One of the most ambitious emulation projects is starting to get close to fruition. Combining a beautiful interface which implements some of the best emulators, it will be a total revolution for emulation on the Mac. More here.

Yeah, "soon" like archive.vg

I pulled the latest build from Git - it looks awesome! Great work.

One question: is there any mechanism to set emulator-specific preferences? (For example, I can't figure out how to get OpenEmu's VBA emulator to have some settings that it probably needs -- short of changing the source code of the plugin)

We haven't exposed the core settings for the various emulators yet.
This won't be there for the 1.0 'new ui' release... but it will in a future release.

For those who haven't had a chance to check OpenEmu out for themselves, Shawn Wilkins did a cool preview/hands-on thingy over on Culture Milk.

Looks really cool!
Just one question, out of pure curiosity: The package artworks, are they from the US or European versions?
I always thought that US versions had the elliptical Nintendo seal of quality, but there is Contra with the round European seal and over here it was released as Probotector with robots instead of humans.

Did Nintendo change that during the NES era (I have some US Gameboy games that also feature the elliptical seal) or are all of those pictures custom made for the screenshot/app?

Mungo, good question. Archive.vg is serving the images to OpenEmu, and right now the images in the Archive database are somewhat poorly categorized. This is simply because Archive has pulled images from many different sources and we plan on relying on the community to help sort. From testing, I can tell you that the vast majority of images are the US version, however the system does fallback on other regions when no US version is found. One goal for Archive after launch is much better localization (including through our API which would hopefully mean OpenEmu would be able to have you set your region and the appropriate information will be pulled).

Niemann,

I was actually thinking we could give the appropriate picture based on the MD5 and rom name.

Thanks Nieman.
I have a couple more questions, not sure if it's too early to ask them or if I should just wait for the first public release.

1. Will I be able to turn off all kinds of filters? I hate bilinear filtering for example, I don't want my emulated games blurry/smooth, I like the pixels to be as clear as possible.

2. Will it be possible to map emulator functions to controller buttons? (Loading/Saving save states, rewind, fast-forward, etc.)

3. If there are onscreen messages like "Switched to Fullscreen", "Save state loaded", etc will it be possible to turn them off?

I can answer some of this...

1. Yes, there are a lot of different filter options. Nearest Neighbour is the one you want though... and its the default.

2. Not presently... this will come. (rewind / fast forward won't be in the 1.0 release).

3. There are no fullscreen messages cluttering up your game. Only the 'Gameplay HUD bar' appears when you move your mouse. (which has settings to turn it off completely).

Perfect, thank you!

Does OpenEmu provide anything in the way of ROM organisation? In a similar vein to iTunes' automatic folder creation etc.

I've always been pretty messy with my files, so an option for something like that would be helpful.

Gutted I missed the BETA

OpenEmu organises your ROMs in two ways...

1. It recognises which system or platform the ROM belongs too, and you can find it in the appropriate system library. (i.e. Add Super Mario 3.nes and it will appear in the 'Nintendo NES' library with other NES games)

2. We allow the user to create 'Collections', which are essentially the same as the playlist metaphor in iTunes. This will allow you to have a 'collection' of select games across multiple platforms and systems. (i.e. 'My Favorite Racing Games', or 'Side Scrolling Shooters')

Hope that helps!

Excellent, thanks. Can it also create folders and copy ROMs to them like the iTunes Media Folder?

Yes!
iTunes-like file organization of the Roms is there. You can even determine where this organized Rom folder should exist.

I've just spotted an emulator in the wild called "OpenEmulator".

It's going to get very confusing if there's an "OpenEmu" and an "OpenEmulator".

Might it be worth coming up with a new name?

That's already been in the DB for a little while (complete with a 'not to be confused with' note). If OpenEmu lives up to the hype, I expect the similarly-named application could fade into obscurity, unless it highlights how it differs.

Doesn't matter how good your product is, IMHO; it's pretty damn arrogant to effectively take the name of another project for your own. IANAL, but I rather suspect that that would cause legal action in the commercial world.

Were the OpenEmu team aware of OpenEmulator before naming their emulator? I can't imagine that it was arrogance that prompted their choice.

EDIT: Additionally, both emulators might benefit from names that either clarify what it is they emulate (multiple consoles/old Apple comps) or use non-generic, 'inventive' names. This is sort of the approach taken by the Bannister emulators e.g. Genesis Plus = Genesis (clear), Handy = Atari Lynx ('inventive').

I have to agree with Richard on this one. In light of the previous app with an almost identical name (yours is just a shortening of their app's name), it may be best to come up with a different name. While it may not be on the same level as John Stiles' old game Skittles, which had to be renamed to Candy Crisis when Mars Co. forced him to do so (for obvious reasons), it'd still be the right thing to do in this case.

Assuming that another app with pretty much the same name will fade into obscurity if yours is good enough is indeed arrogant though. A new name really should be considered.