www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum

I read somewhere on the forum that the Arm7500 model can use more than 8M video memory, and indeed I now have it working with 1920x1200 and 16m colours, which the StrongArm version cannot do. I also found to my surprise that on the Arm7500 version the wheel on my mouse now scrolls - the entire boot sequence etc is identical in both cases, so it is clearly a difference in how the emulation is done. I cannot see any significant speed differences either, so my question is: are there any significant advantages in using VA as StrongArm over using it as Arm7500? If not, then the Arm7500 seems to be a more practical solution for my needs.

Some applications (e.g. FireFox) require a StrongARM (or later) processor, or they won't run. Other apps, especially those related to audio/video, will run quicker on the StrongARM as they use the long divide/multiply instructions that were introduced after the Arm7 and Arm7500 were designed/built.

If what you are using works OK then stick with the Arm7500.

Is there any way the StrongARM version can work with a wheel mouse (scrolling windows etc)?

Not currently. The StrongARM and Arm710 emulations reproduce the RiscPC class hardware, which uses a Quadrature mouse. The ARM7500 emulation reproduces an Acorn A7000, which uses a PS2 mouse. The PS2 mouse design supports scrolling (I am using one on a machine right now), the Quadrature mouse design doesn't support scrolling, which isn't suprising as Quadrature is a very outdated design.