Items tagged with emulation
For many people, the golden age of PC gaming was the DOS era. Or maybe that is just my nostalgia kicking in. Either way, emulation is the key to reliving those days, playing old games that are neither lost nor completely forgotten. One of the go-to emulators has been DOSBox, but the newly released DOSBox Pure promises an even easier time getting old games up and running, with some nifty features to boot. "After 6 months of quite intense development, DOSBox Pure has been released for public testing. DOSBox Pure is a new fork built for RetroArch/Libretro, aiming for simplicity and ease of use," indie developer Bernhard Schelling explains. Part of what makes DOSBox Pure so easy to use is that it...
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Always-connected Windows 10 PCs powered by Arm processors have plenty of potential as nice portable workstations with other-worldly battery life. Every time we've tested one of these machines, starting with the Surface Pro X, we've come away impressed with battery life while maintaining adequate performance for most tasks. The issue, however, has been one of app compatibility. These machines simply can't run 64-bit x86 applications, but Microsoft is set to change that for Windows 10 Insiders starting next month. Microsoft's Chief Product Officer for Windows, Panos Panay, announced in a post on the Windows Experience blog that Arm-powered Windows 10 PCs will get a shot of x64 emulation....
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In the 22 years since 1998, Unreal Tournament was released and remastered, a long-forgotten 3Dfx graphics card has finally seen the light of day, and a little-known arcade port of Quake has finally been made available for emulation. Quake Arcade Tournament Edition is quoted as being a “short-lived commercial ARCADE game from 1998.” This edition of the game was meant to be retrofitted with a Quantum3D Quicksilver Arcade PC. which was really just a Windows 95 PC with a 266MHz Pentium II, according to the Quake Arcade Tournament blog. The blog goes on to state that only a few of these arcade setups made it out into the world, and they claim it is one of the rarest arcade games out there....
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Back in June, the Raspberry Pi Foundation announced their newest single-board computer, the Raspberry Pi 4. This tiny PC packs a quad-core Cortex A72 SoC from Broadcom and up to 4 GB of DDR4 memory at a very attractive price. While aimed at emerging markets for folks new to computers, the Pi really caught on with retro gamers and "makers" in general from the start. The latest Pi has a whole lot more computing horsepower than the last iteration, but software support hadn't quite caught up—until just now. The LibRetro team released Lakka version 2.3 with a ton of new features, a retro gaming focus, and perhaps the most important is official support for the Raspberry Pi 4. Raspberry...
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As of September 6th, 2019, the officially-licensed Evercade retro handheld console is available for pre-order. Like other retro consoles, Evercade is capable of emulating a number of older game systems, and like a few others, Evercade is also a portable handheld. Where Evercade differs from most retro emulation machines, however, is that it doesn't rely on digital ROM files or original release game cartridges. Instead, Evercade ships with its own officially-licensed cartridges, which carry a number of different games from certain publishers. Each cartridge serves as a numbered "Collection" from a Publisher's catalog, and can carry anywhere from 6 games to 20 games. For a full list of...
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When someone is looking to get into game emulation in this day and age, RetroArch is likely the most common suggestion. It's a front-end that utilizes Libretro cores that open up the ability to emulate old platforms -- from Atari to NES to MSX to disc-based platforms like Dreamcast and PSone. RetroArch isn't too difficult to get up and running, although it might require a bit of patience from those who haven't dabbled with game emulation before. One of the biggest reasons RetroArch stands out of the crowd is because it supports a wide-range of platforms on both ends of the equation. Even Windows 95 and PowerPC-based OS X is supported! It might surprise you that even consoles themselves are supported,...
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One of the biggest advantages of Microsoft's Xbox One is that gamers are not locked into playing only Xbox One games. Through its backwards compatibility feature, Microsoft allows playback of hundreds of Xbox 360 games, meaning those titles sitting on the shelf are not going to rot if a user's actual Xbox 360 console dies. As cool as that feature is, it's just the tip of the iceberg of what the Xbox One can do. While it's not entirely intuitive, users can install custom software to allow them to play games from other consoles, including Game Boy Advance, PSP, Nintendo 64, and even the original PSone. Soon, Sega's Dreamcast is going to be added to that list. We can forgive you if you didn't even...
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There are few platforms in the emulation realm that are as well taken care of as the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Over the years, there have been a countless number of NES emulators that have come out, with some targeting different platforms or different goals -- some aim for accuracy, while some treat performance as the most important feature. Some simply try to go above and beyond by offering people a better-looking or easier-to-use UI. All of that is good, but none of the releases seem to do anything really interesting - until now, that is. Enter 3DNES. With this coming out at around the same time that VR is hitting the market in a big way, we couldn't fault you if you...
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For the past few years, as Intel has struggled to gain market share for its Android-x86 project, it's been hampered by software compatibility issues and associated performance degradation. Now, some of that burden is being lifted off the company's products -- the popular and widespread Unity 3D engine has announced that upcoming versions will include native x86 support. That's important for a host of reasons. Currently, Intel has a host of emulation and translation efforts that ensure nearly seamless compatibility with Android applications. The compatibility layer isn't perfect, however, and games are historically some of the hardest content to emulate. Most titles depend on split-second timing...
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There's a rumor going around on social media that you can enable Xbox 360 backwards compatibility on an Xbox One by hopping through a series of steps meant to enable Developer Mode, changing a setting, and restarting the box. Don't believe it. There is no method of allowing the Xbox One to play Xbox 360 games, via any software program. Microsoft's Major Nelson has denounced the idea directly. This is an opportunity to talk a bit about <em>why</em> you can't play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One, and how we know the entire program is a hoax. The Backwards Compatibility Conundrum There are two ways to make a system backwards compatible. The simplest is to build a complete version...
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Emulation tools have been around nearly as long as modern-day operating systems and user interfaces. For years, users have been trying to figure out ways to run Program X on Operating System Y. Boot Camp, Parallels, you name it. Bluestacks has been a name thrown around all the more frequently in the emulation realm, and earlier this year, they launched a program that would let Windows users run Android apps right on their laptop or desktop. Now, however, that same luxury is being passed along to avid Mac users. While a version of the software was previously available in Alpha form, a new Beta has been made available that promises to be much, much more stable. Basically, this allows you to run...
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Earlier this year, Intel software VP Renee James caused a kerfluffle between himself and Microsoft when he claimed Microsoft's upcoming OS wouldn't support older x86 applications when running on an ARM processor. Microsoft, in response, called his characterization "factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading." ...Except, apparently, it wasn't—at least, not as far as ARM/x86 compatibility were concerned. During a Q&A session this past week, Windows division President Steven Sinofsky clarified the relationship between the two architectures: We've been very clear since the very first CES demos and forward that the ARM product won't run any X86 applications... We built a great deal...
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When you think about portable gaming handhelds, you probably think first of Nintendo and Sony. Which is perfectly logical given just how important the Game Boy line was in the history of gaming and just how popular the PSP line is today. But the handheld gaming world is much, much bigger than just two giant companies. All sorts of smaller firms are also vying for your business, with GamePark being one of the underground leaders when it comes to producing emulator-ready handhelds. The company is best known for their GP2X and Pandora efforts, but a new device is looking even better than the one's that have come before. The GP2X Caanoo is an open source monster, with a Sega Nomad-esque appearance...
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We're back folks, and it's time for a news roundup. We've been pretty busy this weekend, well, not so much for me... it's hard to consider a weekend long 21st birthday celebration as being busy. But now it's Sunday night, the suds are gone, and I've sobered up enough to deliver you the news. Let's get to it... Plasma Displays: An Overview @ CoolTechZone "Since the day television was invented, TV technology has certainly been refined quite a bit, but the core concept has remained the same. Even today most of the televisions are built on the age old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) technology which no doubt has been modified to make bigger, better screens to give a larger crisper picture and subsequently,...
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