ShashClp released a WIP build for DeSmuMe. As mentioned in his development blog, having trusted builds could help get more user feedback. The beta1 WIP features the following changes (from the CVS):
General/Core:
Added "high-level" check for DMAs and Timer for minor (really minor) speed up [shash]
Changed instruction execution to 16 at a time blocks, gives up to 33% gain (tested and stable) [shash]
Really minor memory access speed up (mainly added for clarity) [shash]
Added transparency and fixed material alpha support and alpha testing on the 3D core [shash]
Changed how depth initial values are calculated (fixes SM64DS skybox) [shash]
Windows port:
Removed the bug report link with a define, to avoid reports from betas/external builds [shash]
Added the version on window bar to recognize versions from screenshots [shash]
Another public beta from the PCSX2 team. Following the earlier IPU update announcement, a new build with significantly improved compatibility has been uploaded, with a number of games advancing to playable status.
Notable changes in revision 351:
- FFX Videos work again
Including the fixes from 349:
- Massive compatability increase on videos, many should now work without
freezing, skipping or macroblocking, as mentioned in the recent news
post.
NeoDS is a recently released NeoGeo emulator for the Nintendo DS handheld system, by Ben Ingram. Quick quote from the author (taken from the accompanying readme.txt):
"This is a NeoGeo AES/MVS emulator for the Nintendo DS. It can run all types of NeoGeo roms with some limitations.
Currently emulated:
* M68000 cpu (cyclone)
* Z80 cpu (DrZ80)
* All forms of NeoGeo protection/encryption
* Graphics
* ADPCM audio
* PSG audio
Not emulated:
* FM audio
* Raster effects
* Multiplayer
* Some timings are not that accurate"
Quick notes:
A DLDI-compatible flash card is required.
The NeoDS interface is controlled with the DS' stylus.
The download includes a converter named NeoDSConvert.
A new beta of SSF has been released. Rough translation of the changelog:
Fixed processing CD player.
SCSP slot to control fixed.
SCU treatment to correct a timer.
VDP2 SAIKURUPATANCHEKKU the process fixed.
Fixed memory wait process.
State data saved version has been changed.
Saturn is in full-screen aspect ratio option to force was established.
Old SH2 execution has been removed. It also removes the option of SH2 New Execution.
SH2 New Execution from the current version of the state to check the same.
Check Cycle Pattern Pattern Name Renewal and integration options.
When bitmap SAIKURUPATANCHEKKU process of change,
If you play movies.
Check Cycle Pattern is the time to check, please.
R1 is a pattern processing cycle would be correct should be…
@ruantec released another update to his advanced multiemu frontend. This one brings a number of bugfixes and new features. Screenshots of @ES in action can be viewed in this thread.
New features:
Fullscreen mode (Won't work for PJ64 though in the update as it is
harder to add for PJ64 then originally thought, but will be added at a
later time!)
Fullscreen Video mode.
Volume knob in Video controls(Ctrl+W to show the menu, Ctrl+E to hide the emu)
Ctrl+F = Switch to fullscreen.
Ctrl+D = Switch back to @ES screen
NESTOPIA support (Works perfectly!)
CRC check for rom covers (Works for all cartridge based consoles)
Arcade emu's can now use the titlescreen packs that mame has available for download.
Bug fixes in the Audio/Video and Games menu which caused @ES to crash sometimes.
No more menu flickering in Windows XP!!!
Full Media keys support.
MSN Scrolling text
MSN display the game name and the game icon while playing
Features to expect in the future:
Easy setup.
PJ64 and soon ePSXe fullscreen mode.
ZIP support.
Cover scroller fix.
Fullscreen controls.
SSF support.
a way to delete items.
UPDATE: A quickfix build has been released, that adresses some errors while adding games in the PSX, PS2, GC sections. If you downloaded @ES beta 4 before the update fix, you may download the updated @ES beta 4 (Fix 1) from the same link.
A quick update on the status of PCSX2. This time, video playback has been improved, and thus, the compatibility for a number of games has improved to playable status.
From Refraction:
"Yes the IPU (video side of PCSX2) has been updated by none other than Saqib!
You might be asking what this will bring to the table? Well im sure as
many of you know, videos in PCSX2 suffered from Macroblocking (Corrupt
squares appearing all over the place) or videos freezing randomly. Well
thanks to Saqib for his marvelous work, many games no longer suffer
from these symptoms. Here is a quick rundown of some of the games fixed.
Atelier Iris - Grand Phantasm
Ayumi Hamasaki - A Visual Mix
Bully
Graffiti Kingdom
Many Growlanser games
Monster Hunter
Resident Evil 4
Simple Series Videos
Soul Calibur 3
The Simpsons
and many more...
In light of these changes a lot of games have been improved to a playable status or had their stability increased!
The code is in SVN, do NOT ask for help on the forums. If you guys are
lucky, i might be nice enough to compile a new beta very soon."
»
Check out PCSX2's homepage
»
Discuss this update in this thread on our forum.
Another significant update to the Glide64 plugin for Nintendo64 emulators.
The Glide64 Team proudly presents you the new release of our project – ‘Napalm’!
The project now consists of three parts. The main part – Glide64
graphics plugin – was changed a lot since the previous public release.
It’s simply impossible to list all modifications. New version has tons
of bugfixes and optimizations. Large number of special effects
implemented. Lots of hacks removed, because they are not necessary
anymore. Lots of previously unplayable games are playable now. Lots of
games, which worked good before now work even better. Screen shots of
most noticeable improvements were posted on our forum. Check also the
updated screen shots gallery.
The second part – Glitch64 glide wrapper – was also changed much.
Beside various fixes and optimizations it now supports anisotropic
filtering and compressed textures.
The third part – GlideHQ – is a new module, which implements various
texture enhancement techniques. It supports 6 texture filters, 7
methods of texture enhancement, 2 methods of texture compression.
Beside that it fully supports Rice’s format of Hi-Resolution texture
packs, with various optional techniques to save texture memory.
Project related documentation was improved too. We put all useful docs
in one file ‘Glide64 Info.chm’. Please read ‘Readme’ part of it, at
least first two chapters, with general information and setup
instructions.
Due to huge number of changes, new bugs might be introduced too.
Despite the intensive beta testing during all period of development,
some issues had been found and fixed right before the release. Thus, if
you will find an issue, which is not mentioned in the ‘Known Issues’
part of the documentation, please report about it on our forum.
I gave this version codename ‘Napalm’. ‘Napalm’ is also the codename
for VSA-100 graphic chip, on which 3dfx Voodoo 4 and Voodoo 5 series
were built. I still use Voodoo 5 in my home PC. This version of the
plugin uses a lot of VSA-100 special abilities; therefore it was also
named ‘Napalm’. BTW, there are few effects, which you can see only on
VSA-100 based cards, or on N64 itself. Check ‘Games Tips and Tricks’
part of the documentation for details.
The DesMuMe team released an updated version of their opensource DS emulator. Version 0.8.0 features a significant number of bugfixes and joystick support. The Mac port was also significantly improved.
Changes between 0.7.3 and 0.8.0
Cocoa:
- Save State As function now works. [Jeff B]
- Recent Items menu now works. [Jeff B]
- Opening NDS files from Finder now works. [Jeff B]
- Added screenshot feature. [Jeff B]
- Added preferences. [Jeff B]
- Many more strings are translatable now. [Jeff B]
- Default screen color is black (better represents being "off" and easier on eyes at night). [Jeff B]
- Added sound. [Jeff B]
- Now is a universal binary. [Jeff B]
- Leopard resolution icon added. [Jeff B]
- Added a Japanese translation. [Jeff B]
- Added an optional status bar (resize handle no longer overlaps screen). [Jeff B]
- New ROM Info and About DeSmuME windows have been added. [Jeff B]
- Fixed several bugs in window resizing. [Jeff B]
- Added FAT image support for homebrew games (thanks to TypeError). [Jeff B]
- Key config can be changed on the command line. Save/load hotkeys changed (so expose doesn't override). [Jeff B]
- Key bindings may work better on non-US keyboards now (needs testing). [Jeff B]
General:
- Fixed possible segfault in ROMReader on ia64 and amd64. [evilynux]
- Fixed a crash bug with 2D background corrupting memory [shash]
- Flag check optimization [carlo_bramini]
- Applied some endian fixes in GPU (thanks to Phazz) [Jeff B]
GTK-glade:
- Added DeSmuME version in about dialog. [evilynux]
- Updated website url in about dialog. [evilynux]
- Added Brazilian Portuguese translation by Dreampeppers99. [evilynux]
- Better desktop menu entry following FreeDesktop specifications. [evilynux]
GTK:
- Updated website url in about dialog. [evilynux]
- Better desktop menu entry following FreeDesktop specifications. [evilynux]
Windows port:
- DirectInput control interface with joystick support [CrazyMax aka mtabachenko]
- Matrix and Light viewer [Acid Burn]
Our good friend @ruantec has released an update to his @ES application.
@ES is an frontend supporting many popular emulators, and featuring innovative design concepts for this software category. @ES also includes a significant number of multimedia capabilities.
It is highly recommended to read the readme.txt document included.
Changes in Public Beta 3:
Slowdowns with nullDC and many other emus when using a low-end PC or Laptop
Added a better background pic which looks better than the last one
Fixed some random bugs i found in the source code that caused @ES to crash sometimes.
The scroller was activated even if not visible causing sometimes some random crashes (still not 100% complete though)
Fixed audio bug which appear when tried to play new albums after playing a game.
Changes in Public Beta 2:
NullDC bug fixed (thanks to darkIIraziel)
The following Beta 4 update should feature the following, so stay tuned:
Since version 1.6.0 (no less than 4 years), not much was heard about the current status of this great Playstation emulator. The ePSXe team just published an update recently, confirming that the project is NOT dead.
"It has been long time since the previous ePSXe status update. During this
time
the ePSXe development has been on hold and our lives have changed a lot,
probably just like yours. In summer 2007 we decided to continue working in
ePSXe
encouraged by the users support even after 4 years without updates. ePSXe
is currently in final testing and we hope to release a new version very
soon. We wanted
to thank you
for your support and show you some screenshots from games that should work
better
in the next release."
It has been a little over two years since the Gekko project has started and now the N'Sider members from the Gekko website can have a go at trying out this emulator. Last week, Lightning celebrated his birthday by releasing a beta of Gekko to the N'Siders. New screenshots and new compatibility reports should be flowing in as the members try it out. Big thanks to zion and ExodusC for these screenshots!
The beta is available to every N'Sider member that donated 7$ to the project before 03/14/2008. If you're part of those members, you can logon here and try the beta out. You can register to the N'Sider section here and help with reporting bugs, compatibility, etc. when the next beta will be released. And from my last chat with Lightning, he plans on releasing betas more often than once every two years ;)
» Visit the Gekko website and forums for more information
» Access the N'Sider section here or register here (Paypal 7$)
Can you beleive it? The last interview that was added to NGEmu dates back to November 28th, 2001! It sure has been a long time since we've made any interviews but this might change in the future as we plan to do more than one every six years... (at least I hope ;) ).
Many thanks goes to Hard core Rikki who made this interview with mudlord. If you have no clue who mudlord is, he's the lead developper for the VBA-M project. It's in the process of merging all the different builds that were made off the VBA source code.
1. Could you present yourself ?
Mudlord:Online, I go by the handle Mudlord. I am currently a university student undertaking a degree somewhat relevant to my interests in software design and development.
pSX Author has been silently working on adding PS2 emulation capabilities to his already excellent PS1 emulator! He revealed these screenshots yesterday, and I must say that it looks quite promising :) Check it out!
Nherve (from our forum) released a second update to his unofficial build of DesMuMe, with a number of bugfixes and tweaks here and there.
Mod 1 featured these changes:
added joystick support through SDL.
added support for SDL sound core under Win32.
added Vertical resize option.
The recently released Mod 2 brings a significant number of fixes:
New GUI, added a toolbar and a statusbar to make it more user-friendly.
Fixed LDR and LDM** opcodes, now opcodes are 100% correct (Thanks to ShashClp)
Fixed Frame limitation when frameskip is 0.
Fixed some opcodes which prevented the emu to continue execution
Fixed a bug in the 3D core (this fixes Rayman Raving Rabbids 2,
this should fix all other games that send unpacked commands to GXFIFO
with reversed byte order (ie 0x1b000000) ).
Added Wireframe 3D.
Fixed New Super Mario Bros minigames (thanks to ShashClp).
Added Video Capture option (sound & compress not working yet).
Started implementation of RTC (not working yet).
Started a new 2D core (not working yet, this version uses old 2D core).
Added Fold/Unfold option (not working as expected).
Shendo released a new version of his memory card managing utility, MemcardRex. Version 0.4 was rewritten from scratch, and features a number of additional capabilities. Note: .NET Framework 3.0 required.
Changes in 0.4:
Added comments support for dexdrive memory cards.
Added toolstrip informations.
Added support for simultaneous editing of 2 memory cards.
Added support for dragging-and-dropping of memory card files.
Saves can now be copied to the temp buffer and pasted to the selected card and slot.
Double click on the selected item now shows a save information.
Product code, Identifier and Region now shown in the list instead on the toolbar.
Editing operations are now save based instead of the slot based like in older versions.
Dropped support for .vmp cards until proper header reconstruction is possible.