Sunday, March 31st 2002 - Last updated @ 10:28 EST
More MAME WIP - Wow! That drag race game looks cool! Although I'm probably too young to remember that one being in the arcades. Mortal Kombat Shadow posting complainers will be happy too! :P Well, now I'm off to spend some Easter time with a new friend of mine, Sarah. Happy Easter everyone!
- chris
FLASH! - What better way then to start your day with a nice Flash musicvideo about a cow ... and a little something extra ;)
- atila
Saturday, March 30th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:34 EST
Queen Mother Dies - The British Queen Mother has passed away in her sleep.
- atila
CPS2 SHOCK! - That's right folks, Razoola has done it again, this time with six new XORs to download over at the CPS2Shock page. Releases include: Super Gem Fighter: Mini Mix (thanks to Dang_Spot and taucher0815), Pocket Fighter (thanks to Minimoni), Puzzle Fighter 2T (thanks to Treble Winner and William Pérez), and Super Street Fighter 2 (Asia) (thanks to taucher0815).
- chris
TSSHP 0.2.9 - TSSHP (The System Shock Hack Project) is a project to reverse-engineer and recode (from scratch, but using the original datafiles) the 3D role-playing/shooter games from Looking Glass (System Shock and the Ultima Underworlds). Changes Include:
Depth cueing for c/space fading, c/space softs/logs rendered, proper colours for models in cyberspace, new BodyWaves, ViewPoseGrid (Posture), and Health/Power bars, HUD render process prepared for HW acceleration, Z-buffering for c/space fragmented critters, simple sorting of c/space lines, and correct colour schemes for shaded objects. License: BSD.
- chris
Friday, March 29th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:26 EST
Sixtoe Goes Bonkers: Call 911! - Sixtoe has posted an absolutely huge update over at SYSTEM16: someone order him a life, please ;) This update is guaranteed to keep you busy for the next hour or so.
- atila
IE Patch Time - Yes, it's that time of the week again so fire up yer Internet Explorer, point it to this location and update your browser. This is a "critical" update; "make it so" ;)
- atila
Visual Pinmame updated - As promised, Visual Pinmame version 1.12 has been released on it's birthday! It can be found over at the official site. Check out pinmame's screenshot section for a list of every supported boardset/system. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who has worked on this project.. hope the second year is as good as the first!
- metallik
Basilisk II Build 143 - The Macintosh II emulator for Windows, Basilisk II, has been updated adding a gamma ramp patch for Escape Velocity Nova.
- MetaFox
messxula 0.04 - messxula (pronounced "mess-zoola") is an open-source cross-platform GUI for MESS written by me using the XUL GUI specification and JavaScript. messxula aims to reproduce the functionality of MESS32. Changes: Added some meaningful icons to the folder list and toolbar. When you click on a folder list item, the icon changes to an open folder. Began work on a pt-BR locale (thanks to Daemon). A screen shot of the new icons can been seen here, and a screenshot of the new locale can be seen here.
- chris
Zinc Glide Renderer 1.1 Released - A new version of this renderer has been released for the Windows version of Zinc, here's what's new:
- Filtering without Sprites option.
- Revised & coloured onscreen display.
- Tekken1: corrected round indicator sprite corruption.
- Tekken1: corrected incorrect texturing - still some corruption.
- Tekken2: corrected incorrect texturing - only 1 incorrect texture left.
romalizer 0.7pre3 - romalizer is a free open-source console based ROM manager for xmame (akin to ClrMAMEPro, etc). written by me. Changes:
Fixed a bug that would cause romalizer to crash in a very rare circumstance (see changelog for details). Thanks to David Heremans for the bug report.
Do not prompt for next ROM set if -f is used.
Added a check to see if xmame-0.56 or greater is used.
Added -A option to append all ROMs found in the specified directory to the parameter list bypassing bash.
And some messy code cleanups :)
Thanks for all the bug reports and suggestions.
- chris
WSCamp 0.12 - WSCamp, the only WonderSwan emulator with sound emulation, has been updated, adding the NEC CPU core with permission from MAME.
- MetaFox
Thursday, March 28th 2002 - Last updated @ 12:43 EST
MEKA for Windows? - A Win32 build of the MEKA emulator has apparently been floating around the net for a day or two.. As there is no mention of it on the homepage, I won't provide any links at this time. I don't have the file, nor could I even test it on my Linux rig at work, so I can't confirm whether it is real or not. If it IS real, this is great news for SMS/GG fans! Hopefully we'll see an official release soon.
- metallik
Atari 5200 / 800 emu for DC updated - Version .2 of the Atari 5200/800 emulator for Dreamcast has been released. This emulator supports the playing of 5200 games with sound, although there is no sound while emulating the Atari 800 series of computers. Get the goods here. There is also a downloadable image here. Note the 2nd link is to Angelfire, and may not last too long. I played Montezuma's Revenge to level 3 .. It runs almost full speed (around 90%) with sound, although the sound emulation isn't so hot. Still, it's an excellent start and a welcome addition to the Dreamcast emulator library.
- metallik
Jeff K's Intarnet Guido - I had all but forgotten Jeff K, so check out his Internet Guide here. Thanks to Daemon for the link.
- atila
KAZAA WINS! - The Dutch courts have ruled that Kazaa cannot be held responsible for the actions of their users and/or any copyright violations!!! Fasttrack sold Kazaa to an Australian company a little while ago, but according to this ruling, it would not have been necessary. The court puts the blame on the Buma/Stemra (Dutch RIAA) and Kazaa can now sue the Buma/Stemra for causing Fasttrack to sell Kazaa (for way too little money).
The link above is in Dutch, I'll replace it with an English one when I find one.
- atila
Tuesday, March 26th 2002 - Last updated @ 09:49 EST
Pac-Man Collection for GBA - Mike Stulir has reviewed the new Pac-Man Collection for the GBA. Turns out it's not quite a "collection" after all.
- atila
xmame-0.59.1 - xmame-0.59.1 is out! Thanks for the last-minute flurry of patches, some of which won't make it in until the next release. Note that Lawrence hasn't tested the hard drive diff image support yet. He is planning on incorporating Aaron Giles' improvements to src/win/fileio.c into src/unix/fileio.c for 0.59.2, so if diff images are broken, that ought to fix them. Changes since 0.58.3 include:
Everything from MAME 0.59.
Set some more sensible defaults for the various path settings in fileio.c (e.g., XMAMEROOT/samples for samplepath).
Fixed a segfault in psikyosh games. (David Haywood)
The NetBSD USB joystick code now compiles on newer NetBSD installations. (Krister Walfridsson)
DGA 2.0 support now works on NetBSD PowerPC machines. It was broken due to an issue with using memset() on mapped video buffers. (Charles M. Hannum)
The GLmame driver now compiles and runs on the OpenGL 1.1 shipped with IRIX, but still doesn't work as it should. (Andrea Suatoni)
A patch against 0.58.3 is available from here.
- chris
Monday, March 25th 2002 - Last updated @ 11:00 EST
DIV Competition - DIV Arena is holding a "remakes competition" using their DIV programming language. You can read more about it at this link, including the preferred candidates for a remake. Remakes have to be in by the end of April and the winner will win some nice Fasttrak Software!
- atila
Sunday, March 24th 2002 - Last updated @ 10:23 EST
Is Your Son A Hacker? - Reading this article will not tell you if he is, but it sure is funny :) Thanks to Mugsy for the updated link.
- atila
Zinc 0.5 - Zinc is an emulator for Sony ZN-1 and ZN-2 and Namco System 11 arcade hardware. These systems are all based around the familiar PlayStation game console with varying degrees of modifications. It replaces the old Impact and S11emu emulators, which are now obsolete and no longer supported.
Zinc is available for both Windows and Linux based PCs. Windows 2000 and XP are fully supported. Changes Include:
- Added the ZN-1 and ZN-2 games, which have the following fixes vs. Impact:
* Music in Psychic Force
* Added Magical Date, Sonic Wings Limited, and Beastorizer (bootleg). Magical Date and Sonic Wings have full sound, Beastorizer is missing music due to a bad dump.
* Sound effects should be improved (not fixed) in the SFEX games
* Now requires the real ZN-1 bios in a file called "firmware.zip". See the ROM descriptions below for more info.
- Fixed graphics glitches in Xevious 3D/G
- Improved graphics in Tekken and Tekken 2 (but not correct)
- Faster renderers courtesy Pete Bernert.
- Brand new R3000 dynamic recompiler with CPU-specific optimizations and tunable performance parameters.
Saturday, March 23rd 2002 - Last updated @ 14:01 EST
MAME32 0.59 Released - Aaiii, MAME32 0.59 is here and to save you the trouble of downloading the release through the official site and ending up in some annoying queue, you can download the source code here and the binary here. You can check the MAME32 QA/Test & Art Dept. for more info and the new icons, screenshots and cabinet pack. Enjoy :)
- atila
Drunk "Emu" - Now you know why I ain't never been drunk before :) Thanks to rOss^-^ for the link.
- atila
Friday, March 22nd 2002 - Last updated @ 19:28 EST
Mame .59 released - MAME version 0.59 has just been released. Grab the source and binary at the homepage linked above. Better to grab the source and perform this tiny fix before compiling, as there is a mistake in the Psikyo driver causing some of the newer shooters not to work properly. A corrected sourcefile and binary should be available from mame.net soon.
- metallik
Rags To Riches ... To Rags - Sure, it was a nice series back in the day, but in this case, it applies to a contestant of the Thai version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. The contestant was fed the correct answers by mistake, so they couldn't award the prize.
- atila
Thursday, March 21st 2002 - Last updated @ 16:03 EST
GBA Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits Review - Mike Stulir had the following to say about this here "game":
MGAH is certainly the single worst title available for the GameBoy Advanced, and is quite possibly the worst classic arcade compilation available for any gaming console or computer.
New Visual Pinball released - As was mentioned earlier, Randy and Black have released Visual Pinball tech beta 6! Check out this thread on vpforums.com for download locations. Much thanks to all involved for continuing this great project!
- metallik
Stella for Dreamcast 0.2c - DCStella is the port of the Stella Atari 2600 VCS Emulator to the Sega Dreamcast gaming console. It uses the original, unchanged Stella sources which have to be downloaded seperately. Changes: This release adds a new option that enables you to "simulate" power off/on on the VCS by doing a hard reset, hooks for some background music, support for a new 6502 illegal opcode (LAX), and a swap trick to exchange the CD with one containing the ROMs. If you open the lid outside of the swap trick, DCStella jumps to the Dreamcast menu, just like a commercial game. License: Free for non-commercial use.
- chris
Wednesday, March 20th 2002 - Last updated @ 00:59 EST
uCON64 1.9.8beta2 - uCON64 is a tool to backup all kinds of video game media (Cartridges and CDs). It can operate as an intelligent frontend for every emulator available. Changes: Game Doctor ROM file support (-gd3 & -s) for the SNES, -chk fix ROM checksum support for the WonderSwan(Color), and support for updating config files without overwriting old values were added. A DOS-specific bug in the IPS code, a DOS-specific bug in the -ins code, and DOS specific problems with -swc, -fig and -smc for the SNES were fixed. License: GPL.
- chris
Tuesday, March 19th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:29 EST
Ghouls'n Ghosts Advance? - Apparently Capcom's ultra-popular 2D series will be properly revived for Nintendo's Gameboy Advance! According to this Gaming Age article, the recent success of Maximo on PS2 has emboldened Capcom to bring Arthur back for more adventures. Now then Capcom, how about a new Strider game? Check out the GnG Tribute pages to remind yourself why these games are so well loved, or of course, just play 'em in an emulator. ;)
- prophet
Caesar Updated - Logiqx updated Caesar with a manufacturer index and also a new "stripy" look.
- prophet
MAME Boards - Hmm, yes the normal link to the Official MAME Boards seems to be busted right now, but try these as a temporary alternative:
The boards are still there, and still work.
- prophet
Halo - Yes, this is totally non-retro, non-emulation, but part of the reason I've been offline lately is Halo - simply one of the best games I've ever played. Like a great novel, I'm sad to have finished the game, but it was worth buying an XBox to play it. Bungie has won tons of awards for the game, and they deserve it. Highly recommended when you're not playing Robotron or PacMan . :)
- prophet
NeoGeoForLife MVS Competition - Kazuya_UK's excellent NeoGeo site, NeoGeo For Life, is celebrating it's 3rd birthday with a competition - the prize being no less than a Last Blade MVS cart and some extra trimmings to go with it! There will also be some runner-up prizes as well. Basically you'll need to come up with the best homemade insert artwork to win - see here for the details.
- prophet
ClrMAME Pro 2.55 - Blame it on Roman's cold... Here's, hopefully, a stable build of the much loved ClrMAME Pro. New stuff:
fixed: rare issue where renaming roms leads to doubled names (not double
roms :o))
fixed: missing checksum output
fixed: ZipIntegrityCheck freezed CMPro on bad files
misc: "allow separated biossets" now hides all messages about the separated
biosset
misc: changed the multiple instance check
misc: changed the biossets test (to avoid MAME bugs :o))
misc: new zlib 1.1.4 core
- prophet
Return of Shivasite - The pinball-related Shivasite has returned from the grave! It's new URL is http://shivasite.s31net.com/index.php. Shivasite sports a whole new look, as well as a new direction.. from a rec.games.pinball post by Paul: "The site is in basic form, as shivaSite has shifted to a pure development website, and we are only starting with the Library at the time being, as well as sections for shivaEngine, rulesheets and technical documents." There's some juicy news on there as well.. information on the next release of Pinmame (which should be out on it's 1-year anniversairy), as well as some tidbits on Visual Pinball techbeta 6. Head over and check it out.
- metallik
Emu Loader Release - Ciro has released a new Emu Loader to celebrate it's 2nd Birthday! Version 2.8 is available from his site here.
- RocLobsta
NeoPop Updated - NeoPop the WIP NeoGeo Pocket Emulator has been updated once again. This version 'runs' a lot of commercial software - ie. they show graphics. A couple of them are playable too!
- RocLobsta
ClrMamePro 2.54d - The last version had a problem, so Roman released ClrMamePro 2.54d. Be sure to download that :)
- atila
Monday, March 18th 2002 - Last updated @ 13:24 EST
ClrMamePro 2.54b Released - Bogy has released another version of his luvverly rom manager. Let's see what's new in this update:
misc: included some thread related things for Win9x/ME users (2.54b)
misc: new zlib 1.1.4 core (2.54a)
misc: multithreading zip and unzip routines
misc: crcs are shown as 0x01234567 (leading 0 and 0x)
misc: little gui fixes
fixed: browse-for-folder doesn't return "\" when cancel is pressed
fixed: added the RemoveFolder fix (see zipmax 0.333)
removed: mame.dk entry from urls.ini
More PCBs arrive at Guru's - Guru has news of some new arcade boards arriving. Thanks to Smitdogg for the news.
- chris
MAME WIP - The MAME WIP page has been updated again with some pics to look at. :)
- chris
Kega 0.04 Released - Steve Snake has released a new version of his multi-Sega console emulator, one of the big new things is support for the Sega SMS and Game Gear! You can download the new Kega 0.04 here, be sure to read the text file that comes with this release, as it contains a lot of info on the SMS/GG part of this emulator. Thanks to Nathan H. for the news.
- atila
Arcade Flyers - Another update has been posted over at The Arcade Flyers Archive, this update includes (among others) the flyer for Metal Slug 4!
- atila
FakeNES 0.1.1 - FakeNES is a portable Open Source NES emulator which is written mostly in C, using the excellent Allegro library for cross-platform capabilities. Changes: In this release, four-screen mirroring support was added, a PPU tile cache memory leak was fixed, Sunsoft mapper 4 (iNES mapper 68) support was added, and the MMC3 SRAM disable bit is now ignored (to fix Star Tropics). License: The Clarified Artistic License
- chris
xmame-0.58.3 - xmame-0.58.3 is out! Thanks to all who have made this release possible. Changes since 0.58.2 include:
Cleaned up src/unix/effect.c a bit. It should now be able to compile better with non-GCC compilers. (Inspiration by Marcus Herbert.)
Fixed a memory core bug in drivers/btoads.c. (Aaron Giles)
Fixed an endian bug in sndhrdw/williams.c that could affect big-endian architectures. (Aaron Giles)
Worked around several warnings about 'PPC' being redefined when building under LinuxPPC.
Added support for using multiple mice as trackballs under X11. (Gerd Sussner)
Updated NetMAME to 0.4.1, which fixes several problems that prevented 3+ player sessions from working. (Steve Freeland)
Changed the XIL support to use 16bpp instead of 8bpp. (Carson Gaspar)
Applied a fix for a crash in Vulgus. (Stefan Jokisch)
Added the latest romulan.pl to src/unix/contrib/tools. This release adds support for finding roms that are in the wrong zipfiles and also has new options to disable strict merged sets. (Nathan Hand)
Added a workaround for the XFree86 tdfx DGA2 driver which can prevent the original mode from being restored when leaving fullscreen mode. To enable, uncomment TDFX_DGA_WORKAROUND = 1 in the makefile. (Gilles Hamel)
You can obtain a patch against 0.58.2 from here.
- chris
OC ReMix and Retrogames in Salon.com article - Salon.com just ran this article on game remixing / arrangements at sites like OverClocked ReMix. I spoke with the author at length and mentioned the relationship between remixing older game music and emulation, including a mentioning of Retrogames.com that made it in (woo!). I'd like to thank Retrogames and the emulation community at large for providing the tools, resources, and creativity necessary for sites like OC ReMix, etc. to exist.
- david
Sunday, March 17th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:00 EST
messxula 0.03 - After a brief respite, something inspired me to resume messxula development. Changes: added some folderlist functionality. The screenshot was updated too so you can see the changes.
- chris
WSCamp 0.10 - This is a new Wonderswan Color emulator, which apparently doesn't have controls (yet) and doesn't support zipped roms, BUT it does have sound! You can download WSCamp 0.10 here, thanks to OneVurfedGwrx for the news.
- atila
Nebula 2.1 Released - Support for 3 new games has been added to this release of Nebula, namely Dynsty Wars (World), NeoPONG and Wild West Cowboys Of Moo Mesa! MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Thanks to GBMan for the news.
- atila
EasyEmu Guides - New guides for Nebula and Kawaks have been posted at EasyEmu, aswell as updates to the Raine, Kega, WinUAE, MAME and Visualboy pages. There's even a small tutorial on how to calibrate the gun in RevolutionX :)
- atila
CPC ZONE - Malc Jennings has updated the CPC ZONE with lots of new scans and cover inlays.
- atila
Saturday, March 16th 2002 - Last updated @ 13:07 EST
MAME WIP - Gridle posted a MAME WIP update, but it has no pictures! (boo hiss!) Still, there's some nice info there :)
- atila
Friday, March 15th 2002 - Last updated @ 13:40 EST
Final Burn Alpha News - Jan Klaassen has posted on our message board, and on the FBA Site about new drivers for Truxton II, Mahou Daisakusen, Shippu Mahou Daisakusen, Battle Garegga, and Armed Police Batrider with full sound. Teki Paki, V-Five, Knuckle Bash, and Battle Bakraid are also working, but without sound. Dogyuun and Batsugun are working, but have incorrect graphics priorities. Also, Dynasty Wars is showing it's title screen.
- MetaFox
Asteroids Forever - Scott Safran, who has held the world record on Asteroids for 20 years, couldn't be found for 15 years. However, he has finally been located. He died when he fell from a roof trying to save his pet cat Samson, in 1989. His family will be accepting from Twin Galaxies, a posthumous award on his behalf. The full story can be read at this link. Thanks to everyone who mailed.
- atila
Thursday, March 14th 2002 - Last updated @ 15:00 EST
SNEeSe 0.666 - SNEeSe, the SNES emulator for DOS, has been updated with many changes to the renderer and sound, as well as the GUI and a new logo.
- MetaFox
XZX-Pro 4.1 - XZX-Pro is a portable emulator of ZX Spectrum 48K/128K/+3 (8-bit home computers made by Sir Clive Sinclair), and Spectrum clones for machines running UNIX and the X Window system. Changes: This release fixes emulation of the contented memory, the Spectrum 128K port decoding, and many other bugs. It has a working ALSA sound interface. License: Shareware.
- chris
Exult 98RC1 - Exult is an open-source game engine for playing Ultima7 on modern operating systems, using the game's original data files. Changes: This is principally a bugfix release for problems discovered during Beta1. License: GPL.
- chris
Wednesday, March 13th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:27 EST
Cygne V2.1a - Cygne, a WonderSwan emulator for Windows, has been updated with Fixed SRAM emulation (Inu Yasha), Fixed SRAM erase after reset, and Better timing in few games.
- MetaFox
Britney - Britney Spears (the wet dream of teens all over the world, or something) was treated to several buckets of urine, while shooting a new ad. The local residents couldn't appreciate the fact that they were shooting it during the small hours of the night and they had been hearing the same song for about an hour straight. I was going to make a joke about golden showers and all but I'm gonna refrain from doing so ;) Thanks to Daikak for the link.
- atila
VisualBoyAdvance 0.9 - VisualBoyAdvance is a GameBoy Advance emulator for Windows or any OS that can run SDL. A long list of changes can be read at their web site. Thanks to bitstorm_omega for the news.
- chris
Arcade Flyers - 78 new flyers have been added to the Arcade Flyers database. And Executor999 should relax a little, it's bad for your health :)
- atila
Wine 20020310 - Wine Is Not an Emulator. It is an alternative implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs. Changes: This release is identical to the previous one (release 20020228), except that the license has changed. Wine is now distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. License: LGPL.
- chris
ePSXe 1.5.1 - ePSXe is a PSX emulator for Linux and Windows. Changes: CD subchannel support, Pov hat joystick support, CD controller modifications, 3D math fix for some games, Internal timing changes, MDEC transparency, Various fix the main CPU emulation. Thanks to Sonikk for the news.
- chris
Tuesday, March 12th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:47 EST
Rest In Peace: Niels Dankers (1980 - 2002) - Neils Dankers, known as X in the emulation community, was fatally injured in a car accident yesterday. Our deepest condolences from everyone here at Retrogames go out to the friends and family of Neils. He will be missed.
- MetaFox
MailWasher 1.32.5 beta Released - There is a new version of this lovely piece of software, which allows you to bounce spam and delete virus mails off your ISPs server, before it ever reaches your own PC. You can download the new version of MailWasher here.
- atila
Romcenter 2.42 - I was about to update on Romcenter 2.41, but I just noticed that Romcenter 2.42 had been released, so I may as well update on that :) Let's see what is new in these 2 releases:
version 2.41
- Fixed a zip error when loading corrupted datafiles
- Fixed same problem in datafile manager
- Fixed rom deletion when using 'rezip' on a non zipped file.
version 2.42
- An error in the compilation make the previous release (2.41) unstable. The 2.42 includes all fixes of the 2.41 and is fully fonctionnal
Monday, March 11th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:19 EST
RIP FPSE - This Playstation emulator is no more :( The author is waiting for the Linux version to be released and after that FPSE will be gone forever. He also asks everyone with sources, to NOT release them to the public. You can read the full statement here, thanks to Flea for the news.
- atila
Mimic 2.0 - Mike Beaver's mutiple arcade and multiple console emulator for Windows, has been updated to 2.0. It now has a new mouse driven GUI with a sneak peek at some near-future features, and very premilinary Megadrive support.
- MetaFox
Sunday, March 10th 2002 - Last updated @ 14:17 EST
MAME WIP - The MAME Status page was updated with progress reports and screenshots of the latest submissions to MAME.
- MetaFox
RG on Discovery Channel Brazil - I've been receiving quite a few mails from the land of the most wicked Carnaval, Brazil, stating that RetroGames was shown on Friday's edition of "Conexão Discovery", a show on Discovery Channel Brazil. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside =) Thanks to everyone who mailed, it's much appreciated!
- atila
CPC Zone Updated - Malc Jennings sends word of an updated CPC Zone, he has posted a few reviews and dozen or so coverscans. Have yerself a looksee from the above link.
- atila
Ages 0.28b! - Quintesson has released a new AGES, which hopefully fixes the really bad freezes. He also added a new feature, namely FAST-FORWARD, which can be executed by holding down F-12.
- atila
Sledgehammer - A new emulator called "Sledgehammer" has been released over at emuunlim.com, emulating the Namco System 21 system. Right now it is unplayable but the site shows the author hopes to have some games working this week. I haven't tested this program so I can't offer any opinions. Get it at the site linked above.
Update: Apparently this version of the program isn't supposed to do anything except render graphics directly from the graphic roms, something that MAME already included in it's source. I say "supposed to" because no one I've talked to has gotten it to do even that yet - it just crashes. Give it a whirl if you're truly bored, otherwise just wait and see what pans out.
- metallik
Saturday, March 9th 2002 - Last updated @ 15:48 EST
Aaron Giles MAME WIP - Aaron Giles has updated his MAME WIP page with screenshots of drivers he's been working on, and there are quite a lot of them. The Atari GT System - T-Mek and Primal Rage, Atari GX2 - Space Lords and Moto Frenzy, Atari G42 - Guardians of the 'Hood and Road Riot 4WD, Driver's Edge, Killer Instinct, Art And Magic System - Cheese Chase, Stone Ball, and Ultimate Tennis, and Ameridarts.
He has also posted screenshots from a mystery system, that I'm sure many of you will be able to figure out. Thanks to thood for the news.
- MetaFox
Final Fantasy Goes Nintendo! - Square and Nintendo have reached an agreement, so Square will once again be publishing games for both the GameCube and GBA. This means that Final Fantasy will be released on GameCube and GBA. Thanks to Djarum for the news.
- atila
messxula 0.02 - Me MESS front end messxula is out with another release! Changes: Some toolbar functionality added (check buttons work, and some style sheets were added). messxula now remembers more of your desktop settings. Help menu options fully functional. MESS logo in about box. Menu popups added. A screenshot can be seen here.
- chris
SIDPLAY 1.36.52 - SIDPLAY emulates the Sound Interface Device chip (MOS 6581, commonly called SID) and the Micro Processor Unit (MOS 6510) of the Commodore 64 on your computer. It allows you to listen to more than 17000 famous C64 game and demonstration musics. Changes: Rudimentary support for PSID v2NG as introduced with sidplay2 and possibly used by future releases of the HVSC. Platform-specific library code optimisations can be enabled with the configure script. License: GPL.
- chris
Friday, March 8th 2002 - Last updated @ 15:07 EST
Rom View - This is a new tool that allows you to look at the pics inside the Killer Instict HD image. You can download Rom View from the KIAME site. Thanks to URherenow for the news.
- atila
Anex86 2.49 - Anex86, the japanese Epson PCx86 emulator for Windows, has been updated to 2.49. The documentation is in Japanese, but it has an English GUI.
- MetaFox
Happy Birthday ePSXe - The great freeware Playstation emulator, ePSXe has turned 2 years old today. There should be a release soon in commemoration.
- MetaFox
Translation Releases - Let me give you the lowdown on some translation releases, with news borrowed from the great Whirlpool.
Ghideon-Zhi's Aeon Genesis group turns 3 today, and to celebrate, there is the usual progress and announcements, and two new translation releases: Chester Field, a sidescrolling adventure for NES, and the puzzle game Magical Drop for SNES.
Masamune has released a complete translation of Sailor Moon Type R for the SNES.
Magecraft Translations has released an 80% translation of the Gameboy (black and white) cart racer, Doraemon Kart.
- MetaFox
Thursday, March 7th 2002 - Last updated @ 19:49 EST
Mameinfo.dat 3.86 - M.A.S.H has updated the mameinfo.dat file with bugs (6th Mar), updated to the newest WIP, and Corrected Listinfo changes and more 'Recommended Games'.
- MetaFox
New MSX Computer - Ademir Carchano is producing a new MSX, CIEL3++, with a new processor, IDE interface, SCC, MIDI, PCM, 2 VDPS and more. Thanks to SLotman of MSXFiles for the news.
- MetaFox
GameBase 0.91b Released - The "Universal Retro-Gaming Frontend and Database utility" has been updated and is available for download at http://www.bu22.com. The new/changes/fixes list is too big to post, so you'll have to check out the site :) Thanks to James Burrows for the news.
- atila
WinUAE 0.8.21 Release 2 - The Windows port of the UAE Amiga emulator has been released and these are the changes/fixes:
- FIXED: custom chipset emulation fixes (me, Bernd Schmidt)
- FIXED: JIT FPU (Bernd Roesch)
- FIXED: filesystem emulation (Bernd Schmidt, Stephan Riedelbeck)
- FIXED: PC joystick 2 (me)
- FIXED: mouse 2 emulation (me)
- FIXED: multiple CD32 CDROM and uaescsi.device updates (me)
- FIXED: bsdsocket (Bernd Roesch, Stephan Riedelbeck)
- FIXED: configuration GUI memory leak fixed (Stephan Riedelbeck)
- FIXED: keyboard problems (me)
- FIXED: CD32 pad button emulation
- FIXED: serial port updates (Bernd Roesch, me)
- CHANGED: sound emulation (me, Bernd Schmidt)
- ADDED: CD32 media eject/insert support (me)
- ADDED: CTRL-AMIGA-AMIGA-ALT resets and clears chipmemory (me)
- ADDED: "pause emulation while minimized"-option to misc-page (me)
- ADDED: FDI-support is back (me)
Important notes, known bugs and workarounds:
- WinUAE freezes before GUI appears? Delete Configurations/default.uae.
- Check your CPU speed settings, they may not be correct if you load old configuration file.
- Sound buffer size is not comparable with old versions. 3 or 4 is usually the best size.
- When using CD32 emulation, keep "Hard Drives"-tab empty.
Both the binary and the source code can be downloaded that http://www.winuae.net, thanks to Ulf A. for the news.
- atila
Why?!?! - First there's Dubya messing up, then CNN reports that "U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ended a speech at a Charlotte, North Carolina seminary with a rousing rendition of a song he wrote called 'Let The Eagles Soar'". There's nothing wrong with a bit of patriotism, but this is pushing it ;) Besides, I'd rather hear Clinton on the saxophone :) Thanks to B0oGiE for the link.
- atila
Dubya Again - At a fancy fundraiser, George Bush Jr. got up and waved at Stevie Wonder, who was playing the piano. Stevie, obviously, didn't respond. Maybe we should be glad he didn't ask Ray Charles to take a picture of him and Stevie Wonder?
Steem 2.2 Released - Yesterday, all my troubles Steemed so far away... Ehhh, I'm getting carried here and I haven't even started on the actual update yet. Sheesh :) Anyway, let's get down to business:
Bugs Fixed:
. VBL timing inaccuracies (Lethal Xcess, No Cooper demo).
. STE sound short buffer support (Another World).
. Overscan timer B bug (Mindbomb).
. v2.1 24-bit straight blit/screen flip lowres double size window/fullscreen yellowing fixed.
. v2.1 FDC seek failed flag bug fixed.
. Hard drive Pexec close file bug (XSteem segfaults).
. Many other hard drive emulation bugs.
. Proper floppy disk light emulation.
. XSteem - options and general info should now work on all window managers.
New Features:
. Configurable run speed %.
. Better support for non-English keyboards, alternate switching and Type ST Character shortcut.
. 256 colour brightness/contrast display
. XSteem - statically linked binary, should work on any 486-compatible Linux system.
. Debug build - shortcuts for trace, run to rte and logging suspension.
You can download Steem v2.2 from its homepage. Thanks to Jim for the news.
- atila
NeoPong - As the name suggest, this is basically Pong for NeoGeo and can be played on an emulator, or the real McCoy :) The rom images can be freely distributed, thanks to Frank F. for the link.
- atila
Wednesday, March 6th 2002 - Last updated @ 18:49 EST
messxula 0.01 - messxula is a new MESS frontend written by ME! Changes: More code / filename cleanups. Menubar finished. Several View menu items are now functional (you can add/remove the toolbar, statusbar, folderview, and screenshot view). The screenshots view now has a MESS image in it. messxula now remembers your window configuration when you exit. Instructions on how to get the source code running added. Packaged jar files will probably come in the next version or two.
- chris
Wine 20020228 - Wine Is Not an Emulator. It is an alternative implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs. Download here. Changes: New features include client-side font rendering using Xrender, local server COM support, many DrawText improvements, a ton of fixes for better MS Office support, preliminary support for C unit tests, and lots of other bugfixes. License: BSD.
- chris
Kemulator 0.2.1 - Kemulator is a KDE emulator frontend written in C++ using the Qt/KDE toolkit. It provides users with the ability to configure an emulator without ever touching the commandline. Changes: This release adds support for MESS 0.56 and Apple IIc/IIe. License: GPL.
- chris
CPS2shock WIP update - Check out CPS2shock's WIP page, where they mention working on some encrypted system. A little birdie told me it might be the PGM (PolyGameMaster) system, which has games like Knights of Valour and DoDonpachi 2.
- chris
419 Scam - I received my first "419 Scam" mail today and I decided to play along, so I replied to it :) If they contact me again, I'll be posting status updates every now and then. With a bit of luck, we'll all have a chuckle :P
- atila
SB Audigy Not "New"? - Apparently there's a rumor doing the rounds that Soundblaster Audigy's EMU 10k2 chip is actually an EMU 10k1 chip, with added Firewire! And someone apparently hacked the drivers and turned his SB Live! into an Audigy, minus the Firewire port and Philips DAC?! Paying "new" prices for "old" gear? Tsk Tsk ;)
- atila
Konami's Games - Gamespot is reporting that a new Contra game is underway for PS2, called Contra: Shattered Soldiers, aswell as a new Contra game and a new Castlevania game for GBA. Thanks to alo (aka bugslovah) for the news.
- atila
The Guru's PCBs - The Guru has gotten his hands on various new boards (lots of Mahjong ;), thanks to donators. Thanks to Smitdogg for the news.
- atila
High Voltage Sid Collection #30 - Last weekend saw the release of volume #30 of the High Voltage Sid Collection, so all you lovers of bleeps and blops should (have) check(ed) it out (by now). Some of the SIDs sound absolutely amazing, btw :)
- atila
Nebula 2.0a Released - This Capcom CPS1, CPS2 & NEOGEO emulator for Windows was updated with the following changes:
BUG FIXES
- Fixed old GUI crashing on start
- Fixed title bar corruption
- Fixed Aspect ratio with Keep aspect option
- Fixed vertical games on 32 bits desktop.
- Fixed ingame menu letters when using 32 bit color depth
- Fixed xmvsf crash on start bug.
- Added shot display on Rom List when moving with arrow keys
- Added a Switch to Fullscreen option in the Video Menu, as some people didn't know how to switch to fullscreen (ALT-Enter)
- Added many transparency tables. Thanks to Darksoul, Bad_crc, Razoola, kyo_99 and Ken_Masters.
Some things I forgot to mention in the readme:
- To use the old gui, you can also launch: Nebula.exe -classic (-window if you want to run it in a window))
- You can click on the column names in the rom list to sort the list using that column.
CPC Zone - Malc Jennings has re-developed CPC Zone and this is what he had to say about it:
"CPC Zone has just been re-developed and is now written almost entirely in PHP so that updates can be made faster, content loads at 10x the speed it did in HTML (all databased), Covers are now displayed on the site instead of in pop-up windows, SMS logos, reviews, covers etc are now correctly stored in alphabetical order, navigation-interaction & "more emulation" menus are present on all pages and much more.
We are also working closely with TACGR to bring you the best in Amstrad CPC emulation."
That's a whole lot of info, so be sure to absorb it all when you head on over to CPC Zone.
- atila
Personal - Mark, would you be so kind to pick up that 8CD box of 70's music at V&D ? It costs €7,50 (about $6,50) :)
- atila
Dega 1.09 - FinalDave has released Dega 1.09, his SMS/M3/GG emulator for Windows. New in this release is support for zipped roms, a feature which was requested many many many many times by users of this cute little emulator :)
- atila
Tuesday, March 5th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:49 EST
messxula 0.00 - messxula (pronounced "messzoola") is a MESS frontend written in XUL (pronounced "zool") written by me. It's aim is to replicate functionality for the Win32 and/or Mac MESS frontends. It is portable across Mac, Unix, and Windows platforms. Changes: This is the initial release. Only in source code form right now, barely any JavaScript functionality implemented. Basic layout of main screen in place.
- chris
News posted on RG Forums - If you have some time to kill, you may want to check out our forums, as a lot of news is actually posted on the various boards, before it ends up on our front page. I'll be heading home now, see you tomorrow :)
- atila
Elections - I'll be exercising my right to vote tomorrow, here in The Netherlands, since we have local elections tomorrow. While most other countries have their elections on a Sunday, we have it on Wednesday, which enables people to get to work late, by saying they went to vote, eventhough they didn't ;)
- atila
Remove Spyware from Kazaa/Grokster - Here's a page that describes how to remove the various spyware components from Grokster and Kazaa, two file-sharing programs that use the network that Morpheus was kicked off of. You can get back to leeching now ;) Thanks to everyone who mailed and msg'ed me on IRC.
- atila
Updates - Real life got in the way again, so I was away for the past 6 hours or so. I'll try to post a few news items (I have to go home in a few minutes), but hopefully one of the other staffers will update later.
- atila
Morpheus - As you may have noticed, Morpheus went off-line for a few days and new software was released a day or so ago, allowing access to the Gnucleus network. Quite frankly, it sucks.
Now, CNET reports the real reason of the shutdown of the "Morpheus Network", they didn't pay the money they were supposed to pay KaZaA and were cutt off from the rest of the network. You can read the article at CNET here.
- atila
Shigeru Miyamoto's Thoughts on Emulation - Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong etc) had the following to say about emulation and emulators:
"I'm actually very grateful that people still find such fun and entertainment in those games.".
Isn't that nice :) Anyway, don't think that it's okay to download Nintendo roms now though, because Nintendo will still sue you, your family and your pets if you do! They'll even force you to play some Superman for N64! Thanks to Stiletto and VGN for the news.
- atila
... - As you can see, life is getting in the way of site updates. Eventhough we have a rather big staff, actual updates are few and sparse (unfortunately). RG staff seems to be suffering from a collective burn-out.
Sure, I could make this site pop-up central (tm) and make a few bucks off it, but I hate it at other sites, so why should I make YOU go through it ?
Only thing that I *can* do, is basically go back 4 years in time and do the updating myself again. That's how RG started out and that's how it will continue. With myself as the main updater, things should get back to normal (15+ news posts a day, anyone?)
We still have some nice things planned for the near-future, though. And no, they don't involve hosting of a new super emulator or anything of the sort. Let the updating commence *cough*!
- atila
Sunday, March 3rd 2002 - Last updated @ 01:21 EST
MAME WIP - More updates over at the MAME WIP page.
- chris
LibDsk 0.8.0 - LibDsk is a library that attempts to create uniform functions for accessing floppy drives, raw "dd" disk images, and disk image files in various emulator formats. Its intended use is for emulator authors; it also includes some sample tools to read sectors from discs in CP/M, DOS, and Acorn formats. There is special-case code for direct access to the floppy controller under Linux, and to access the floppy driver under Windows. Java (JNI) bindings are included. Changes: Java (JNI) bindings and Java versions of the sample utilities have been added. License: LGPL.
- chris
Cygwin 1.3.10 - Cygwin is a DLL which provides a Unix emulation environment for Windows. The Cygwin environment provides a complete port of such development utilities as gcc, binutils, gdb, make, etc., as well as a number of useful utilities. Changes: Security and socket I/O fixes were added. strace may now be attached to a running process. License: GPL.
- chris
Friday, March 1st 2002 - Last updated @ 07:03 EST
Bitrot Issue 6! - After 8 months, Vega has issued a new BitRot "for your reading pleasure" ;) Vega had the following to say about this issue:
"Yes, emulation's least timely satire rag is right back
on track after a mere 8 month delay. This issue is the biggest yet, and I would have to say that it is the funniest yet, as well. Of course, I wrote it though, so you might want to swallow that hype with a grain of salt. What else would I say: "A mediocre issue awaits! If you're lucky, you may chortle once once or twice, or perhaps release a polite cough!"
I just finished reading it and it's a good issue, although I'm not sure that's what Vega wanted to hear ;)
- atila
RetroGaming Radio - This month's edition of RetroGaming Radio is online. I haven't listened to it yet, since I just got here a few moments ago, but Shane covers the following things:
"Good old fashion rant - reviews of the killer X-Arcade controller, Akiko emulator, and much much more!"
