Richard Bannister

I've spent a lot of time over the last few months managing the production of a new CD for the choir of Saint Bartholomew's Church, Dublin, Ireland. The disc contains a selection of choral music from the traditional to the modern, including works by Archer, Biebl, Chilcott, Darke, Gibbons, Lindley, Mozart, Parry, Scholefield, Stainer, and Stanford. It even has a solo part sung by me, though that might not be a selling point!

We have a break-even point of approximately seven hundred copies, so if anyone is even remotely interested I'd encourage you to check it out. It is also available on iTunes.

 

There is no way for me to update BSNES to the latest version at the moment, as the code requires a C++0x compiler which is not currently available for Lion. Once this changes I will see what I can do.

 

All current releases on this site except Cacophony are believed to be compatible with Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Those having difficulties should make sure that they have the latest updates before e-mailing me.

 

This time last year I was privileged to be involved in the production of a CD of music and readings for Christmas. We have a number of copies left to sell; if anyone is interested I'd encourage you to read more, listen to some samples, and perhaps buy your copy via christmas.stbartholomews.ie. Please spread the word; thanks!

 

A new version of Emulator Enhancer is now available. This release introduces no functional changes, but it does fix some minor bugs and modernises some areas of the code that have remained unchanged for the last decade.

Of rather more interest to readers will be a new version of BSNES. This release officially introduces the accuracy and performance cores, alongside the previously-existing compatibility core. The accuracy core allows the most accurate SNES emulation ever seen, with every last processor running at the lowest possible clock synchronization level. The performance core allows slower computers the chance to finally use BSNES. It is capable of attaining full frame rate on all official Intel Macs.

The accuracy core is absolutely not meant for casual gaming at all. It is meant solely for getting as close to 100% perfection as possible, no matter the cost to speed. It should only be used for testing, development or debugging. The compatibility core is identical to previous releases of BSNES, but is now roughly 10% faster. This is the default and recommended core for casual gaming.

The performance core contains an entirely new S-CPU core, with range-tested IRQs; and uses blargg's heavily-optimized S-DSP core directly. Although there are very minor accuracy tradeoffs to increase speed, I am confident that the performance core is still more accurate and compatible than any other SNES emulator. The S-CPU, S-SMP, S-DSP, SuperFX and SA-1 processors are all clock-based, just as in the accuracy and compatibility cores; and as always, there are zero game-specific hacks. Its compatibility is still well above 99%, running even the most challenging games flawlessly.

A future release will embed all three emulation cores into one binary, but that will involve some code refactoring that would have delayed this update for several weeks. Please note that saved states are not transportable between emulation cores, and in the current release attempting to load a state in the wrong core will give a generic error message.

 

A new version of BSNES is now available. Changes in this release include:

• Support for cheat codes.
• Support for Super Gameboy titles.
• Saved state support for SuperFX and SA-1 titles.
• Decryption of SPC7110 games.
• Various accuracy improvements.

Note that this update now requires an Intel Mac. BSNES hasn't been able to reach full speed on PowerPC machines for several releases, and as this update improves accuracy further (at the expense of performance) I've decided that it is no longer worth supporting obsolete hardware. Sorry folks; it's officially time to upgrade!

 

Emulator Enhancer has been updated to v2.3.2. The main change in this release is an updated eSellerate library, which fixes some minor issues experienced by my registered users. However, the new build also adds support for more than eight saved game folders, a change which will be required by the next update of BSNES, which will hopefully be released in the next week or so. Please note that this update is no longer compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier; blame Apple for that one!

Meanwhile, ViBE has been updated again to support the so-called final release of Bound High. I've also added support for rendering one eye only for those who wish to play without using 3D glasses.

 

The early demise of the Nintendo Virtual Boy meant that quite a number of promising game titles never made it out of prototype stage. Most of these will likely never see the light of day. I was thrilled to discover this evening that two versions of Bound High have recently appeared on the Internet. Both are bad dumps, but I've just released a new version of ViBE which can play them. Enjoy!

 

M1 has been updated to v0.7.9a1, the first release in over three years. The new release supports over six hundred new games, and better yet, it is now open source. Enjoy!

 

Jum52 has been updated to bring it in sync with the latest version for Windows. The major new features are support for saved states, PAL timings, and voice emulation. Please note that this update now requires OS X 10.5 or later.

In other news, the next version of BSNES, assuming that it's possible to resolve the various compiler issues that I'm having, is expected to be the final version released by me on the Mac. Byuu has a working Mac port of his own that will become the standard version for those who want the absolute latest code. I'm hoping to make my final release one that everyone will be pleased with; watch this space.

 

The new update to BSNES is proving more fraught than I'd have liked, so for the moment I'm releasing an update to Genesis Plus. The sole new feature is support for Game Genie cheat codes. Please note that this update now requires OS X 10.5 or later.