Enlarge / An Analogue Pocket running Super Mario World on an openFPGA core with the scanline filter enabled. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

We've got a soft spot for the Analogue Pocket , the premium portable game console that melds 2020s technology with the design of the original Game Boy. Since its release, Analogue has added some new capabilities via firmware updates, most notably when it added support for emulating more consoles via its OpenFPGA platform in the summer of 2022 . This allows the FPGA chip inside of the pocket to emulate the hardware of other systems, in addition to the portable systems the Pocket supports natively.

But aside from finalizing and releasing that 1.1 firmware, 2023 was mostly quiet for Pocket firmware updates. That changed in December when the company released not one but two major firmware upgrades for the Pocket that slipped under our radar during the holidays. These updates delivered a combination of fixes and long-promised features to the handheld, which Analogue has been re-releasing in different color palettes now that the original versions are more consistently in stock.

The most significant update for OpenFPGA fans is the ability to use display filters with third-party FPGA cores. Part of the appeal of the Pocket is its 1,600×1,440 screen, which is sharp enough to perfectly re-create the huge chunky pixels of the original Game Boy screens. By default, most FPGA cores now get access to a similarly high-quality CRT screen filter named after the Sony Trinitron TV , adding a touch of retro-blurriness to the sharp edges of 8- and 16-bit games. I've seen lots of bad, unconvincing scanline filters in retro game re-releases, and this isn't one of them.

Enlarge / The Analogue 3D is the company's next FPGA-based retro console, but the company isn't showing the whole thing off yet. (credit: Analogue)

Retro game enthusiasts will know Analogue for its consoles’ dedication to accuracy. From the original Analogue Nt , which used chips harvested from broken NES consoles, to the Analogue Pocket , which uses an FPGA chip to accurately emulate handheld hardware, the company has always focused on modern hardware that can play actual game cartridges while preserving the idiosyncrasies of the original game consoles.

Today Analogue is announcing the Analogue 3D , a console that will use an FPGA to run games made for 1996’s Nintendo 64. Because FPGAs emulate consoles at a hardware level, they're much better at replicating all of the specific quirks of the original hardware, making games look and run like they would have on the original consoles without any performance problems or rendering inaccuracies. Like Analogue's other home console replicas, the Analogue 3D is designed to play original cartridges and not ROM files, and the cartridge slot is region-free, so it'll work with games from all over the world.

Analogue didn't reveal a price or a specific launch date for the Analogue 3D, just that the console will show up at some point in 2024. It also didn't show off the design of the console itself or the controller, though it did tease both—if you look closely, you'll see an 8BitDo logo on the controller, the same company that made Analogue's replica controllers for its Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx retro consoles.

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  The Atari 2600+ and joystick. [credit: Atari ]

If you read about Atari issuing a new cartridge of a new Atari 2600 game and your first thought was, "What am I supposed to play this on?" there's an answer for you. Today, the company announced the Atari 2600+ , a $130 retro console with a cartridge slot that can accept vintage and modern Atari 2600 and 7800 cartridges, plus a $25 CX40+ joystick and $40 CX30+ paddle controller bundle that appear to more-or-less faithfully re-create the originals.

All items are currently available for pre-order and will ship in November 2023. The console includes a 10-in-1 game cartridge with Adventure , Combat , Missile Command , Haunted House , Yars' Revenge , and a few other 2600 games.

The Atari 2600+ takes its design cues from the early-1980s revision of the original console, with fake wood grain on the front and four control switches. But Atari says the console is only 80 percent as large as the original console, "making it easier to fit into modern living spaces." The console also has an HDMI output and uses USB-C for power.

Enlarge / CrossOver 23 on macOS Ventura. (credit: Samuel Axon)

Codeweavers took to its official forums today to announce the release of CrossOver 23.0.0, the new version of its software that aims to make emulating Windows software and games easier on macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS systems.

CrossOver 23 has updated to Wine 8.0.1, and it's loaded with improvements across all its platforms. The most notable, though, is the addition of DirectX 12 support under macOS via VKD3D and MoltenVK. This marks the first time most Mac users have had access to software that relies on DirectX 12; previously, only DirectX 11 was supported, and that went for other software solutions like Parallels, too.

This new release adds "initial support" for geometry shaders and transforms feedback on macOS Ventura. Codeweavers claims that will address a lot of problems with "missing graphics or black screens in-game" in titles like MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries , Street Fighter V , Tekken 7 , and Octopath Traveler .

Enlarge / Sorry, Dolphin fans. No Steam release for you. (credit: Dolphin Team)

A few months ago, the developers behind the Wii/GameCube emulator Dolphin said they were indefinitely postponing a planned Steam release , after Steam-maker Valve received a request from Nintendo to take down the emulator's "coming soon" page. This week, after taking time to consult with a lawyer, the team says it has decided to abandon its Steam distribution plans altogether.

"Valve ultimately runs the store and can set any condition they wish for software to appear on it," the team wrote in a blog post Thursday . "In the end, Valve is the one running the Steam store front, and they have the right to allow or disallow anything they want on said storefront for any reason."

The Dolphin team also takes pains to note that this decision was not the result of an official DMCA notice sent by Nintendo. Instead, Valve reached out to Nintendo to ask about the planned Dolphin release, at which point a Nintendo lawyer cited the DMCA in asking Valve to take down the page.

Enlarge / Tools with great potential often require great effort to unlock. In Zelda games, that usually means a number of Heart Containers. In the emulation underground, you need title keys, shader caches, hotfixes, and a willingness to download from some sketchy sites. (credit: Nintendo/YouTube)

Perhaps woken by news of its next premier first-party title already looking really impressive on emulators , Nintendo has moved to take down key tools for emulating and unlocking Switch consoles, including one that lets Switch owners grab keys from their own device.

Simon Aarons maintained a forked repository of Lockpick , a tool (along with Lockpick_RCM ) that grabbed the encryption keys from a Nintendo Switch and allowed it to run officially licensed games. Aarons tweeted on Thursday night that Nintendo had issued DMCA takedown requests to GitHub, asking Lockpick, Lockpick_RCM, and nearly 80 forks and derivations to be taken down under section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , which largely makes illegal the circumvention of technological protection measures that safeguard copyrighted material.

Nintendo's takedown request (RTF file) notes that the Switch contains "multiple technological protection measures" that allow the Switch to play only "legitimate Nintendo video game files." Lockpick tools, combined with a modified Switch, let users grab the cryptographic keys from their own Switch and use them on "systems without Nintendo's Console TPMs" to play "pirated versions of Nintendo's copyright-protected game software." GitHub typically allows repositories with DMCA strikes filed against them to remain open while their maintainers argue their case.

Nouvelle mise à jour pour le meilleur émulateur Saturn.

Pour les nostalgiques Sega et amoureux de l'émulation.

#fr, #JeuxVideo, #Sega, #Emulation, #Kronos, #RetroGaming

Enlarge / The Switch Online Game Boy Advance emulator will look and feel familiar if you've used the NES, SNES, Genesis, or N64 emulators. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Nearly a year after apparently-Nintendo-developed Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulators for the Switch leaked online, Nintendo has finally made those emulators available to Switch Online subscribers. All subscribers can download the Game Boy emulator, which includes a combination of classic Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Game Boy Advance emulation, like Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis emulation, is exclusive to the more expensive "expansion pack" tier of the service.

Nintendo's first-party emulation efforts don't have an amazing reputation, and the N64 emulation, in particular, has suffered from accuracy issues and other bugs in the past (though Nintendo has addressed many of the problems that existed at launch). But the emulators for older and less-taxing-to-emulate 2D systems have generally been pretty good, and both Game Boy emulators fall into that group.

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  A selection of Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Game Boy Color games always play in color, even if the original games were playable in the standard Game Boy. [credit: Andrew Cunningham ]

The user interfaces for both apps will be familiar to you if you've used any of these other first-party emulation apps on the Switch: a screen full of games (not very full at this point; per usual, the selection is limited at launch and will slowly expand over time) in a customizable grid. Zip over to the menu on the left to switch between single-player and offline and online multiplayer modes. But it's the Settings menu that we're most interested in.

Enlarge / Among the many upgrades made possible by this project, A Link to the Past is now a game you can Alt+Tab out of when a supervisor comes near. (credit: Nintendo / Kevin Purdy)

It's a sad reality among retro emulation enthusiasts: You often spend far more time crafting your perfect setup than playing the games. You get your controller, linear filtering, sound engine, and everything else just right, and then you discover that your favorite game of yesteryear is far slower and more annoying than you remember.

That's why the hard work of reverse engineers is so valuable. Hobbyist decompilers have worked to turn ROM binaries into thousands of lines of human-readable code , allowing for far deeper audiovisual upgrades, features, and other tweaks. It's resulted in some impressive new takes on games, including Ocarina of Time , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Grand Theft Auto . And unlike many fan-based projects, reverse engineering generally passes legal muster as long as no copyrighted assets are distributed along with the decompiled code.

And they often far outshine game publishers' official offerings , which usually amount to little more than officially licensed, lightly tweaked emulation.