This week in emulation (24 Feb – 3 Mar): MAME updated to v0.195, Xenia (Xbox 360) progressing further, Cxbx-Reloaded (original XBOX) and uoYabause (Saturn) get better compatibility and more!
Nowadays, many people love playing older games on their modern devices. As a result of this, the emulation scene always has something interesting going on and this article is here to let you in on what’s been going on this week!
MAME updated to v0.195
MAME, the famous arcade emulator that emulates many different systems, has been updated to version 0.195 and this brings about even better compatibility. This month brought along:
- Improvements to BBC Electron games, the original version of Gigas Mark II, some Tiger handhelds and many more.
- As a result of these improvements, many more games are now compatible. Some of these are Robocop 3 and Street Fighter 2010 for Tiger handhelds.
- Namco A1 emulation has also been massively improved so now you get a better experience when playing Numan Athletics and X-Day 2
- Many bug fixes, code clean-ups and some ground work to support the XaviX platform, Olympia BOSS and other machines.
Xenia now has more compatible games!
If you’re an XBOX 360 fan, you’ll be happy to hear that the experimental Xenia emulator that has been around for over 2 years is still in development and is getting some love. Thanks to some YouTubers, we’ve been able to see these games in action:
- Catherine is playable and running at 30FPS provided you have adequate hardware. Shown by YouTuber ’emulators of game console’
- After the Catherine video was shared, some others got the idea to test more games. Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (shown by channel ‘Bahax emulation’) and other games such as Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 (show by channel ‘Emulator Team’) also seem to be compatible.
Hopefully, Xenia will continue on to be developed and get proper website and team like RPCS3!
uoYabause updated to 1.6.1 and Cxbx-reloaded gets better compatibility
In the absence of a proper changelog for uoYabause (Sega Saturn emulator) 1.6.1, reddit user ‘OldManKain’ decided to test out some games himself to see if anything changed. He found out that the following games are now emulated better:
- Panzer Dragoon Saga works perfectly
- Shining Force 3 and Virtua Fighter 2 now work perfectly and no longer need an emulated BIOS
- Burning Rangers no longer has washed out colours
- Other games such as Sega Rally now work properly and many games no longer need an emulated BIOS
Cxbx-reloaded, an emulator for the original XBOX, also got some better compatibility along the line. Various YouTubers such as JohnGodGames have noticed that exclusive games such as Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge and Sneak King got some improvements. They’ve also noted that games such as Zapper: One Wicked Cricket now work almost perfectly.
Other updates and conclusion
This week brought about even more emulation related news and some of these are:
- Development on CorgiDS, a DS emulator, was suspended
- Some new RetroArch cores are now available on the BuildBot. The cores incude nightly builds of Citra, Powder Toy and an OpenGL version of Desmume
- Updates to some emulators (or loaders) such as J2ME loader
If you wish to read more about the news featured in this article, simply check out the links below:
MAME v0.195 update post: http://mamedev.org/?p=454
Xenia compatibility videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3PDV3CrJKU (Catherine) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x8FJ2xcsng (Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation)
uoYabuse 1.6.1 compatibility Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/81jmj3/yaba_sanshiro_sega_saturn_emulator_161_for/
Cxbx-reloaded further compatibility and user testing Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/80xrsd/cxbxreloaded_more_titles_reach_ingame_status/
Thanks to r/emulation and its contributors for making articles such as these possible!
I hope DOA3 can be emulated one day!
Me and my friends spent countless hours playing DOA3 (among other fighting titles) back in the day. What an awesome game!
Glorious! Thanks for the update on the updates! 🙂
Just tested Sonic 06 on Xenia and it’s buggy as heck.
So, yeah, the emulator works perfectly. 😀
[Vita & Switch] Portable Final Burn Alpha: https://github.com/Cpasjuste/pfba/releases