AEP Emulation Page reports that GameEx, the graphical DirectX-based front-end (for MAME, Zinc, Daphne, PC games, and all command line-based emulators), has been updated to version 5.30. Below are the changes in this release.

- Fixes issues with background ambience, not stopping correctly, and also fixes where GameEx would keep trying to replay it (unsuccesfully) if it was stopped for launching purposes.

- This fixes the track not stopping with certain versions of MAME. It also probably fixes various other issues.

- The issues where certain emulators would not launch when MAP Keys was turned on, should be fixed, although please confirm.

- 'Smallest' font size now working.

You can find out more information here, at the official homepage.

Yay, More Columns

Thanks to Arzeno Fabrice the US version of Columns is now supported (the old ‘US’ set is actually a World set)

 

The US set is slightly different to the other sets, it has the WDUD logo, then an additional Sega logo previously only found in Columns 2, a dipswitch to enable cocktail mode and different music (although I have no idea WHY they changed the music, the new music doesn’t fit with the game at all, it’s the music from Columns 2 when it uses the standard graphic pieces)

As usual, check out the screens here:

http://haze.mameworld.info/

AEP Emulation Page reports that NEOGEO CDZ, the Japanese SNK Neo Geo CD emulator, now sees its final release for 2005. Today marks the last time NEOGEO CDZ will be updated until January 7th, 2006. Below are the release notes.

Bug Fix

- Correcting the trouble where the reading BIOS has stopped going well.

You can find out more information here, at the official homepage (Japanese).

retroguru.com reports that Zodttd has updated GP2PSX, the Sony Playstation emulator for the GP2x, to version 0.18. Below are the release notes for this version.

- This release is a much needed bug fix to the last release (v0.16). I had some timings off. This release should fix games that weren't loading but did in past releases. This release should also be a bit faster, though as usual, i'm not sure. I don't have many PSX games to test with. Super Seizure Bros is also no longer seizure-ized.

- Also note the framerate counter seems to be more accurate now. It's actually always been accurate, it basically counts 60 frames then calculates the framerate. Only thing is, sometimes the PSX would have it vsync when no change was made to the screen. Not only is this an optimization waiting to happen, but it would report high framerates at times when things looked like they were going slow. This is why I've been trying to get timings right.

You can find out more information here.