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News Roundup: July 10 - August 4

Lots of updates this month...

Apple has released the next major update to its Mac operating system. Mac OS X Lion, which is currently available only through the Mac App Store, serves as a great indication of Apple's future direction, and not just because it integrates the most successful aspects of iOS. There are changes afoot in the world of personal computing; Lion may well be both a beginning and an end. Check out John Siracusa's incredible 19-page review on Ars Technica for a complete breakdown.

As always with major system upgrades, due caution is advised -- backup your system, research app compatibility, and be prepared for problems. Many older emulators will likely no longer work, as Lion drops PowerPC support altogether. Richard Bannister notes that all current releases of his emulators and other programs are "believed to be compatible," with the sole exception of audio editor Cacophony. Many others, as you'll see, have put out updates to address Lion compatibility.

Apple also put out refreshes to its MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and Cinema Display product lines. These new models all sport the high-speed Thunderbolt I/O technology. Reports indicate that the next-generation Intel processors inside the latest MacBook Airs and Mac Minis turn the computers into speed demons, destroying the previous models in performance tests.

Boxer, a DOSBox-powered DOS emulator, has reached version 1.1.1. The 1.1 update added support for joysticks, USB/Bluetooth controllers, and Joypad, in addition to providing OS X Lion compatibility (including a full-screen mode), improved game importing, and bugfixes. 1.1.1 improves the joystick performance and support, fixes a few Lion bugs, removes Growl support, adds support for .IMG and .VFD disk images, and more. See here for the full list of changes, or download Boxer from its official website.

Read on for more emulator updates, including new versions of Sweet16, Hatari, Virtual T, ScummVM, and more.

Dapplegrey, a DOSBox front-end, has reached version 2.29. This update includes a couple of bugfixes, enables game information importing from file FILE_ID.DIZ, and adds an OS X Lion-specific behaviour. See the official website for more details.

After more than two years of inactivity, TRS-80 emulator Virtual T has been updated to version 1.5. Changes include a modified organisation of directory structure and updated emulation timing control, as well as the addition of custom LCD/Bezel colours and REX memory module emulation. Check out the official Virtual T website for more information about the emulator and a download link.

Apple IIGS emulator Sweet16 picked up its first and second updates of the year last month. Version 2.3 lists 19 changes, including support for vertical scrolling with mouse wheels, a rewrite of the sound code, lots of bugfixes, and a few interface tweaks. Version 2.3.1 adds support for horizontal mouse wheel scrolling, improves the reliability of vertical mouse wheel scrolling, and fixes a bug with the emulator speed overlay during video window resizing. Check out the Sweet16 website for more information and a download link.

Atari ST/STE/TT/Falcon emulator Hatari has received its first update in a little more than a year, with the release of version 1.5.0. Changes include precise emulation of the number of frames per second, improved sound and DSP emulation, expanded functionality of the built-in debugger, and more. See the full list of changes and bugfixes here. Hit up the official Hatari website to learn more about the emulator.

Sony PlayStation 2 emulator PCSX2 is still not ready for the long-promised 0.9.7 update, but developer zedr0n has released a new PAD plugin. This plugin (dubbed OnePAD) is now the official plugin for the Linux version of PCSX2, and is expected to offer better compatibility. You can download OnePAD, and learn more about PCSX2 for Mac, at the emulator's official website.

Dragon emulator XRoar has been updated to version 0.26. The Changelog describes more resilient fast tape loading and a fix to SAM-VDG interaction. See the official XRoar website for more information.

Mupen64Plus front-end wxMupen64Plus has been updated. The new release offers one-window mode, improved UI, and improved full-screen mode. You can grab a download link, or learn more about the front-end, at SpeedofMac's wxMupen64Plus page.

Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin continues to get multiple updates a week. These updates are effectively development builds, so due caution is advised. You can grab the latest development build, or the current release build (3.0), from the Dolphin download page.

In news we missed last month, NES/Famicom emulator FCEUX has been updated to version 2.1.5. The new release overhauls the GTK2 GUI, fixes a number of sound issues, and more. See here for the complete list of changes. Those new to the emulator should note that its big selling point is the ability to make/play game replays, but it requires X11 or XQuartz. SpeedofMac has kindly taken the initiative of compiling the latest builds, which you can get from his website. See the official FCEUX website for more details about the emulator, or to grab the source code. There is also a discussion thread about the emulator on the MacScene forums.

GameBase64 Browser, a front-end for the GameBase64 database of Commodore 64 games, has been updated to version 1.0.3. This update fixes rendering issues that occur when running earlier versions on OS X Lion. See the official website for more details.

Commodore 64 emulator VirtualC64 has been updated to version 0.9.5.1. This update fixes a crash-on-startup bug. The previous version (0.9.5), which was also released last month, added OS X Lion support, fixed a number of bugs, and added "yet another startup animation." See here for the full list of changes. As always, you can get more information about the emulator -- and download the latest build -- via its official website. [Thanks to glicel for the tip.]

Arcade emulator MAME, along with its Mac-specific port SDLMAME, has been updated to version 0.143u2. See here http://mamedev.org/updates/whatsnew_0143u2.txt for the list of changes and bugfixes. Head to the official MAME website for more information about the emulator, or grab a binary from the SDLMAME website.

ScummVM, an interpreter for many point-and-click adventure games, has been updated to version 1.3.1. The Release Notes mention improved audio device detection and fallback, fixes to crash bugs experienced when playing some games, and added detection entries for the Macintosh versions of some SCI games. Head over to the official ScummVM website for details and a download link.

Those of you hoping to one day play Riven: The Sequel to Myst as a native Mac OS X application can stop waiting -- Riven X will allow you to do just that. The latest update to Riven X -- released back in early July -- drops support for version of Mac OS X prior to 10.6.8 while improving the engine and performance. Features still to be implemented include Zip mode and the flies special effect. You can learn more about the project here or at its Launchpad site.

Multi-system emulator and virtualisation tool QEMU has been updated to version 0.15.0-rc2. You can check out the rather lengthy Changelog here. Head over to the official QEMU website for source code.

CodeWeavers has released updates to both CrossOver and CrossOver Games. CrossOver 10.1.0 and 10.1.1 fix a number of issues with OS X Lion, while CrossOver Games 10.1.1 and 10.1.2 provide the same fixes along with improvements and updates to CrossTies. See here and here for the changelogs of CrossOver and CrossOver Games, respectively.

Open-source x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualisation tool VirtualBox finally stepped out from maintenance mode to provide a major update. Version 4.1.0 adds support for cloning of virtual machines, raises the memory limit for 64-bit hosts to 1TB, and more, along with a plethora of bugfixes and minor tweaks. You can check out the full list of changes here.

Got any news tips? Let us know on the forums.