News Roundup: March 22 - May 7
Mac gaming classic Pathways into Darkness, a precursor to Bungie's more famous first-person series Marathon and Halo, has been ported to OS X. This is a faithful, loving, free port with full blessings from Bungie. Go get it to revisit a slice of Mac gaming history. (If you're so inclined, I wrote up my thoughts on this OS X release here.)
There’s a new MSX emulator on the scene. CocoaMSX is based on blueMSX, and offers what looks to be a pretty robust feature set. You can follow its development on Google+ or track (and download) it on the CocoaMSX Google Code page. Be sure to let us know how it stacks up to openMSX (which has now moved from svn to Git repository, I might add).
Just over a year since the last release, Nintendo DS emulator DeSmuME has hit version 0.9.9. This build introduces a new JIT CPU core, which the devs say “yields some impressive speedups,” and specifically improves the OS X port with a ton of new options and enhancements. There’s also a bunch of bug fixes across the entire emulator. Get it from the official DeSmuME website.
Gaming-focused Amiga emulator FS-UAE has moved to fs-uae.net, and it’s been updated to version 2.2.2. Changes since March are mostly bugfixes and improvements to existing features. You can see lists here (2.2.1) and here (2.2.2). As always, head over to the FS-UAE website for more information and a download link.
Continue reading for more emulator updates, including new versions of two PSP emulators, long-overdue updates to ARAnyM and Bochs, and more.
PlayStation Portable emulator PPSSPP has reached version 0.7.6. Recent updates have made big improvements to compatibility, performance, and the interface (although the Mac build has yet to receive this fancier UI). There are no official OS X builds as of this writing, but if you have SDL installed you can grab Karen angelXwind Tsai’s unofficial automated builds.
Fellow PSP emulator JPCSP has also received new updates. They’ve taken to auto-building/uploading/posting revisions, which are dropping at around the rate of one per day. Head over to the JPCSP website to grab the latest one.
SpeedofMac’s been steadily posting new builds of PlayStation emulator PCSX-Reloaded at his new home ConsoleEmu. The latest build at the time of writing is numbered 84398 (and dated May 4). Get it here.
CrossOver 12.2.0 has been released, with an improved Mac Driver, a bugfix for apps that rely on the .Net 4.0 Framework, and more. See the announcement post for more information and a complete changelog.
Atari 32-bit virtual machine ARAnyM got its first update in seven months with version 0.9.15. Changes include a new seamless mouse integration, more solid NatFeats (whatever that means), and a few bugfixes. Pop over to the Atari Running on Any Machine website for more details, a download, and an AFROS Live CD.
Open-source x86 Intel/AMD emulator Bochs has been updated to version 2.6.1. This release aligns with rev45 of the Intel Architecture Manual, implements 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics card emulation, improves hard-drive image support, and includes an enhanced GUI debugger, amongst other things. See the full list of changes here.
MacFCEU, a Mac OS Classic (System 7.1 or later) NES emulator, has been updated to version 0.8a2. Changes specific to this build include M68K optimisations, a triangle scale sound feature, and fixes to a frame delay issue when starting with sound off. Other recent changes include text-based ini configuration, sound expansion channel toggling, and more. You’ll have to download (from the MacFCEU SourceForge page) to see the full changelog.
Open-source x86 virtualisation tool VirtualBox got its regular maintenance release, with 4.2.12 providing a bunch of GUI multi-screen support fixes and a plethora of other minor changes. See the changelog for details.
Open-source machine emulator and virtualiser QEMU version 1.4.1 was released a few weeks ago. The nicely-formatted changelog includes lots of improvements and bugfixes, which I’ll leave it to you to peruse. Head over to the QEMU website to learn more about the powerful emulator.
DOSBox frontend Dapplegrey has reach version 3.4.5. This build includes a rewrite of the subroutine relating to the drive C mount point, along with a couple of other fixes. Get it from the Classics for X Dapplegrey page.
RPCEmu, an Acorn Risc PC and A7000 emulator, has been updated to version 0.8.10. This release fixes three emulation bugs and extensively refactors the codebase in preparation for future improvements. See here for a full changelog, and here for download links or more information.
XRoar, a Dragon and Tandy Colour Computer (CoCo) emulator, has been updated to version 0.29.5. The release notes mention fixes to the “-cart-becker” and “-disk-write-back” options, along with single-bit sound and Dragon 32 printing. There’s also now a separate build for 64-bit Intel Macs. As always, visit the XRoar homepage for more details.
Arcade emulator MAME and its Mac-specific (command-line) port SDLMAME hit version 0.148u4 last week. There’s the typically-long list of changes available here, which includes mention of a game called Spooky Night being added or promoted to working status. You can get SDLMAME here, while MAME source code is available via the MAMEdev site.
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