emulators
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PS3 gets early SNES and Dreamcast emulation
Brings a tear to your eye, doesn't it? Sure, jailbreaks and homebrew titles are all well and good, but you know a console has really arrived when it starts emulating the classics. The ever-versatile Snes9x has been given a quick and dirty port to the newly jailbroken PS3, and while it's missing fancy features like "save states" and "UI," it's certainly looks to be doing the most basic task of playing games just fine. Meanwhile, the creator of famed Dreamcast emulator NullDC has a very rough version it up and running on the PS3 as well. We naturally have a long way to go, but this looks like a promising beginning.
Play SNES on your jailbroken iPad, with an iPhone as controller (video)
Not every Apple addict is lucky enough to own an iPad, iPhone and the means to jailbreak both, but if you belong to that elite group you're in for a treat: SNES HD for iPad. Built on ZodTTD's existing iPhone emulator, the new code has Super Mario World looking positively fantastic at the iPad's 768p. Better still, it works with the ControlPad app for iPhone, giving you look-alike wireless controls alongside the nostalgia of its ROM select screen. "Coming soon" to Cydia; see it in action after the break.
PlayStation emulator coming to Android, courtesy of yongzh and ZodTTD
If you don't know the names yongzh and ZodTTD, you can certainly be forgiven, but they're basically the cell phone emulation dream team -- where the former has been cranking out high-quality Nintendo and Sega emulators for Android, the latter is the one who brought PSX to iPhone, iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre. Today, we hear they're collaborating on a PSX emulator for Android that's running faster than the 3GS version -- before Froyo's even factored into the equation -- and that when his domination over the PSX is complete, ZodTTD intends to begin work on an Nintendo 64 emulator for Android, and then VLC. Without letting our enthusiasm get the better of us, let's just say it's an exciting time to be an Android owner, to say the least.
Visual Boy Zune brings Game Boy emulation to Zune HD (video)
Once hacked, the Zune HD's rabid fanbase wasted no time in ensuring the device could play Doom. Now, the ZuneBoards want to give it Zelda, too. User BackAtIt has taken the wrappings off the first working emulator for Zune, which is currently capable of playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs, but little else -- though this "Visual Boy Zune" app is ported from the same VisualBoyAdvance code that's enabled handheld emulation since 2004, it's in early alpha with quite a bit of work left to do. A recent update enabled state save emulation and a ROM selector, but there's no audio output, let alone Game Boy Advance support; BackAtIt says he'll need to rewrite much of the codebase to take advantage of the Zune HD's Tegra architecture. Still, it's never too early for a proof of concept video, and you'll find two blurry ones after the break -- unless you'd rather try it out for yourself at the source link. [Thanks, MK1000]
Keepin' it real fake: PSP-shaped Mini Game King makes classic emulation a royal decree
Flamboyantly attired in a flowing fuchsia scarf, the Mini Game King is probably guilty of countless copyright violations, but we don't care. The real question is whether this latest KIRF PSP can actually play games, and we're happy to say it does. Summoning the full might of its infringing power, the King can emulate eleven classic consoles and handhelds when it's not playing AV files from 4GB of internal memory, and its Chinese manufacturer triumphantly claims that the device "will make you happy unlimited" if you hook up an wireless six-axis controller as well. "This controller does not come with the console, you have to pay for it," reads the box, but we're dying to try "3Dthergame" and "Othergame" as soon as we can dig one up.
SNES Mario Kart power slides onto (non-jailbroken) iPad? (Update)
You're looking at Super Mario Kart, running on the Apple iPad, courtesy of emulation guru ZodTTD. When do you get to play it, faithful reader? Hard to tell. If, say, the iPad had already been jailbroken, all you'd need to do is wait for a suitably safe jailbreak method, download RockApp or Cydia, grab the snes4iphone emulator you see running above, and fire up the ROM. However, the intriguing thing about the above video is not that it's running an SNES game -- but that ZodTTD claims he compiled a special version of his snes4iphone emulator "specifically for non-jailbroken iDevices." Since Zod is almost certainly an official developer, it's possible he output the emulator as an .ipa file and is testing it on a fresh iPad using Apple developer tools, but if we're lucky, it could instead mean that someone has finally found a way to sideload apps onto a stock Apple device. Either way, peep multitouch karts sliding and shells flying on video, right after the break. Update: ZodTTD tells us that while he does have access to the jailbreak, he did have to flex developer muscle (and official dev tools) to make snes4iphone work on a non-jailbroken iPad. He says: The build of snes4iphone running on my iPad as seen in the video was actually based on an AppStore app I submitted called "snesty". Apple quickly rejected it right after pulling the NES emulator. I combined snesty with some snes4iphone features such as using the private API called CoreSurface. I used Apple developer tools and self signed it. Zod says that after Apple officially releases iPhone OS 4.0 and the existing jailbreak is distributed freely, he plans to create new versions of his emulators that run at the iPad's 1024 x 768 native resolution and support touchscreen controls, hardware keyboards and even external controllers should they come.
StyleTap finally brings Palm OS to your iPhone
Well it's been a long time coming, but now you can finally run your favorite Palm OS apps on your (jailbroken) iPhone. The good folks at StyleTap have taken that exciting demo we saw way back in May of 2008 and turned it into a Cydia-downloadable reality. As we said, you'll need to violate Apple's rules (and break Steve's heart) to get the emulator on your device, but once you do you'll be able to run Palm OS applications (compatible up to version 5.2), with support for native ARM apps, Audio recording and playback, virtual memory cards, and TCP/IP connectivity, amongst other features. If you've been hanging on to a Treo or other discontinued Palm product due to your sick dependency on a single program (or set of programs), here's your chance to break free. You'll also be breaking free of $49.99, which is what the folks at StyleTap are requesting for this pleasure, and keep in mind that if you upgrade using one of Apple's official number bumps, you're out of luck with your jailbroken software. Still, we find the existence of this to be totally badical, so hit the read link and bone up on your next purchase.
iJoyPad demoed on iPhone 3GS, full screen PSX games looking rather sweet
The iJoyPad has been floating around for a bit now, but we've never seen a full demo of the add-on gamepad. Well, it's back in a video demoing its performance on an iPhone 3GS, using the psx4iphone emulator in full screen glory. The demo shows off Wipeout XL and Ridge Racer performing quite quickly and smoothly, and the iJoyPad itself seems totally functional -- and while it's a tiny bit clunky looking as far as we're concerned, we'd still like to swipe one for ourselves. Hit the read link for the video.
The question of emulators
Gizmodo recently posted this video, which is beautiful to any PSX-era gamers: it's Final Fantasy VII running right on the iPhone, like buttah thanks to the 3GS hardware. How is this possible? Through the magic of emulation -- ever since computers got powerful enough to pretend to be other computers, people have resurrected old consoles and hardware by writing code that makes old games and software think its right at home in the computer it belongs in (an old NES system, a Genesis, or even a Playstation or Nintendo 64). As a result, by loading up ROMs into an emulator program, you can play old games you can't find (at least working) in the store any more.But the problem, as it usually does, lies in the legality. Even though those games are hard to find, companies still often own the copyrights on them (Square, for example, just released FFVII in an official emulator on the PSP, and they wouldn't be very happy with someone else releasing it on the iPhone). So while it's very easy for someone to write software that pretends to be an old NES (and there are lots of jailbroken apps around that will do just that), it's not easy to get all the rights and legal sign-offs to make it legit. Legit enough for Apple to keep it in the App Store, anyway. And while the video Gizmodo shows is awesome, and is possible on a jailbroken phone, it's not likely we'll ever see that app make it through Apple's approval. Not to mention that even when people jump through the legal hoops, Apple isn't happy with running other systems' code on their hardware anyway. Lame.That doesn't mean that the old games are gone forever -- there are certainly emulators of open-sourced or expired hardware on the App Store (here's one for Chip-8), and obviously there's a commercial reason for companies who do own the copyrights on popular games to bring them into the App Store officially. But as great as it would be to have a GBA emulator that automatically played any GBA game ROMs you loaded into it, that kind of stuff will have to stay in the jailbreak underground for now.
Chinavision CVFH-N03-4G portable emulator indulges your retro gaming cravings
Chinavision's CVFH-N03-4G may not have the catchiest titles, but it does boast an impressive array of emulators to satisfy your on-the-go retro gaming needs -- although we imagine those tiny shoulder buttons would prove irksome after a while. Support includes NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance, SNK Neo-Geo and Capcom arcade systems CPS1 and CPS2 -- sorry, no love for Atari 2600 or Commodore 64, here -- all accessible through a menu that in no way, shape, or form resembles Sony's Xross Media Bar. It also plays MP3, MPEG5, FLAC, WMV, AVI, and a few other audio / video formats, and reportedly can function as an e-book reader with text to speech capabilities -- y'know, just in case there weren't enough entities peeved at it being a beacon for ROMs. As for hardware, we're looking at a 2.8-inch QVGA LCD, 4GB internal memory, a mini-SD card slot, and AV out for the television. Buy one for $87.31, three for $83.82 apiece, or if you're feeling generous, pick up 50 for a more generous, undisclosed discount.[Via Retro Thing]
Swap Magic running Genesis emulator on PS3
Have you got Swap Magic back from the good ol' PS2 days? Have you got downloaded emulators? Well, thanks to this YouTube video, now you can see how to get an emulator up and running. Of course, it's a German video, so we have next to no idea what's going on -- but we notice there's some quick option-swapping whilst Swap Magic is loading up. This is far from the only video on YouTube displaying emulators on the PS3, but it's interesting to see just how simple the process appears. Anyone had any luck with this?
C64 emulator for iPhone
Unfortunately we don't have much more than a splash screen on this one, but Stuart Carnie sends word that he's used the Apple SDK to port a Commodore 64 emulator on to the iPhone. He has yet to put in a Save/Resume state mechanism, a way to browse for files and disks, or a virtual keyboard/joystiq to control it with, but the hard stuff is done, so by the time the App Store comes around, we may have a working C64 emu in there ready to go.As long as it's ok with Apple. In point of fact, we have no idea how any emulators might work in the App Store -- actually, we have no idea how any apps will get in the App Store. Sure, it would be cool to play the original versions of Sim City or Maniac Mansion or Elite, but without Apple's OK to let any of those on the platform, we may not be able to do so without jailbreaking the thing anyway. We'll see -- if Carnie, once his work is done, can't get an official emulator in the App Store, maybe we'll be able to try it out and put it to use in some other, less official way.
360 Genesis emulator in development
Ah the Sega Genesis. For many gamers, there are no fonder memories than the 16-bit days of yore. Altered Beast, Golden Axe, Sonic the Hedgehog. Hell, back then Sega even made decent RPGs (what the hell happened to those anyway?). Perhaps you find yourself in a similar nostalgic boat. Maybe you're sitting there with all of those incredibly legal backup copies of your old Genesis games and looking for a way to play them on your Xbox 360. If so, you may soon be in luck, as a CodePlex user by the name of GrahamStoneman is currently working on a Genesis emulator for the Xbox 360. The project is currently still in its early stages -- it doesn't actually play games at this point -- but GrahamStoneman hopes to create a fully functional and full speed emulator by the time the project is finished. Graham Stoneman is looking for collaborators, so you may want to check it out if you're interested.Our only question is how such an emulator will be executed on a 360? The project entry makes no mention of XNA (which has been used to create other emulators), so we're curious if the emulator is expected to run through Microsoft approved means or via an exploit.[Via DCEmu]
Game Boy emulator for PSP adds a dash of color
Fresh off the PSP homebrew press: an emulator that plays classic Game Boy games -- in full color! Created by a programmer called Brunni, the emulator is still in beta and isn't likely to be released for some time (Brunni likes things to be perfect). From the looks of it, this is more than a Super Game Boy-esque palette swap. A shaky-cam video (after the jump) shows Super Mario Land in crisp, colorful detail.
PSX-P: hackers trump Sony with first PS1 emulator for PSP
If you thought you were going to have to wait until the PS3 came out to rock Playstation 1 titles on your PSP, you've just been granted a reprieve. Well, kinda. MaxConsole is reporting that a clever hacker named Yoshihiro has just released the first PS1 emulator for your trusty portable console, and that the so-called PSX-P app will run on firmware versions below 2.71, with users of 1.5 and above obviously requiring the eLoader exploit. As a reminder, the only way you can legally use this program is if you already own a Playstation and a number of games, as it requires the SCPH1001.BIN PS1 BIOS file and ripped ISOs of your game discs -- which can be found elsewhere, but we like to keep it legit 'round here. So all is well and good, right? Eh, not really; since PSX-P currently lacks a dynamic decompiler recompiler, games apparently run super-slowly, in the neighborhood of 10fps: i.e. a good proof of concept for the homebrew community, but until Yoshihiro or one of his colleagues manages to achieve a playable frame rate, for now this breakthrough is little more than a frustrating tease.Update: Check out the YouTube vid![Via DCEmu, thanks wraggster]
Gamepark Holdings releases GP2X breakout board
Good news for GP2X owners: Gamepark Holdings (not to be confused with Gamepark, makers of the similarly-named XGP) has just released a breakout board that will turn your handheld console into a fully-functional, albeit underpowered, home PC. The board plugs into the EXT port on your device and features audio and video outs for hooking up an external monitor and sound system, four USB ports for attaching keyboards, mice, and joysticks, and RS232 and Jtag connectors for reflashing your firmware or running a debugging script on software you've developed. Although the kit -- available now for just $46 -- can be employed to create a home DivX or digital audio system, it will probably be most widely used in building emulation cabinets around the open-source, Linux-powered player. [Via DCEmu]
