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Emulation News Page
January - June 2003

Ipher's ZSNES WIP Releases

May 12, 2003 - 12:15PM EST

A kind soul who goes by the name Ipher is releasing Work-In-Progess builds of ZSNES. These are, most likely, builds directly from the SourceForge ZSNES repository. But hey, ZSNES hasn't had a official release in so long, I'll take what I can get. Since this isn't an official (or nessecarly stable) release, I'm going to keep the last release up on the SNES page. The latest WIP version will be availble for download right below it, until which time as the next official version is released.

Nibble on the latest version of ZSNES WIP in the Super Nintendo Section!

VisualBoyAdvance 1.5a

May 12, 2003 - 12:04PM EST

Forgotten's wonderful GameBoy/Color/Advance emulator,VisualBoyAdvance, bounded up to version 1.5a.

Changes to 1.5/1.5a:

Core changes:

added AGBPrint support (for developers only)
added RTC support
added scanlines filter
added support for gzip files
added support for compressed bios files (zip, gzip)
fixes Flash 1M support

Gameboy:

added SGB2 support

Windows:

added Gameboy tools (Disassembly, Memory Viewer, Tile Viewer, OAM Viewer, Map Viewer and Palette Viewer)
added fullscreen mode confirmation for DirectDraw to avoid problems
added GDI, Direct3D and OpenGL rendering options
added skin support (see readme for information on creating skins)
added support for per game configuration of some settings (see readme for details)
changed INI support to use emulator directory instead of Windows directory
fixed skin problems on Win 95/98/Me/2000
fixed right-click problem on Win 95/98/Me/2000
fixed problem when Gameboy Printer was enabled
fixed problem on Flash size menu not showing correct setting

Chew on the latest version of VisualBoyAdvance in the GameBoy Section!

FCE Ultra .94 Released!

May 12, 2003 - 11:36AM EST

Okay, this is it.. The final version of FCE Ultra by Xod. A few bugs with Sound were fixed and on-the-fly IPS patching is now supported. Still worth a look see. Changes to .94:

Implemented "high-quality" Namco 106 emulation(used in the high-quality sound mode).
Modified FDS IRQ emulation to get "Famicom Grand Prix II" working again.
Fixed a few memory leaks and a possible memory corruption bug.
Added more games to the iNES ROM image list for having battery-backed WRAM, for header corrections.
Copied over the 96KHz filter coefficients from Festalon that I forgot to do in 0.92. Oops.
Added support for on-the-fly IPS patching.

Retrieve the latest version of FCE Ultra from the NES Section!

FCE Ultra .93 Released!

March 12, 2003 - 10:50AM EST

Seems like this is going to be a daily event. Xod made a few more fixes to his NES emulator, FCE Ultra. Looks like he's made a few fixes to some FDS stuff. Other than that, it's basically the same as yesterday's release. Might as well grab it anyway.

Consume the latest version of FCE Ultra from the NES Section!

FCE Ultra .92r2 Released!

March 11, 2003 - 10:07AM EST

Well.. looks like Xod made a little mistake in his latest version of FCE Ultra. Another day, another release. This one fixes a problem with "Cobra Triangle" locking up.

So... I actually got a chance to play with the new sound core on a machine that could handle it last night, and I have to say, I'm pretty impressed. It definately sounds a lot smoother, way more like a real NES. Be sure to enable it though as it is shut off by default.. Just hit the Config menu, and select sound.. It should be pretty evident from there.

Consume the latest version of FCE Ultra from the NES Section!

Gens 2.11 Source Code Released???

March 10, 2003 - 10:57AM EST

Well, if this isn't quite the unexpected development. It appears that Stef's amazing Genesis/Sega-CD/32-X emulator Gens has gone OPEN SOURCE. I was browsing around at SourceForge and happened to stumble across the Gens Project. There had been some talk of this by Stef on the Sega Emulator Forums, but no solid announcement. After seeing the project, I checked the GENS homepage, and sure enough. Stef has officially made his emulator open source for all. Congratualtions Stef.

VisualBoyAdvance 1.4, and more.

March 10, 2003 - 10:28PM EST

Forgotten updated his GameBoy/Color/Advance emulator,VisualBoyAdvance, to version 1.4 a while ago. I'm not exactly sure when, but the EXE is dated February 8th. Quite the list of changes, so I'm not really going to go into it much here.

Version 1.4 Changes:

Core changes:
- added bilinear and bilinear plus filters
- added interframe blending support
- added support to show speed in fullscreen mode (transparent or opaque)
- added detailed speed display
- added autoframeskip support
- added support for ELF DW_FORM_strp (used by newer GCC versions)
- added support to enable/disable GB/GBC video layers
- fixed crash when loading a second ELF file
- fixed missing EMMS instruction in ADVANCEMAME Scale 2x MMX version
- fixed some timer settings problems (bad copy paste of code)
Windows version:
- allows AMD CPUs to take advantage of MMX code
- added support to select video mode for fullscreen mode
- added fullscreen triple buffering support
- added support for multiple joypad configuration
- added support to store settings to INI
- added export settings from Registry to INI
- added throttle support (between 5% and 1000%)
- fixed problem displaying error messages in fullscreen mode
- fixed tile viewer to display all tiles in 256 mode
- fixed Visual Studio project files so that they work on other computers
- fixed problem with disable SFX not being read when program starts
- fixed (minimized) screen corruption problem when filter is active in fullscreen mode and emulator is minimized

In related news Forgotten seems to be about fed up with e-mails from bitchy users demanding link cable support. He's going so far as to say that if the e-mails don't stop coming in, he may discontinue his emulator entirely. Pretty tought talk, but hey, it's his emulator, he can do what he wants with it.

Nibble on the latest version of VisualBoyAdvance in the GameBoy Section!

FCE Ultra .92 Released!

March 10, 2003 - 10:06AM EST

Well I'll be damned!! Back on November 24th, Xodnizel announced that he was discontinuing work on the wonder NES emulator FCE Ultra. However, in a shocking move, he released a new version yesterday!! This version includes High Quality sound emulation, which is supposed to be amazing, and quite CPU intensive from what I've heard. I'll have to check it out when I get on a suitable PC. Aside from that it seems that quite a few mapper bugs from .81 have been addressed as well. Happy Day!

Changes to FCEUltra .92:

Added a new high-quality sound core. It is disabled by default. I recommend using it if your machine can handle it.
Rewrote network play code to use a combination of UDP and TCP.
Reassigned "Devil Man" to mapper 154.
Reassigned "The Money Game" to mapper 155.
Removed ROM image header correction for "Trojan".
Improved support for mappers 80, 90, 117, and 189, based on information from nnnester and virtuanes.
Modified frame IRQ to not break games.
Added support for mappers 61, 88, 114, 115, 144, 241, and 249(thanks to SARO).
Fixed mapper number for "Golden Game 150 in 1". Changed it to 235 from 43.
Added partial support for mapper 74.
Added support for UNIF board UNL-8237.
Fixed a sprite transfer bug. Fixes PAL version of "Rainbow Islands".
Internal RAM is now initialized to something other than 0. Fixes "Minna no Taabou no Nakayoshi Dai Sakusen".
iNES header corrections are now printed as status messages, not errors.
Changed keyboard assignments for FDS games and VS Unisystem games to use F6 and F8.
Fixed some bugs in the FDS emulation code. "Silviana" works now.
Adjusted PPU timing a bit.
Changed the default last rendered scanline to 231.
Fixed a major cheat unloading memory bug(and memory leak).
Removed NSF player background, and added some special effects goodies.
Changed the NSF player to use the emulated gamepad as input instead of having special NSF-player-only keys.
Added a message log.
Added a CPU debugger.

Consume the latest version of FCE Ultra from the NES Section!

Tell me how much I suck! Niobium