Catching up on the mountain of news and heres a ScummVM Update:

Battle to liberate the populace from the threat of the tyrant Lord Xeen, or his cruel master Alamar. Or dare to venture beyond the world of Xeen to the world of Havoc to test your mettle with a new challenge. We're pleased to announce support for the following games:

• Might and Magic IV - Clouds of Xeen
• Might and Magic V - Darkside of Xeen
• Might and Magic - World of Xeen
• Might and Magic - World of Xeen 2 CD Talkie
• Might and Magic - Swords of Xeen

At this time, only the English versions of these games are ready for testing. So break out your copies, or buy them digitally on GOG, and grab the latest daily build of ScummVM. You'll also need an extra required xeen.ccs file, which should be put in the same folder you copy your game files to. Before you start testing any of the games, please be aware that given the large part combat plays in the game, any errors you encounter may be more difficult to replicate than in traditional adventure games. As such, it'll be a good idea to make a practice of regularly saving your game, just in case something goes wrong. If you do experience any crashes, or notice any functionality which seems incorrect, please let us know. Any problems found should be reported on our Issue Tracker.

via http://www.scummvm.org/news/20180501/ ...

The awesome multi system supporting emulator has a new release, heres what systems this release is for starting with PC, Apple Mac, Android, IOS, Playstation 3, Playstation Portable, PSVita, Xbox Original, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Raspberry PI:

RetroArch 1.7.3 has just been released! Grab it here. This latest version has also been uploaded to the Google Play Store. If you’d like to show your support, consider donating to the team. Check here in order to learn more.

RetroArch now has a WIMP GUI, powered by the powerful multimedia framework Qt! This feature is available currently for Windows and Linux. macOS users will have to wait a while longer for this feature to arrive to their platform.

The WIMP GUI works as a companion to the main RetroArch window. You bring it into view by pressing the F5 key on your keyboard. From there, you can do many tasks:

• Select a game from any playlist
• Browse the file system or any attached media storage device and load a game.
• Scan directories for content and generate system playlists.
• Associate cores to an entire playlist or associate only one entry of a playlist to a specific core

Some things we’d like to note:

• This has been the combined work of bparker and Tatsuya79 that have worked tirelessly on this for a month. We are aware of several features that we’d like to implement, such as playlist editing, grid view layouts, etc.
• We are open to feedback on the GUI.
• You will likely not see this WIMP GUI on Android or iOS (or any game console for that fact) anytime soon. WIMP interfaces don’t lend themselves well to devices that rely on touchscreen or gamepad-based controls.
• (For Linux users) The Qt GUI should definitely work on X11. If you’d like to run it on Wayland, make sure you have the appropriate packages installed for Qt5 in your package manager. Be aware that Qt 5 cannot gracefully fail right now in case a platform module/plugin is missing from your system. This means that if you invoke the companion UI by pressing F5 on Wayland, and for whatever reason the platform module that Qt relies on in order to work on Wayland is not there, there is no way for RetroArch to gracefully fail there and just not show the companion UI. There will be a crash instead. Unfortunately we have talked to some Qt developers and they see no other way around this for now. The same situation applies for DRM/KMS right now. If we can find a better solution to this, we will certainly return to it.
• (For mac Users) You will have to wait a bit longer for this to arrive to the Mac port unfortunately. Hopefully that wait is not too long.
• We would like to still improve initial bootup times for the companion UI. Right now, on first initial startup, it can take anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds (depending on your harddrive and its performance), but on subsequent boots should only take 2 seconds or less for first startup. Hopefully by resorting to Link Time Code Generation and other avenues we can shave off some more seconds off this boot time.

OFFICIAL SITE: --> https://www.libretro.com/index.php/r...-7-3-released/

via http://www.maxconsole.com/threads/re...eleased.46926/ ...

Heres a new release of the arcade emulator MAME which supports so many arcade systems, heres the release news:

For our April release, we're bringing even more elusive electronic esoterica to light. MAME 0.197 finally includes support for the 1987 version of the Spanish quiz game Master Boy, believed to be Gaelco's first release. There are now drivers for several Neo-Geo MVS variants, exposing different capabilities. Lamp outputs are now supported for The Irritating Maze, bringing the game to life a little more. We've added four more Tiger LCD games, all based on licensed IP: Home Alone, Home Alone 2, Independence Day, and Transformers - Generation 2.

The Sega Model 2 improvements keep coming, with Rail Chase 2 now working. With its protection MCU emulated, Capcom's F-1 Dream is also working. MAME 0.197 adds support for alternate versions and bootlegs of a long list of systems, including Crazy Bonus 2002, Explosive Breaker, Fidelity Excel 68000, Lup Lup Puzzle, Pochi and Nyaa, Renegade, and Silkworm. In addition, there are graphical improvements to Sega ST-V/Saturn, and Magical Tetris Challenge.

There are some nice improvements for computer emulation this month, too. The Acorn Electron has improved video handling and support for the Mega Games Cartridge. The NEC PC-98 CD-ROM software list has been updated with the latest dumps and compatibility status - recent emulation improvements mean more fully supported titles. You can now boot HP-BASIC cartridges on the HP9000/340 series.




For Windows, Linux, macOS

http://mamedev.org/index.php

via http://www.emulation64.com/view/2855...197b-released/ ...

The multi consoles emulator gets a new release, heres the news:

Mednafen is a multi-game-system emulator, for various platforms, including emulation of the following systems:Atari Lynx,Famicom,GameBoy (Color),GameBoy Advance,Neo Geo Pocket (Color), NES(both NTSC and PAL),PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 (CD) and SuperGrafx,PC-FX,WonderSwan (Color).

Mednafen v1.21.2 Changelog:




For Windows

https://mednafen.github.io

via http://www.emulation64.com/view/2849/Mednafen-v1212/ ...

If you can find old DOS games on abandonware sites then this emulator is awesome for playing those classics, heres the release news:

DOSBox-X (2018/02/04) is released. DOSBox-x is a branch of DOSBox v0.74. DOSBox emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, joystick, modem, etc., necessary for running many old MS-DOS games that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux and FreeBSD.

DOSBox-X Changelog:
* 3Dfx OpenGL state cleanup
* output=opengl state cleanup
* Eliminated OpenGL output kludge that resets state by forcing SDL to shutdown and reinitialize video driver
* Other cleanup
* Losing focus in fullscreen mode now restores the window instead of minimizing it

download https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x

via http://www.emucr.com/2018/02/dosbox-x-20180204.html ...

The DOS Emulator for WIndows has had a new release, heres whats new:

DOSBox-X (2018/01/29) is released. DOSBox-x is a branch of DOSBox v0.74. DOSBox emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, joystick, modem, etc., necessary for running many old MS-DOS games that simply cannot be run on modern PCs and operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux and FreeBSD.

DOSBox-X Changelog:
* Linux builds no longer enable window resizing. The ability to
* resize will be added back when the emulator can better handle
* the user resizing the window.
* Windows and Linux now have synchronized build date and version
strings.
* Codebase begin transition to C++11
* The Windows maximize button no longer triggers fullscreen mode.
* Direct3D, OpenGL, and Surface outputs updated to fill the window
* in Windows builds when the window is maximized. If aspect
* correction is enabled, the Direct3D and OpenGL outputs will
* scale the DOS screen (with pillarbox/letterbox padding) to the
* correct aspect ratio and center within the maximized window.
* Fixed minor memory leak in MT32 (MUNT) synthesizer usage.
* Fixed uninitialized state issues with DMA channel 4 (cascade).
* IMGMOUNT now allows mounting the El Torito bootable floppy image
* of a CD-ROM drive as a drive letter and accessible (read only)
* filesystem. The FAT filesystem driver was fixed to support working
* from sources other than a direct file.
* PC-98 mode fixed not to register certain built-in commands and
* binaries to drive Z:\ that are not compatible with PC-98 mode.
* MEM.EXE in particular uses IBM PC-specific techniques to gather
* it's information, and is therefore incompatible with PC-98 mode.
* This can be verified from the source code as MEM.EXE was evidently
* borrowed from the FreeDOS project.
* EGA emulation (machine=ega) fixed to render 8bpp (256-color mode)
* instead of full 32bpp VGA output. EGA video output is limited to
* 64-color (6-bit) by the design of the video connector (2-bit R/G/B)
* therefore the full precision of 32bpp is not needed. This will also
* benefit video capture as the reduced color bit depth will result
* in smaller AVI files when recording gameplay.
* Added code to correctly detect 15-bit highcolor vs 16-bit highcolor
* display format support, despite SDL falsely indicating 16-bit
* color in both cases, which fixes incorrect colors on 15-bit display
modes.
* Fix up VGA DAC/palette mapping to display the emulator screen
* properly on 16-bit true color displays. Fixed off-by-one shift
* mistake in the DOSBox-X render scaler code that caused
* green and purple tints to colors on 16-bit true color displays.
* Add "Show menu bar" command to the Windows "system menu" so that
* the menu bar can be brought back after selecting "hide menu bar".
* Losing window focus while fullscreen no longer leaves the emulator
* window blank.
* Maximize/restore fullscreen cleanup.
* Removed DDRAW output.
* Fix FAT filesystem driver to clear "success" flag at all failure
* return points. This fixes problems where unrecognizeable FAT
* filesystems are nonetheless presented as a drive letter with
* garbled filenames, when IMGMOUNT should have displayed an error
instead.
* Fix FAT filesystem driver to allow PC-98 HDI images to load that
* have headcount == 0 in the BPB.
* Fix Adlib emulation not to register a mapper handler if emulation
* will jump to PC-98 mode, and fix mapper handler to check if Adlib
* emulation is loaded to avoid segfault.
* Add "recording" volume to control the loudness of the audio going
* out to capture (WAV, AVI, etc.)
* Separate mixer rendering from master volume. Apply master volume
* at the sound card only, leave audio at full volume for recording
* (WAV, AVI, etc. capture).
* dosbox.conf and command line option to log CON driver output to
* a file. Anything written to STDOUT/CON by a DOS application is
* logged this way.
* --time-limit command line option to put a time limit on the
* emulator, in seconds.
* Keyboard shortcut for the mapper UI no longer leaves keys "stuck"
* in the guest to cause problems when you exit the mapper UI.
* Fixed code mistake that caused OpenGL NB output when dosbox.conf
* specified output=opengl
* Mapper layout fixes:
* Shortcut buttons (on the right hand side of the UI) fixed to
* become two columns wide if the button text won't fit in one
column.
* Some shortcut button titles shortened.
* Mapper UI updated to show which bindings are being activated by
* hilighting buttons in the UI.
* Mapper UI modifier buttons indicate status through hilighting.
* Mapper UI joystick buttons and axes now use hilighting to indicate
* that there is input from the device.
* Mapper fix for 4-axis joysticks that may count zero buttons, and
* then crash (divide by zero) when the user pushes a button on the
* joystick device.
* BIOS emulation now allows you to specify binary blobs to execute
* in the guest system as part of startup. One can be specified to
* execute just after CPU reset/power-on, and the other just before
* booting to the DOS shell. THE BINARY BLOBS EXECUTE IN THE GUEST
* ENVIRONMENT AND NOT AS ARBITRARY CODE ON YOUR HOST. This option
* is provided ...

The main arcade emulator and probably the biggest emulator of all MAME has a new release, heres whats new etc:

MAME v0.194 is released. MAME stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. When used in conjunction with images of the original arcade game's ROM and disk data, MAME attempts to reproduce that game as faithfully as possible on a more modern general-purpose computer. MAME can currently emulate several thousand different classic arcade video games from the late 1970s through the modern era.

What's news in MAME:
...

The 3DO was an awesome console, wish i had never got rid of mine, heres some great news:

Phoenix v2.8.23 Debug is released. Phoenix is the all-new emulator 3DO that the developer developed over 6 years, the emulator has nothing to freedo.

Phoenix v2.8JAG Changelog:


!! Fixes in the object processor (earned by Rebooteroids)
!! Fixed a blitter in the inner loop part (a number of hangs was removed)
+ RISC processors reproduced a hardware error with writing to the flag register (compatibility is improved)
!! Fixed prefetching of commands in DSP
+ Added support for increased horizontal screen resolution
+ The scan is corrected (unnecessary parts of the screen are removed)
!! Alignment adjusted so that Protector SE works
+ Added options for emulating RISC processors in separate threads
+ Overall optimization performed

system Requirements:
P3, 128mb, windows xp/vista/7

download http://www.arts-union.ru/node/23

via http://www.emucr.com/2018/01/phoenix-v2823-debug.html ...

A late xmas pressie from the MAME team comes with a new release of the best arcade emulator on the planet, heres the release news:

Multiple arcade machine emulator for Windows has been updated. Changes:
It’s a bit late for Christmas, but MAME 0.193 is ready today. First of all, let’s get the disclaimers out of the way. We’ve switched to GCC 7 for Windows binaries, and started requiring SSE 2 (Pentium 4, Opteron, Athlon 64, or equivalent) for 32-bit Windows binaries. In the unlikely event that either of these changes causes issues for your use case, you’ll have to build from source. There’s currently an issue with overlay artwork not being displayed when using bgfx video output. Unfortunately we haven’t been able to address this in time for the release. As a workaround, we recommend using Direct3D or OpenGL video output for systems that use overlay artwork (this includes many handheld/tabletop games, Space Invaders, and the Vectrex console). You can track progress on this issue at MAME Testers.

And now, the stuff you’ve all been waiting for: the highlights. We’ve added support for a whole lot of Tiger handhelds based on licensed IP in this release, including the unmissable MC Hammer, Batman Forever, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Robocop 2. We’ve also added some of Tiger’s handheld renditions of popular games from other platforms, like Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter II, Battletoads, and Space Harrier II. On the arcade side, newly working games include prototypes Calcune and In Your Face, a location test version of Teki Paki, PGM2 titles Oriental Legend 2 and Knights of Valour 2 New Legend, and a number of beatmania IIDX titles.

Computer fans don’t need to feel left out this Christmas, either. The Agat-7 floppy drive emulation has been improved to the point where it’s considered working, and the internal HP-9845 printer is now supported. If you’re at all interested in the FM Towns, you need to give this release a try, as r09 has made numerous improvements to sprites and scrolling, and greatly improved keyboard behaviour. There are also some big software list updates across a number of systems.

download http://mamedev.org/

via http://forum.emu-russia.net/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=7021 ...