AEP Emulation Page reports that BeebEm, the multi-platform BBC Micro and Master 128 emulator, has been updated to version 3.1 beta 4. Below are the changes in this version.

- Added econet emulation. Still a few issues to iron out, it does not work in Master 128 mode yet but the Acorn level 1 file server software works in Model B mode. Note that the default DFS ROM in Model B mode has been changed to the Acorn DNFS ROM. (Note also that TORCHNET works using the Torch Z80 Co-Processor)

- Added some more command line options. The hardware model and tube support can be specified on the command line. See the notes in readme.txt.

- Fixed default read value for IO pages FRED and JIM. Fixes graphics corruption in tape version of Alien 8.

- Fixed bug in video emulation where it was attempting to display one too many lines causing visual artifacts (thanks to Phil Sainty for highlighting this one).

- Added SCSI ADFS Hard Disc support

- Added SASI Torch Z80 Hard Disc support

- Removed IDE support as no longer needed

- Added Acorn ADFS 1.3 ROM to Model B and B Plus modes so SCSI hard disks can be used.

You can visit the official homepage here, or simply download it here.

Emu#dreams reports that MSieve has been publicly released. Below is a quotation of information about MSieve taken from its official homepage.

MSieve is a little application which loads a MAME-style XML file (in other words, the output of "MAME -listxml") and allows you to filter out games based on a configurable filter. Then you can save the resulting list in various formats.

 

Features

- Easy usage (less than 150 lines of documentation, if you wanna read).

- Fast XML parsing (2-3mb per second in my ghetto PC) and hyperfast filtering.

- Filtering by screen type, orientation, number of buttons or players, and type of controls.

- Special support for filtering by cocktail (incomplete due to MAME limitations).

- Four saving formats: MAME32 ini folder, Raw list, Title list, and Tab-delimited text file.

 

Although the application is not polished, I'm releasing it now as a 'public testing version'. Maybe in a near future, I'll add a couple more features and some polishment. Until then, MSieve works and can be used without problem.

You can visit the official homepage here, or simply download it here.

retroguru.com reports that Gens32, the multiple Sega console emulator for Microsoft Windows, has been updated to "Surreal" v1.49 Beta 2. Below are the changes in this version.

- Can play back CDDA stuff with Direct Show. (I leave an opion to switch between MPG123 and Direct Show).

- Auto speed up when loading SEGA CD. Still some problems when playing movies or caused a crash.

- Added tow sound playback mode.

- Rewind the menu to the old mode. akm1989 sent me 2 backgrounds, it's very nice, thanks.

You can visit the official homepage here, or simply download it here.

retroguru.com reports that DSEmu, the open source Nintendo DS and Nintendo GameBoy Advance emulator for Microsoft Windows, was updated yesterday. Only the source code was released however for this version. Below are the release notes.

Happy new year and that. I decided that with the new year should come a new burst of working on this 'ere emulator, so I decided to delve back into the code. I've stopped progress on the dynarec project, it being too massively large to handle at this time. Instead, I've pushed on with the other major missing part of the emulator; DS graphics.

 

The first task, of course, is to handle that strange VRAM banking business. I believe that, with a set of hacks implemented today, most of that is up and running; there are likely to be rather a few bugs in that implementation, of course, as with most parts of this emulator, but the substance of the mapping is there. There are a few things missing, like the WRAMCNT register, but they should be along in short order.

 

With the current codebase, you still won't see any output on the screen, since there is no renderer of any kind in the GPU code at the moment. However, I've confirmed that at least the one demo I have to test does indeed write to VRAM, and in the right place, so something must be working correctly. I guess the next step is to actually render something, to get some output from the DS side of the emulator.

 

As ever, you can grab the latest source, and possibly vomit over the hackery of the GPU, at the URL below.

 

Oh, yeah. First release of '06! Let's hope that heralds a period of productivity on this thing.

You can visit the official homepage here, or simply download it here.