Saturday, November 30th 2002 - Last updated @ 21:15 EST
More Rumors - It's still only rumor at this point but word of Microsoft buying Sega is heating up again. With Sega still losing money and Microsoft needing a boost to catch up with Sony and the PS2 it may not be that far fetched.
- Griking
Are You A GBA Developer? - If so, take a look at the VisualBoy Advance homepage regarding a new histogram feature that should aid in debugging. Forgotten needs a few qualified testers to implement the histogram. Also, the Traditional Chinese translation for version 1.2 is available, in case that's your language of choice. (Again, thanks GBA Emu)
- prophet
Unofficial FPocketNES BU6 - Flubba released a new unofficial build of Loopy's amazing PocketNES, an NES emulator for Gameboy Advance! This new binary adds support for many more mappers - see this post by Titney for a list of games - "That's a LOT more than most PC emulators even :)
Awesome!" Agreed! (Thanks GBA Emu)
- prophet
Friday, November 29th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:04 EST
Mame32 Plus! 0.62.2 - Mame32 Plus has been updated today. Changes in this version are;
- Fixed the crash bug in hard disk games (color map handling in palette.c updated) [BUT]
- Fixed the crash bug in auditing hard disk games [BUT]
- Optimized speed for transparent UI [BUT]
- Fixed access violation in xexex (xexex062red)
- Fixed color when switching between windows / fullscreen mode in game
- Fixed metalhawk sprite [Norix]
- Some driver fixes [SUZ]
- Updated toaplan2 and cave drivers [Shiriru]
- Fixed input port of dsprit [from 2ch.net]
- Long path name support in mame32
- New Extra Folders
- New icons
- Griking
Mimic Update - The homepage of the multiple arcade and console emulator Mimic, has been updated with news that the Windows NT "bug" has been fixed. WindowsNT/Windows2000/WindowsXP would not allow access the linear VESA memory, so Mimic now reverts to talking to the VGA via the old 64K paging method. Mimic now selects which method to use based on the OS environment variable. This is setup by Windows 2000 to be "Windows_NT" by default. There will be a release as soon as the author finishes a few more things.
- MetaFox
Thursday, November 28th 2002 - Last updated @ 08:53 EST
Late AdvanceMAME News - Seems we missed Andrea's updated releases on Monday... :( Sorry 'bout that. All of the Advance Projects were updated, including AdvanceMAME 0.62.1, AdvanceMENU 2.2.1, AdvanceMESS v0.61.2.1 and more. The changes primarily included fixes to video support and better CHD handling in AdvanceMAME.
- prophet
Aaron Giles WIP - Superdev Aaron Giles posted a Thanksgiving message along with an interesting screenshot today - note the 3DFX reference! (Thanks Firewave)
- prophet
Happy Turkey Day! - I will be spending Thanksgiving with some friends of mine who do not have families. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and be sure to be thankful for your friends and family this holiday season!
- chris
Wednesday, November 27th 2002 - Last updated @ 13:41 EST
ClrMamePro 2.84 - There's been another update to ClrMamePRo today. New is this update is;
"Because it was highly requested: ClrMamePro 2.84: Added an optional real full CHD integrity check. ClrMamePro tests and decompresses each single chd block and calculates the md5s of the (decompressed) hdimage. You see a 2nd progressbar while scanning and you can skip the test by clicking the progress window's cancel button."
Icarus Progress - There is a message on the Icarus website indicating that they are working on emulating the Naomi, Naomi 2, and possibly Naomi 3 systems. But they need some assistance.
- Griking
Tuesday, November 26th 2002 - Last updated @ 09:14 EST
Mess Updated - It looks like we missed the Mess update the other day. The Windows port has been updated to v.61 while the Mac port has been updated to v.61.2. There's been a ton of updates and bugfixes, too many to list here. Pick it up here.
- Griking
Virtual Jaguar WIP - There's another small update and new pictures at the Virtual Jaguar website. Iron Soldier and Wolfenstein 3D seem to work now.
- Griking
Square & Enix Merge - In off-topic, Emu-LMAO enraging news, RPG powerhouses Square and Enix havemerged into one gaming powerhouse to be known as Square Enix. Square is best known for it's Final Fantasy games and Enix is best known for it's Dragon Warrior series.
- Griking
Monday, November 25th 2002 - Last updated @ 09:59 EST
Azuco's Hornet WIP - Azuco has posted a screenshot from his preliminary work on emulating the Konami Hornet arcade system, which powered games like Gradius 4 and Silent Scope! Learn more about Hornet at this System16 link. (Thanks Ben-J of Consollection.com)
- prophet
xSnes9x 1.03 - xSnes9x is a Xbox port of SNES9x the Super Nintendo emulator. The Xbox port is based on SNES9x v1.39. Changes in this version are;
- V1.03 properly patched for retail. Should work for everyone now on all bioses.
- Fixed crash when attempting to add to favorites with no roms in list.
- Fixed some small annoying bugs with the menu code.
- Removed an extra call to S9xApplyCheats() which was not required and slowing down the main gameloop
- Griking
AdvanceSCAN 1.3 - Andrea Mazzoleni updated his command line based ROM manager, AdvanceSCAN as follows:
* Fixed a bug in the advscan utility. When a .zip file was completly
removed the program was aborting with a "Failed stat" message
because it was trying to reread the just deleted file.
* Added the support for the transparency tRNS chunk at the
advpng utility.
* Improved the garbage detector for zipped roms.
* Upgraded at the lastest Advance Library.
* Fixes at the docs. [by Filipe Estima]
* Minor changes at the autoconf/automake scripts.
- prophet
Stairway To Hell Update - For you BBC Micro & Acorn Electron fans... Dave from Stairway To Hell emailed me to say they've added over 40Mb of game maps, guides and solutions, over 130 cover scans, and approx 200 tape and disk images, including some unreleased prototypes!
- prophet
Gaelco WIP - Emulatronia posted an update and some screenshots of Manuel Abadia's progress on emulating the Gaelco game Bang! (Thanks aworks)
- prophet
ClrMAME Pro 2.83.1 - Roman Scherzer updated his popular ROM management utility once again! Get it here. What's new:
fixed: "\n" combinations in pathnames were were translated to a newline
character in the profile...causing trouble with any kind of used
paths (including rebuilder, merger, rom/sample/backuppaths)
fixed: rare profiler crash after deleting an old & loading a new profile
fixed: double-counted statistic values
fixed: about->link positions
- prophet
VirtuaNES 0.72 - There's been an update to VirtuaNES a Windows based NES emulator. Changes are;
* Add an option of disk access lamp indication.
* Turned save data generated with TurboFile into single "TurboFile.vtf" from "ROM name.vtf".
- Griking
Sunday, November 24th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:57 EST
Catlist - The Catlist homepage was updated with some changes - three U.S. Games were marked mature, and Match It is no longer marked as mature as it seems to not show girls' poses.
- MetaFox
Haze MAME System 32 WIP - Haze has updated his System 32 WIP page showing some preliminary screenshots of some more System 32 games in MAME. These currently do not do much, but he wanted to show the current state of the driver.
- MetaFox
XBOX-DreamSpec - So you just laid down $199 to buy the most powerful game console available. So now what do you do with it? Why, run 15 year old Spectrum games on it of course. Seriously though, there's been some progress to Xbox-DreamSpec, a Spectrum emulator for the Xbox. There's still no control or audio support for now but hey, it's a work in progress.
- Griking
Emu Loader 3.3.1 - There's been a new Emu Loader today as well. Among many other updates/changes the new version can now audit hard disk images and detect bad zip files.
- Griking
Mameinfo.dat 4.22 - Mash has released a new Mameinfo.dat today. Lots of new changes. You can view the "What's New" log and download it here
- Griking
Saturday, November 23rd 2002 - Last updated @ 16:49 EST
Mame WIP Update - New Mame WIP. Do these guys ever rest?
- Griking
Friday, November 22nd 2002 - Last updated @ 23:40 EST
UGVM - UGVM is another very nice web based videogaming magazine. It's written by the members of the newsgroup uk.games.video.misc which is where the name comes from. This issue features a cool article about the history of text adventures as well as 17 pages of classic and modern videogame reviews. Check it out.
- Griking
EmuStatus DEEP - Emulation Status had a huge update, covering 180 new and updated game profiles with a special focus on Data East games!
- prophet
QuickPlay 3.2 - The Windows based multi-emulator frontend called QuickPlay was updated as follows:
-Added in GIF support for images
-added in Rom Filtering - by means of text box at top of rom listing
-Removal of the all-powerful QPRoutines.pas file, replaced with more
object-orientated design.
-fixed problem where last rom doesn't appear
-Fixed some issues where .ZIP is different from .zip
-updated Treeview and Theme manager to newest versions
-removed ABFOneInstance component.
-removed RXSplit component. now using TSplitter.
-Various other bug fixes.
- prophet
Wizard Fire WIP - Check out the NICE screenshots of Dark Seal II AKA Wizard Fire over at EmuStatus! Could it become playable before 2003? Go Mish! (Thanks Unknown Soldier)
- prophet
WinUAE 0.8.22 Release 3 - There's a new WinUAE release today. WinUAE is the Windows port of the UAE Amiga emulator.
Updated Features
- Ports-tab crash fixed
- joystick handling fixes
- hard drive configuration save fixed
- fixed stuck keys when switching between WinUAE and Windows
- sprite fix (some games had flashing sprite garbage)
- thread priority tweaks
- setupapi.dll error when running under Windows 95
- emulation slowdown and sound stuttering in 68000 mode
- Amithlon partition detection fixed
- jumpy mouse fixed
- hardfile not found -bug fixed
- "The selected screen mode can't be displayed in a window, because.." now correctly forces fullscreen mode instead of repeating the message forever.. New feature
- implemented harddisk and CD-leds that flash during HD/CD access
- Griking
Haze WIP Update - Haze has updated his WIP page. Golden Axe II anyone?
- Griking
MAME MEET UK - OK last call for the UK MAME/Retrogaming Meet to be held this Sunday in the Hollywood's Arcade at the Hollywood Bowl, Brislington, Bristol. Meet starts at 2pm. All welcome!
- RocLobsta
Raine WIP Update - There seems to be a lot happening on the Raine front. Check it out.
- Griking
Retrogaming Times #63 - The 63th issue of the Retrogaming Times has been released and it's a large one. Tom Zjaba and his crew puts together a great newsletter so be sure to check it out.
- Griking
Thursday, November 21st 2002 - Last updated @ 20:09 EST
ClrMamePro 2.83 - There's been another small update to ClrMamePro. You can download the binary and get a list of changes here
- Griking
Virtual Jaguar WIP - There's been a small update and new pictures posted at the Virtual Jaguar website. I have no clue if this new Atari Jaguar emulator is legit or not since there's no binary or source available yet. I'll leave that for everyone else to decide.
- Griking
KiGB 1.03 - KiGB is a Gameboy emulator for Win9x/ME/NT/XP. It has pretty nice features such as support for;
* Game Boy and Game Boy Color
* MBC1, MBC2, MBC3, MBC5, HuC1 and HuC3
* Real time clock
* Battery save
* Zip file format
* Joypad/joystick
* Frame skip
* GameGenie and GameShark cheats
* Screen dumps
* Save states
You can read the full changes log for this release here
- Griking
Wednesday, November 20th 2002 - Last updated @ 11:03 EST
"Greetings all:
>
>The phone line heated up today with amazing news for pinball hobbyists
>and players.
>
>You heard it here FIRST (I think).
>
>ICE (Innovative Concepts in Entertainment), the makers of Super Chexx
>bubble hockey, redemption games and cranes, is planning to enter the
>pinball manufacturing arena. It's no secret that former Bally/Williams
>designer John Trudeau (Creature From the Black Lagoon, Congo) is on
>board at ICE, but today it was learned that another Bally/Williams
>alumnus will be joining Trudeau. It's reported that the pair will head
>up the new ICE pinball division.
>
>Who is this second designer? Well, the GameRoom offices are privvy to
>his identity, but out of deferance to the man we will withhold that
>information until an official statement is issued by ICE. Anyway, it
>will give everyone something to look forward to.
>
>There's more information trickling from our inside source, but we dare
>not divulge it. Suffice it to say that the major news is the eventual
>re-entry of ICE into silverball land. We say "re-entry" as the company
>at one time built a redemption pinball machine called THE FLINTSTONES.
>
>Keep your lucky rabbit's foot handy that all goes as planned at ICE. If
>their intentions are realized, the pinball community will be blown away.
>Just wait."
This comes on the heels of John Popadiuk's announcement of his upcoming Chicago Flipper company, and the news that Steve Ritchie will be designing games for Stern Pinball... and don't forget Pat Lawlor, who is already doing pins for Stern. Rumors are out that the designers involved with ICE may be trying to secure the rights to the Bally/Williams trademark, but these rumors are unsubstantiated. The pinball industry appears to be making a comeback with all this good news lately.. stay tuned!
- metallik
Tuesday, November 19th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:03 EST
Repton Remake for PocketPC, and more... - I received a nice email from a new Cambridge based software development house called Masabi about their plans to convert a number of Superior Software's back catalogue to new portable device OS's including Windows CE, PocketPC, Zaurus (Linux), Symbian/Java etc. Some of the most notable games in the pipeline include Repton, Repton 3 (see here for old BBC pics), GalaForce and more. In fact, PocketPC owners can download Repton right now as shareware! Good luck Masabi, and long live retrogaming! =) NOTE: to my fellow American gamers, this Repton is NOT the superb Defender style game we had back in the Apple II / Atari 800 days, but a popular British platform game from the same period with the same title.
- prophet
AdvanceMAME, AdvanceMESS, AdvanceMENU & AdvanceCAB - Andrea Mazzoleni updated these projects to versions 0.62, 0.61.2, 2.2.0 and 1.1.2 respectively. These projects all focus on giving the user complete control over video output, and are therefore ideal for using arcade monitors or other non-standard displays. Check the Advance Projects homepage for more info and downloads, or use the following links to read the update history for AdvanceMAME, AdvanceMESS, AdvanceMENU & AdvanceCAB.
- prophet
Mame32 Plus v0.62.1 - Mame32 Plus has been updated today. Changes are;
* Everything from MAME 0.62 & MAME32 0.62
* Multilingual support is rewritten, with new language pack format.
* New cps2 and toaplan2 drivers [Shiriru]
* Added m1fix ver.02.09.09 patch (src only) [Japanese M1 Fix Team]
* Added dinoh, kouryu(with gfx error), sfzch to CPS1 driver [Treble Winner, smf]
* Compiled with MinGW 2.0 GCC 3.2. Some CPU optimized binaries of mameplus are available.
* Updated command.dat ver.021116 [MAME Spirits]
* Updated unicows.dll
- Griking
SNEeSe v.74b - SNEeSe, a Windows based SNES emulator has been updated yesterday. There's been a bunch of updates so instead of me listing them all here just download it and check out the readme.
- Griking
Ages Updated - Ages, the Sega console emulator has been updated after a long quiet spell. Changes are;
* Some Genesis, 32X, Sega CD, and SMS compatiblity fixes
* Added Game Gear emulation
* M68000, Z80, and SH2 core revisions (lots faster)
* Faster interlace mode line renderer
* PSG noise channel
* 32X, Sega CD, SMS, and GG saved states
* Network play via Kaillera
* Added new fast-forward method: "sticky" (complements "press-and-hold")
* V-Sync option
* FPS display
* Brighter colors
* Close ROM option
* Multiple joystick support
* Improved some parts of the GUI (not compatible with WinXP!)
* Fixed the very annoying clicks/pops in DirectSound output
* Corrected inaccuracy in Sega CD sector playback timing
* Implicit track naming (like Gens) for ISO+MP3 CD images
* Software CD-DA playback (no more CD-to-soundcard cable required)
* CD-DA playback for BIN/CUE
* Automatic game patching feature
- Griking
We're Back - Looks like we're back up again (for now at least.) I apologize if the news is a day or so old but what can we do?
- Griking
Sunday, November 17th 2002 - Last updated @ 17:53 EST
Mameinfo.dat v4.21 - There's been an update to Mameinfo.dat today. Changes are; (from the website)
First 0.62 Bugs (16th Nov). Added 0.62 Listinfo changes. Update the Driver Section with 0.62 source infos
- Griking
VirtuaNES v0.71b - There was a minor update to VirtuaNES today. Changes are;
-Correct Sweep of Rectangle wave.
-Correct a reset parameter of Sweep of Rectangle wave.
- Griking
New Atari800win - Version 3.1 of Atari800win Plus was released yesterday. This uses kernel 1.2.4 of Atari800 emulator, and adds support for network play via Kaillera, among other enhancements. Get it from the homepage. Thanks to Avanze for the news.
- metallik
Xbox woes - Not retro, but definitly gaming related.. according to many forums, including the official Xbox forums, seems that lots of Xbox owners are getting locked out of the new Xbox Live system, thanks to some last minute "security enhancements" by Microsoft designed to weed out modded systems. Unfortunately, it's also whacking plenty of unmodded systems as well. Buyer beware.. (editorial bit: is anyone actually surprised MS managed to stuff up this launch?? ;-)
- metallik
Saturday, November 16th 2002 - Last updated @ 11:45 EST
Nebula v2.21 - Nebula has been updated to v2.21 today. Changes are;
CPS2
Improved VBlank timing. Fixes some problems with SFA3..
CPS1
Fixed crashing in Punisher in the 2nd stage boss.
NEOGEO
Added support for the Universe BIOS. Go to Game->Neogeo Options and enable "Use Universe BIOS" to load it. The bios must be in a zip named uni-bios.zip (in the ROMS folder) and the rom MUST be named uni-bios.rom. When using universe bios, all neogeo options and cheats in nebula will be disabled, use the bios built-in region, machine type and cheats options. When using universe bios you'll see garbage during initial tests, don't worry, that's normal and doesn't cause any other problem.
Fixed slowdowns in s1945p.
GENERAL
Fixed crashings if you have more than 4 joysticks connected.
Friday, November 15th 2002 - Last updated @ 22:59 EST
SIEmu 1.03 - SIEmu, the 8080bw arcade emulator, has been updated with some minor changes.
- MetaFox
EmuLoader v3.3 - EmuLoader 3.3 is out and it's been described as a Monster release. Changes, fixes and optimizations are too numerous to list here. Just download it. One need to know bit of information is that you need to do a "clean install" or it will not work.
- Griking
Icarus Progress - There's been a minor update at the Icarus Homepage. They have "Added a screenshot of a new game thats now working that many have shown interest in."
- Griking
Thursday, November 14th 2002 - Last updated @ 20:19 EST
WinUAE v0.8.22R2 - There's a new version of WinUAE out.
Changes are;
New features:
- Kickstart 1.3 RDB and regular hardfile autoboot/automount support
KS 1.3 regular (non-RDB) HDF autoboot requires FastFileSystem from WB1.3:L in KS roms-directory
- keyboard/mouse/joystick handling rewritten for DirectInput
Windows keys are now 100% usable as an Amiga keys and SHIFT-keys don't get stuck anymore
- mouse speed configuration
- all keyboard keys (even special "multimedia keys") are available in input-tab configuration window
- configurable floppy drive type (3.5"DD/3.5"HD/A1010 5.25"SD)
Following features require Windows 2000 or Windows XP
- "unlimited" hardfile size (2G limit removed),
uaehf.device now supports TD64 and NSD -style 64-bit addressing
NTFS filesystem required for >4G hardfiles (FAT32 max file size is about 4G)
WARNING: Make sure installed AmigaOS is new enough (OS 3.9 recommended)
- ability to mount real harddisks with full RDB automount/autoboot support
- Amithlon partition support
Bugs fixed:
- Slow harddisk, CDROM, etc.. performance in non-CPU idle mode
- CPU idle tweaks, defaults to off, config file support
- disk emulation improvements
- added missing configuration file entries
- better compatibility with old config files
- 68000 "more compatible"-checkbox works again
- fixed uaehf.device crash with older HDToolBox versions
- custom chipset fixes (Chaos Engine AGA/CD32, Obliterator, Terrorpods etc..)
- GUI's screenshot-button was always disabled
- state file restore fixes (CPU type is automatically restored correctly and more)
- switch from fullscreen/no-vsync to vsync-mode crash fixed
- filesystem "ghost"-file bug fixed (but filesystem emulation still have some bugs left..)
- bsdsocket emulation compatibility fixes
- fixed serial and printer port defaults
- Griking
Mame Dats - The utilities are starting to roll in. There' have been releases of Mame v0.62 updated Mameinfo.dat and history.dat
- Griking
EQEmu 0.3.12 - The EQEMU project is an attempt to recreate the Everquest server software runnable from a Windows or Linux machine. Content is stored in a MySQL database, and allows you to create custom creatures, items, and quest content in game.
Changes: EQLive is now used (with new encryption), CheckServerName was added to check for invalid characters, and spawns can now be sent in bulk within zones. The world MaxPlayers is now handled through Login->World and gives an error message on the login screen. UniqueNames can now go up to 999. There were fixes for Backstab, Flying kick, Loot, and an EmuMemShare bug when there were no npctypes in the database. A new TimeOfDay code was added, and zones can now synchronize with the world.
- chris
xmame-0.61.1 - xmame-0.61.1 is finally out! It's very late and still missing some things, but it also has a lot of cool new stuff. Thanks for all of your patches, comments, etc. Changes Include:
Almost everything from MAME 0.61 and MESS 0.61.2.
The mouse cursor is now hidden in OpenGL fullscreen mode. (Craig Servin)
Applied a patch for FreeBSD to unix/video-drivers/svgainput.c. (Stijn Hoop)
Applied the NetMAME 0.5 patch, which adds a new option, -parallelsync, which should allow games to work without lag at network latencies of up to 16 milliseconds. (Steve Freeland)
Added support for Linux on the Playstation 2. (Joan Sarah Touzet)
Fixed a problem in the ALSA 0.9 driver with setting the sample rate on SB128 soundcards. (Stephen Anthony)
Fixed a bug in unix/devices.h that prevented compilation on non-X11 platforms.
Fixed the register constraints in cpu/i8085/i8085cpu.h so that cpu/i8085/i8085.c can build for x86 using gcc-3.1 with -O3. This change was missed in the MAME 0.61 release.
Fixed multiple definition warnings in the psikyosh driver.
Increased the size of the buffer used to display history. (Steve Fewell)
Modified unix/fronthlp.c so that it flushes its output more often to aid frontends. (Shadow Walker)
Changed unix/video-drivers/xfx.c to be more frontend-friendly. (Benoit Dumont)
Added support for the SDL joystick driver. (Yang Hyun)
You can now specify a config subdirectory name using -cfgname/-cn. This is useful for creating an alternate configuration. (Benoit Dumont)
Added a "waveout" DSP plugin which redirects sound to a file using Microsoft's PCM WAVE format. The file name can be specified with the -audiodevice switch and defaults to xmameout.wav. (Donald King)
Added support for showing average frames per second when quitting. Also added support for the -frames_to_run/-ftr switch.
Added Xv hardware scaling support! To enable, uncomment the line reading X11_XV = 1 in the makefile and use the -xvext/-xv switches (and possibly the -yuv switch). (Alastair Robinson)
An X11 build can now grab the keyboard to bypass window managers. Use -grabkeyboard/-gkb to activate and/or the ALT + PGUP keypress to toggle it on/off. (Gerd Sussner)
The code for finding the best X11 visual now checks in descending order of bit depth. This is to work around a bug/feature in the latest NVidia drivers. (Gerd Sussner)
Fixed a problem in the DGA2 driver that could lead to scrambled colors with an i830MG video card in 24bpp mode. (Eric Brunet, Shyouzou Sugitani)
The SDL target's -listmodes switch now operates before attempting to load a game. (Shadow Walker)
If xmame is iconified in IRIX, it will automatically pause ("boss hanging around mode"). (Andrea Suatoni)
Added a switch to force yv12 mode in the Xv driver; made improvements to the yv12 code. (Eric Brunet)
Xmame should now build "out of the box" for FreeBSD. Note that for the SDL target, you may have to set the SDL_CONFIG flag in the makefile. (Stijn Hoop)
The full source tarball is available from here, as well as a patch against 0.60.1 here, and a much smaller patch against 0.61.1-pr9 here.
- chris
Wednesday, November 13th 2002 - Last updated @ 19:18 EST
ClrMamePro 2.82 - ClrMame Pro has been updated to support the new Mame release. Other changes are;
- fixed: rare diskimage detection bug
- misc: speedup for several progress displays
- misc: some more cancelchecks for "cleaning up data"
- misc: update shows "up2date" message only when using "Check now"
- misc: readded the history.dat/mameinfo.dat rename before running mame
- misc: "export datfile" exports diskimages information as well
- removed: the scanner/rebuilder/merger ok buttons.
- Griking
MAME32 0.62 - Here is the new MAME32 0.62, the cabs/snaps/icons et all have also been updated.
- atila
Tuesday, November 12th 2002 - Last updated @ 22:51 EST
Retrogaming Chat - Just a reminder, if you'd like to chat about the new MAME release or other game/emulation topics, get an IRC client, connect to any EFNET server, then join the channel #retrogamers. It's generally active 24 hours/day, with regulars from around the globe talking about games both old and new. Before you ask, no ROM trading takes place there.. try USENET for those, or dump your own.. :)
- metallik
WineX 2.2.1 - The WineX 2.2.1 update is based on our stable 2.0 development branch, and fixes problems with some Linux distributions such as Debian Unstable that use the newly updated glibc 2.3 library. WineX 2.2.1 also includes some substantial performance improvements for many games. The complete list of changes is as follows:
* Support for glibc 2.3, which is now the default glibc version for Debian Unstable
* Improvements in the quality of text rendering in Direct3D mode for WarCraft III and EverQuest
* Direct3D geometry rendering improvements; EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin armour is now visible.
* Performance improvements of 10% in some 3DMark2000 benchmarks
* 200-300% performance improvements in some Quake-3 engine based games such as Jedi Knight 2
* Massive performance improvements for some games such as EverQuest when running on stock RedHat 8.0 kernels
* Support for Quake 3-Engine games based off of Quake 3 1.32
The detailed release notes for WineX 2.2.1 are available here.
- chris
MAME - MAME 0.62 has been released.. (finally) Source here (maybe.. stop hammering) .. temporary mirror here .. binaries to follow on the official site shortly. According to Hemphead, time since mame 0.61 release was approximately 131 days, 4 hours, making this by far the longest release cycle in the history of the project. Anyone who has contributed to MAME, please read the whatsnew file for important license change information.
- metallik
DreamVMU 0.1 - DreamVMU is an Windows based DreamCast Virtual Memory Unit emulator. It doesn't emulate the Sega DreamCast, just the VMU.
- Griking
Mame WIP Update - There's been another Mame WIP today.
- Griking
New Nebula Model2 WIP - The juiciest pictures yet of Nebula's WIP Model2 support have been posted here, complete with working textures.
- david
MESS 0.61.2 - Nathan Woods has put together another MESS release! Changes Include:
- [GAMEBOY] Finally fixed sound channel 3 so it produces correct frequencies! Flagged sound as being stereo. Improved input ports. Fixed loud buzz caused by the new sound code when digital audio is used. (bug #275) [Anthony Kruize]
- [SUPERGB] Fixed certain areas of the border image being left blank instead of being filled in. (bug #264) [Anthony Kruize]
- [COCO3] Fixed a bug that caused a few display glitches when switching between 40 column and 80 column mode. (bug #271) [Nate Woods]
Unix Amiga Delitracker Emulator 0.72 - UADE plays old Amiga tunes with UAE emulation. Changes: Lots of new sound formats, lots of bugfixes, many improved versions of old players, security, and support for Turrican 2 and 3 tunes.
- chris
asq 2.03 - asq is a simple frontend for MAME/emulator cabinets. Changes: An optional image/screenshot window was added. Keys can be remapped for games. The number of games in the menu is now displayed. Directory launchers can now be filtered.
- chris
Monday, November 11th 2002 - Last updated @ 18:19 EST
Universe Bios - Everyone's favorite XOR dumper Razoola has released a modified Neo Geo BIOS called "universe BIOS" over at cps2shock. This is an enhanced BIOS for your Neo Geo arcade system which allows, among other things, easy switching to home-console mode, built-in cheat functionality, audio jukebox and the ability to easily change regions. Check the link for more details.
- metallik
UK MAME Meet - There's a UK MAME/Retrogaming Meet planned for Bristol on Sunday 24th November, all welcome! Plan is to meet in an arcade (venue TBC) and have a few games and then take in a beer and some retrogaming chat. Mail me if interested in attending.
- RocLobsta
Snes9x v1.39a Released - There's a new version of Snes9x out! The list of new additions and fixes is huge! Check it out here. Thanks to Gemini78 for letting me know.
- RocLobsta
VisualBoy Advance v1.2 - VisualBoy Advance is a GameBoy Advance emulator for Windows and SDL platforms. Thanks to The Informer for the news.
- chris
psid64 0.5 - PSID64 is a program that converts PSID files into C64 executables. This allows users to play PSID files (originally used by the PlaySID program) on a real Commodore 64 computer or emulator such as VICE. Changes: can be read here.
- chris
P.E.Op.S. CDR 1.2 - Pete and Linuzappz have released version 1.2 of P.E.Op.S. CDR. You can download it here, and see the release notes here
- chris
Labyrinth of Worlds 0.2 - LoW is a rewrite of the first-person role-playing game Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds that came out in the early 1990s. Changes: This version allows the player to navigate the entire game universe as well as manipulate objects and containers along with his character's inventory and paper doll. The physics system is also in place, allowing such antics as bouncing objects off monsters to push them off cliffs. Additionally, the program is now much more polite about incomplete or partial installations and will return an error message instead of just crashing.
- chris
Sunday, November 10th 2002 - Last updated @ 23:44 EST
Hi-Res Magazine Online - The Classic Computer Magazine Archive has added Hi-Res Magazine to it's library of online magazines. This is a great little site that is attempting to reproduce many of the classic computer magazines of the 80s.
- Griking
PCSX2 Progress - There's been an update at the PCSX2 website including some pictures of it running some demos. PCSX2 BTW is an attempt to emulate the Playstation 2 on Windows and Linux based computers
- Griking
Saturday, November 9th 2002 - Last updated @ 20:42 EST
unoff hiscore dot dat 7.95 - Leezer has released an update to his Unofficial HISCORE.DAT file.
- chris
Virtual GameBoy Advance 1.6 - VGBA is a portable emulator of the Nintendo's GameBoy Advance. It still has rough corners, but can now run just about anything that runs on the real GBA. VGBA can be very useful for game development, as a cheap and fast development hardware substitute.
Changes: With this version of VGBA Marat started distributing the MSDOS version with the Windows version. The VGBA-MSDOS runs full-screen and it is usually faster than VGBA-Windows. It requires the DOS4GW extender (included into the package) and the VESA support for the 320x200x16bit screen mode. VGBA-MSDOS should run well on both MSDOS and Windows platforms.
Other Changes: Implemented BIOSChecksum() BIOS call (SWI#0D). Implemented BitUnpack() BIOS call (SWI#10). Implemented GetJumpList() BIOS call (SWI#2A). Added a -verbose bit to print sound-related messages.
License: VGBA-Unix binaries are free. Currently, you can download the latest binaries compiled for FreeBSD and Linux from the VGBA homepage. Both VGBA-Windows and VGBA-MSDOS are available as a single package for $35US.
- chris
AdvanceMESS 0.61.1 - AdvanceMESS is an unofficial MESS version for GNU/Linux and DOS with an advanced video support for helping the use with TVs, Arcade Monitors, Fixed Frequencies Monitors and also for PC Monitors. Changes: Fixed the name of the .nv files. All from MESS 0.61.1. All from AdvanceMAME 0.61.4.
- chris
AdvanceCAB 1.1.1 - AdvanceCAB is a collection of various utility to help the use of a PC with Arcade Monitors or TVs. Changes:Added the ADVV utility for Windows NT/2000/XP. Added an new option at the VIDEOW utility to enable the hardware mouse pointer. Added an new option at the VIDEOW utility to change the scanline size.
- chris
Unix Amiga Delitracker Emulator 0.72-pre1 - UADE plays old Amiga tunes with UAE emulation. Changes: Lots of bugfixes, features, and new sound formats.
- chris
Exult 1.00 - Exult is an open-source game engine for playing Ultima7 on modern operating systems, using the game's original data files. Changes: This release allows users to play Ultima 7, both Black Gate and Serpent Isle, from start to finish on almost any modern computer.
- chris
Cygwin 1.3.15-1 - Cygwin is a DLL which provides a Unix emulation environment for Windows. Changes: This release includes various minor bugfixes and code cleanups.
- chris
Atari 10-In-1 Review - Back In Time has tested and posted a review of Jaaks' Atari 10-in-1 controller, one of the Retro Atari systems that Chris posted about yesterday.
- Griking
Dapple 0.94 - Today's daily Dapple update has been released. Or you can just wait till tomorrow and get the next version :)
- Griking
Uhle Alpha 1.0.5 - There's been an update to this N64 emulator. It can be downloaded from This forum post.
Changes are;
- Rewrite of some parts of gui code
- Rom browser cache
- Emulator creates ultra.cache file on exit
- Multiple directories in rombrowser with recursion as an option
- File/Rom Directories
- Emulator creates ultra.dir file on exit
- Enabled Debug window
- Configuration/Debug Console
(type help inside,for list of commands)
- Fixed bug, when path to the emu includes spaces
- Fixed serious memory leak in original Uhle
- Sorting of rom columns
- Pj64 plugins config dialog (place your plugins in /Plugin directory)
- recognizing and configuring of plugins
+ plugins does not work in the emu yet
- Shows total number of roms in all included dirs on status bar
- Storing of emulator main window size and position
- Storing of columns width in rombrowser, sorting column and sorting method
- Griking
Arcade Flyer Archive Update - There's been about 20 or so new flyers added at the Arcade Flyer Archive
- Griking
More Guru Dumps - There's been a small update at The Guru's site.
New Dumps are;
* Area 51 / Maximum Force Duo (Atari, 1998)
* Hyper Athlete (Konami, 1996)
* San Francisco Rush (Atari, 1996, including 3.2GB HD)
- Griking
Raine 0.36.2 - There's been a bugfix/update to Raine today.
Some updates are;
* New line scroll functions which fixes the crash in the late stages of strikers 1945, and finally add the missing line scroll effects to the cps1 driver
* LOTS of sound fixes, including a new "enhanced stereo" effect
* Raine should now support pads/joysticks with more than 12 buttons
* Kick off is now playable
* And there are a few misc little changes here and there too
- Griking
Friday, November 8th 2002 - Last updated @ 18:18 EST
Retro-Atari system - Slashdot is carrying an article about a new self-contained Atari2600-style system with ten games built in being sold on Avon's website. The discussion mentions several other variations available, many of which apparently were bootlegs. If you are interested in something like this, and don't want a bootleg (and don't want to order from Avon :), EB will have one available soon, along with another unit featuring Activision games (but not as cool-looking). They're cheap enough to make decent gifts for your classic-game loving friends. Of course, some of the bootlegs (like the TV-BOY) contain many more games, including some that are very hard to find on cartridge.
- metallik
MAMu_'s Icons - MAMu_ has released (a while ago actually), a new set of icons for MAME 0.61! Sorry for the delay, hopefully next time MAMu_ will remember to tell us about the new release. ;-) X windows system conversions will be out as soon as xmame-0.61 is released.
- chris
Thursday, November 7th 2002 - Last updated @ 20:29 EST
VirtuaNES v 0.71 & 0.71a - There's been an update and a quick bugfix of VirtuaNES a Windows based NES emulator. Changes are;
11/07/2002 v0.71a
-The revision that included a bug for Joypad measures. 11/07/2002 v0.71
-The addition that measures to the thing which a specific axis entered with Joypad, and have grown (mainly, PlayStation Pad converter) are optional.
Add "JoyAxisDisable= option value " to a [General] section of an INI file.
-Add a restraint option of a volume change effect by the output value of DMC to Triangle Wave.
(Note) Change Plugin, and can set the option mentioned above only with an INI file because there isn't.
-Correct sweep of a Square Wave channel and behavior of a frequency limit.
- Griking
Wednesday, November 6th 2002 - Last updated @ 22:44 EST
Advance Mame v0.61.4 - There's been a new Advanced Mame released today. Changes are;
* Merged the sdl and native system of the Linux target. You can now mix the SDL input/output drivers with the native drivers.
* Better ./configure script. It detects and automatically enables all the available libraries.
* The configuration file now recognizes the SIZEXxSIZEYxFREQ section.
* Fixed a precision error checking the clock in the DOS vgaline driver.
* Removed the limitation of 8 bit crtc multiplier in the DOS vgaline driver.
* Revised the SVGALIB DOS compatibility layer. Some bugs fixed.
* Added the support for the SVGALIB video drivers in Windows NT/2000/XP
- Griking
Atari800MacX v1.0.1 - Atari800MacX is as you may guess a port of David Firth's Atari 800 Emulator for Macintosh OSX. This is the first non beta release.
Updates are;
- Full Stereo sound capability added (actually fixed), as well as several sound bug fixes. Sound is greatly improved.
- Emulation of printing thru Atari P: device fully supported, which allows printing to a text file opened by a program of your choice.
- Ported the Atari800 R: device drivers to allow you to "dial-in" to BBS software through telnet and a user specified port number.
- Ability to load color palettes from external files, or generate your own custom palettes. As a black and white palette is one of the included files, ability to change to Black and White has been removed from the program.
- Monitor panel added. This allows the user to display emulated memory, registers, display lists, etc.
- Full 5200 Controller support added, including 2nd button and keypad. See Help Keyboard page for details.
- Mac analog joysticks now provide paddle input as well (for Super Breakout, etc.). They also provide true analog input for 5200 joysticks.
- 5200 emulation is now pasued until you insert a cartridge, since the real 5200 did not run without a cartridge. Also, it was causing an anoying Atari crash cycle without the cartridge.
Bugs Fixed:
- Incorrect Machine Type and RAM size in Window Title at program startup.
- Many of the Cartridge types were not being properly recognized.
- System ROMs and Boot media loading were not defaulting to the proper directories.
- Mouse joystick emulation in 5200 mode was not working properly.
- Changing the Disable Basic flag in preferences now performs a coldstart, implementing the change.
- Griking
Tuesday, November 5th 2002 - Last updated @ 22:16 EST
Atari ST for Pocket PC - Can you tell I'm really fascinated by portable devices? :) Anyway, Pocket PC users might be interested in an Atari ST emulator being developed by Schtruck called CastCE! You can view some screenshots and info about this project courtesy of Pocket Extreme. (Thanks PocketGamer.org)
- prophet
Nokia N-Gage - OK, it's not emulation related (not yet at least) but Nokia is planning to release a new portable wireless game system called N-Gage! Certainly is an odd looking design for a game system IMO... There's not much info about it yet, but Sega is developing games for it. (Thanks Richard Ragon @ HanaHo)
- prophet
Palm GBA?! Maybe... - With the recent release of Palm's OS 5 based Tungsten T, which features a relatively fast ARM CPU, it looks like Palm users will finally see more emulation for their platform. In fact, here's what I learned from Gambit Studios, makers of Liberty, a monochrome Gameboy emulator (shareware) with limited sound for previous Palm devices:
"We are currently looking at producing a GameBoy Color (and possibly Gameboy Advance) emulator for OS 5. Due to outside commitments however, I cannot give you a time frame right now for when we would release one."
- prophet
Color Computer OS-9 Source Project - The Color Computer OS-9 Source Project is a central repository for the documenting and commenting of components of the OS-9 operating system for the Tandy Color Computers. Changes: Level One V02.01.00 (Phoenix) Final has been released. Notes can be read here.
- chris
Frotz 2.43 - Frotz is an interpreter for playing all of Infocom's text adventures and other Z-Machine games. Frotz complies with Graham Nelson's Z-Machine standard v1.0, and runs well on most flavors of Unix. Use ncurses for best results.
Changes: An optional dumb interface was added, which works great with PHP or teletypes, and Unicode and randomization test programs were added to the Z-machine test suite. The documentation was rewritten and proofread. Command recording no longer appends "[999]" to the end of every line. OSS sound now works correctly on *BSD.
- chris
CrossOver Office 1.3.1 - CrossOver Office allows you to install your favorite Windows productivity applications in Linux, without needing a Microsoft Operating System license.
Changes: There are dramatic improvements in support for Visio 2000, bugfixes for Quicken, an 'Anti-Klez' patch to prevent users from accidentally opening Windows executable attachements, and support for RedHat 8.0, Mandrake 9.0, and SuSE 8.1. A change that will hopefully permit CrossOver to interoperate with new versions of glibc 2.3 has been made. There are many other minor bugfixes. MathType and Remedy can now be installed. License: Crossover is extremely over-priced.
- chris
Monday, November 4th 2002 - Last updated @ 22:56 EST
Dapple v0.91 - There's been yet another Dapple update today. Changes from the read me are;
"0.91: Kludged XRun6502() to keep time for the joystick. I finally got the joystick working, and it will autocalibrate. Altered the waitstate method so that the delay loop is more evenly timed."
Mame Bezels - NICKY SPECIAL'S has added some more images to his collection of Mame bezels. "Unlike most bezel artwork, these files are designed to try to reproduce the entire upper half of the arcade machine's cabinet, from the marquee down to the control panel, in order to replicate as closely as possible the feeling of playing the game in a real arcade."
- Griking
ClrMamePro 2.80.1 - There's another ClrMamePro update. This updates adds improved DiskImage's Set + Name checks
- Griking
Sorry about the lack of updates so far today. I've been having some connectivity issues until now.
- Griking
Sunday, November 3rd 2002 - Last updated @ 19:18 EST
Kernel Cousin Wine - Brian Vincent has released Issue #141 of Wine Traffic (or Kernel Cousin Wine.)
- chris
Icarus Progress - Icarus is a Dreamcast emulator for Windows based PCs. And based on these screenshots it looks like the author is making good progress. Thanks Cracken.
- Griking
Saturday, November 2nd 2002 - Last updated @ 23:41 EST
Alter Ego - Not quite emulation but simulation related. This game amazed me when I first played it years and years ago on my Apple II. Today I found an excellent online version on it.
- Griking
Super Derby driver - Haze has made public his super derby driver which is not likely to get included in MAME, because it falls under the category of a gambling game. Thanks also to R. Belmont, and Stephh for adding sound and inputs.
- chris
Phoenix experimental - Phoenix is a Nintendo Gameboy emulator for the Palm Computing Platform. It converts your business handheld into a fun machine.
- chris
AdvanceCAB 1.1.0 - AdvanceCAB is a collection of various utilities to help the use of a PC with Arcade Monitors or TVs. Changes: The first version with a preliminary Windows NT/2000/XP support. No configuration tools are available for Windows. You must use one of the preconfigured .rc files or create a new one in DOS.
- chris
KC85 Emulator 0.3.6 - kc85emu is a free emulator for the KC85 homecomputer series. It runs not only popular games as Digger and Boulderdash but also the special KC CP/M version called MicroDOS. Changes: can be read here.
- chris
dapple 0.9 - Dapple/NDapple are Apple ][ emulators, aiming to support a well-fitted Apple ][, ][+ or //e machine with 64K. It is based on Marat Fayzullin's M6502 with 65C02 additions and Marcel de Kogel's Z80Em. Changes: can be read here, thanks to The Informer for posting the changelog.
- chris
ARAnyM Disk Images 0.6.0 - ARAnyM disk images are in sync with ARAnyM 0.6.x releases. Both disks contain a lot of useful utilities, text editors, benchmark programs etc. Changes: FVDI.PRG and its ARANYM.SYS updated to aranym 0.6.x BCONOUT.PRG - VT52 fVDI driver added.
- chris
Wolfpack Server Software 12.8.11 - Wolfpack is a server-side Ultima Online MMORPG software. The project has started back in 1998 and has aquired both users and developers since then. Changes: Inscription should work again. - Fixed one crash spot in cNetworkStuff::CloseSock(), usually called during shutdown. - Fixed erroneous check for gracefull disconnect (due to mistype).
- chris
hpemu 0.9.0 - HP Emulator is an emulator for the HP 48GX calculator. Changes: This is the first releas of hpemu. This is a alpha release so many things does not work.
- chris
Wine 20021031 - Wine Is Not an Emulator. It is an alternative implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs. Changes: A Complete listview overhaul was done. There are the beginnings of real RPC support. Most dlls now build properly in STRICT mode. There is more progress on inter-process window activation and focus handling, and many improvements to AVI support. Lots of bugfixes were made.
- chris
GnoMAME 1.00 beta 6 - GnoMAME is a GTK+ xmame frontend. It uses xmame to run games and to obtain game information. It also has a game browser and an xmamerc editor to easily run and setup games, and can show game screenshots and ROMs info. Changes: Bugfixes and some new features.
- chris
EQEmu 0.3.11 - The EQEMU project is an attempt to recreate the Everquest server software runnable from a Windows or Linux machine. Changes: A bug where people and NPCs would jump forever was fixed. It is now possible to achieve level 65. The code was also polished, and zoning was improved. Admin statuses of 200+ are now allowed to go to level 255, and Test Server was added to the available build configurations. Illusions were fixed, and #race was changed to allow race numbers from 0 to 329.
- chris
asq 2.00 - asq is a simple frontend for MAME/emulator cabinets. It runs in a terminal window using curses, and uses MAME/emulator keybindings so you can control your MAME cabinet using just your MAME controls. (In fact, this is where the name comes from--player 2 buttons 1, 2, and 3 are "asq".)
- chris
Genesis Plus 1.0 - Genesis Plus is a new Genesis/Megadrive emulator for Macintosh computers. Accouding to the author, "Genesis Plus has excellent compatibility with original software, and full sound support. Saved states, gzipped ROMs, and battery RAM are all supported. Additional video modes can be added to this emulator via my Blitter Library plugin."
- Griking
Friday, November 1st 2002 - Last updated @ 21:19 EST
ClrMamePro 2.80 - There's been another update to ClrMamePro out. Changes in this version are;
• Finished DiskImage support (Thanks to Aaron Giles, David Haywood)
• Separated various checksum checkboxes from the main scanner window
• Fixed a memory leak bug in the md5 package (never trust 3rd party code :o))
• Fixed "Cancel" button (datfileparser/double-descriptions) (thanks to Cowering)
• Fixed "fix missing" issue
Mimic Does Mega CD (Almost) - Mimic, the multi-console emulator can now load the Mega-CD BIOS. There's still supposingly tons of work to be done but a big hurdle has been passed.
- Griking
AJ's VPinMAME Updated - We missed this a few days ago but there's been a ton of updated and new tables posted at AJ's VPinMAME website. For those who don't know, VPinMAME is basically a Mame variant for pinball machines.
- Griking
