basic Just-in-Time (JIT) translation techniques is roughly 25% of native speeds.
Please read the other SheepShaver documentation in the "General Documents" directory.
There is also a user-contributed help available online.
You need a NewWorld ROM 1.6 to take benefit of AltiVec emulation as there was no PowerMac PCI ROM supporting G4 processors.
NewWorld ROMs can only support MacOS 8.5 and upwards. SheepShaver only supports first-generation NewWorld ROMs at this time. This means anything below or equal to version 1.6, i.e. not Parcels-based ones.
Graphics performance is probably sub-optimal. The MacOS X port is missing the VOSF video graphics optimization because Mach syscalls are not fast enough to achieve that (vs. Linux).
I have no Mac Intel handy. This port was completely developed remotely with minimal testing through VNC. As such, I have no idea whether performance is on par with the Linux versions or not, nor could I test host-specific support (CD-ROM, Audio, etc.).
Besides, should you encounter problems with this port, I won't be able to process them unless they are reproductible on Linux or MacOS X 10.2.8 platforms. Otherwise, either fix the problem yourself, or send me the hardware. I currently don't need MacOS X for Intel, so I won't buy this hardware simply for SheepShaver development purposes.
There is a minimalist graphical prefs editor: SheepShaverGUI.app. It's actually a PowerPC application that should also work on Intel platforms correctly through Rosetta. The GUI will generate your prefs file in ~/.sheepshaver_prefs.
Here is mine, you would mostly have to edit with the correct paths and filenames to suit your purposes:
disk /Users/gwenole/MacOS/MacOS_904.dsk extfs /Users/gwenole/MacOS/transfert screen win/800/600 rom /Users/gwenole/MacOS/Mac_v1.6.ROM bootdrive 0 bootdriver 0 ramsize 268435456 frameskip 0 gfxaccel true ether slirp nonet false nocdrom false nosound false nogui true noclipconversion false ignoresegv false jit true jit68k false keyboardtype 5 ether slirp keycodes true keycodefile /Users/gwenole/.basilisk_ii_keycodes mousewheelmode 1 mousewheellines 3 ignoresegv false idlewait true