Articles tagged with: sixtyforce

News Roundup: May 11 - June 14

mossy_11 on Sunday, 15 June 2014. Posted in News

Sixtyforce lives! After many years of development and a trickle of releases, Gerrit Goossen's Nintendo 64 emulator has hit the big 1.0 milestone. Additions include improved controller configuration and support, a new timing mode, new low-level graphics processing, and more, while there are also a bunch of bugfixes. See the release notes for full details. And remember to pay for a licence if you'd like to see better Nintendo 64 emulation on the Mac.


Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin has shed its 32-bit support — although that shouldn't have much of an impact on us Mac users. Development highlights from May include a wide-reaching fix for indirect texture coordinate computation, fixed external frame buffer width/height handling, improved DVD seek timing, and a change to frsqrte and fres calculations (they were too precise) that fixes scores of problems. The latest dev build at the time of writing is 4.0-1859, with the most recent stable release dating back to 4.0.2 from the start of the year.


Macintosh II A/UX emulator Shoebill has been updated to version 0.0.3. This release adds support for PRAM and full-screen mode, plus you can now restart/shutdown the virtual machine without it crashing, and Shoebill uses less CPU when A/UX's scheduler idles. Get it from the Shoebill GitHub page, and follow the discussion on E-Maculation.


Game Boy emulator DMGBoy got a major update in May. Version 2.0 adds Game Boy Color compatibility and a GUI debugger, as well as a nifty 3D model of the original Game Boy that you can play your games on (see video below). You can also now resize the window in real time, with no change in aspect ratio. On my Mac it was throwing up wxWidgets errors on run, but it seems to work just fine if you suppress these. Get it from the DMGBoy Google Code page.

Continue reading for more a series of minor emulator updates, including new Mednafen, Bizhawk, and Bochs builds.

News Roundup: November 2 - December 27

mossy_11 on Monday, 30 December 2013. Posted in News

After years of development, OpenEmu, the frontend to rule them all, is finally out in an official capacity. Combining Apple-like skeuomorphic design and polish with iTunes-style ROM organisation, support for a plethora of gamepads, and a plugin system that integrates individual emulator engines as “cores”, OpenEmu mostly (it has its flaws, I’d argue) lives up to expectations as the emulator for the rest of us. The official release (available here) comes in two flavours: a 1.0 build with around a dozen 8-bit and 16-bit consoles supported, and an experimental build that adds a bunch more systems and cores (including PSP, Saturn, and N64) that aren’t quite stable enough for the prime time. Congrats to Mucx and company on the overwhelmingly positive reception it’s had so far.


Nintendo 64 emulator Sixtyforce has been updated to version 0.9.8. This release brings Retina support, PAL video timing, a new full screen mode, loads of bug fixes, and “several” major optimisations. Download it from the official Sixtyforce website, and remember to register to encourage Gerrit to take more time out of his acting career to work on it.


After yet another lengthy delay, Sega Saturn emulator Yabause is back with a big release obscured by an incremental version number. Yabause 0.9.13 adds support for mdf/mds dumps, CD+G, and the Saturn mouse and 3D control pad. It also improves the user interface and emulation, gets Netlink up and running, adds SH2 debugging features, and fixes CD audio emulation. The devs are actively recruiting translators and technical writers to help out, too. Learn about all this, and more, at the Yabause website.

Continue reading for Mac floppy emulator hardware and more updates, including new PPSSPP, Sweet16, Mednafen, Mini vMac, and more.

News Roundup: September 16 - November 7

mossy_11 on Wednesday, 07 November 2012. Posted in News

Sorry it’s up so late. I’ve been busy meeting deadlines.


We’ve been mighty spoiled by Sixtyforce developer Gerrit recently. The 0.9.6 update reported on last time was quickly followed by 0.9.7, with automatic update notifications added alongside a slew of bug fixes. Get it from the Sixtyforce (or 64ce, as I hear the cool kids call it) website. And don’t forget to register to support further development.


SpeedofMac’s website went down a while back, and hosting troubles led to him moving to ConsoleEmu.com. Head there for the same downloads and information about (NES and later) console emulators that you came to expect from the previous incarnation, now with a more platform-agnostic outlook.


BSNES is no more; byuu has renamed his super-accurate Super Nintendo emulator Higan after adding multi-system support. You can now also use it to play NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS games. The source code is Linux only at this stage. No word yet on whether Richard Bannister is in any way equipped to port it to the Mac. This is the official Higan page.

Continue reading for more emulator news, including major updates to FS-UAE and zxsp and new versions of OpenMSX, ARAnyM, Stella, Bizhawk, and more.

News Roundup: August 15 - September 15

mossy_11 on Sunday, 16 September 2012. Posted in News

Nintendo 64 emulator Sixtyforce got a rare update recently. Version 0.9.6 adds code-signing, 64-bit Intel support, bug fixes, updated memory protection, USB controller hot-pluggable support, faster texture conversions, basic Conker’s Bad Fur Day support, and loads more. It also drops PowerPC support. See here for the full release notes. Limtc on the forums has reported less jerky performance and better sound. Grab it here, and be sure to let us know how it performs for you. 


Parallels 8 has been released. New features include full Mountain Lion integration—full screen, Mission Control, multi-touch gestures, Launchpad, Notification Center, etc—a presentation wizard, dictation, shared bluetooth, shared trash, drag and drop attachments in Outlook, and some other stuff. You can run Mountain Lion as a guest OS, too (bring on the infinite recursion). It also comes with the usual performance improvements and enhanced security. Check it out here.


There’s heavy competition, though, as VMware Fusion 5 dropped this month. It comes “loaded with more than 70 new features.” There’s Launchpad integration, AirPlay Mirroring, Notification Center support, a new UI, Mountain Lion guest support, Windows 8 “optimization,” USB 3 support, “near-native” performance, improved battery life, faster 3D graphics, one-click snapshots, a new Linux 3D graphics driver, and a new “embedded learning center.” You can peruse the full sales pitch here.


Continue reading for more updates, including new versions of DBGL, VirtualBox, QEMU, Bochs, and others, and an upcoming FS-UAE 2.0 release.

Fashionably Late News Round-up

mossy_11 on Wednesday, 07 April 2010. Posted in News

Here’s some of the news you might have missed over the past month or-so:

Nintendo64In news from just a few days ago, the Mac-only Nintendo 64 emulator Sixtyforce has risen from the dead. After more than two years without an update, author Gerrit posted a new version on his birthday earlier this week. The update brings major improvements to the Cocoa interface, graphics and game compatibility, sound, and more. Download it here, and be sure to check out the MacScene discussion topic for more details (thanks erise for the tip).

123622-iphone_os_4_sneak_peekThe iPad launched in the United States less than a week ago, but is believed to have already sold more than 500,000 units alongside many favourable reviews. In less than 24 hours we’ll get a better idea of the iPad’s potential, as Apple will unveil iPhone OS 4.0 at an invite-only preview event.

steam_logo1In March, Valve officially announced that the Steam gaming service and Source engine would be coming to the Mac this month, with the Mac now considered a “tier-1 platform” by the company -- which means simultaneous release of future games for Mac and Windows. The announcement drove interest from other developers, including Gas Powered Games and DICE. Applications for the Steam on Mac beta are now open for anyone willing to tell Valve their life story (link). Check out the MacScene community's reaction here.

More emulator updates after the break.