Monday, October 16, 2023

The History of Sega CD/32X Emulators

NextLEVEL

There were two Sega CD projects that never came to fruition. The first was NextLEVEL in October 1997 for MS-DOS, which only ran the console's BIOS. Despite this, they planned to run other consoles on their emulator, such as SMS, GG and 32X. A version called NextSMS for SMS and GG was considered by the author, but it was also not released. The second was CDX1 with an alpha release in August 1998 for Windows, which also did not run any games.

NextLEVEL (Interface)

Its last update was in November 1998, promising an alpha release and perhaps a beta version, but this never happened. The Mega Drive emulator, VGen, released in October 1998, also ran only the Sega CD bios, and like the previous ones, it did not continue to support this emulator. There was also a project that was never released, called Hybrid's Sega CD Emulator.

Regarding 32X, the first project that we have information about was the 32Xulator in 1997 created by Eek. The project was never released and was closed in September 1997.

AGES (1997)

AGES

The first project that actually bore fruit was AGES, created by American Jeffrey Quinn, Quinntesson, in August 1997, with its first alpha and beta versions, not yet published, in September 1997 for MS-DOS. In that month, it had begun to support M68k emulation. Initially, the project was intended to run Mega Drive and 32X games, leaving Sega CD games in doubt. In November 1997, it was able to run SMD and MD Mega Drive games. At that time, it only ran demos. In April 1998, recognition of Sega CD games was added.

AGES (Mega Drive/Sonic The Hedgehog)

In May 1998, it began to run some Mega Drive games, but they were unplayable due to graphic distortion. In November 1998, the DOS version was discontinued, making way for the Windows/DirectX version, in addition to preliminary support for the Genecyst emulator's beginning save states. 32X games only began to work in March 1999. The emulator was released publicly in April 1999 for Windows, becoming known as WinAGES. At that time, it was already able to run Mega Drive games in a playable way, as well as some 32X games. In July 1999, preliminary support for SMS and Z80 emulation began. In January 2000, YM2612 sound emulation began to be developed, with support for FM sound already completed. The emulator only became playable in March 2000, with a full version in April 2000, when it completed 1 year, when it was able to run 32X games with greater graphical improvement. In May 2000 it was already running games such as Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing, with heavy execution. In June 2000, it emulated the two SH-2 processors, the three graphical modes of the 32X, .BIN, .GEN and .32X ROM formats, saving and charging on the consoles' battery, support for two 3 and 6 button controls, auto-detection of games by region and double frame buffer support.

AGES (Sega CD/ Cadillacs and Dinosaurs: The Second Cataclysm )

In October 2000, it began to actually emulate the Sega CD, becoming more playable from February 2001. Thus being the first emulator to run 32X and Sega CD. In addition, in October it also provides direct support from CD-ROM to Sega CD, loading into the Sega CD's RAM memory (without saving), support for saving and loading games on the MD and 32X battery, support for ISO and RAW ROMs and also compressed in .RAR extension (perhaps one of the first emulators to run games compressed in this format), support for the Sega Mouse joypad and loading of .IPS patches.

AGES (Menus)

In January 2001, CD music playback began, as well as full support for loading save states from the Genecyst emulator and loading ROMs in .CUE format. In April 2001, support for games compressed in .ZIP format began. In October 2001, support for the MD's YM2612 sound chip and stereo control began, as well as support for DAC and PSG sound from MDs and PCM sound support from Sega CDs. Only in December 2001 did support for its own save states begin (previously only supporting battery saves).

AGES (Sega Master System/ALF)

AGES also began to emulate the Master System definitively in March 2002. In May 2002, it began to support joypads such as the Sega Menacer pistol, the Konami Justifier gun and supports for 4 Sega teamplayer multitap and Electronic Arts 4 Way Play controls. The project ended in November 2002. 

AGES (Game Gear/Bare Knuckle II)

This version starts running Game Gear games, as well as automatic loading of the IPS patch file (per game), supports initialization .INI files for each specific game, support for Master and GG RAM batteries for saving and loading, support for Game Genie, support for Kaillera and execution of music in CUE/BIN format. Regarding its minimum recommendations, in March 2000 it recommended the use of DirectX 5.0, with 16-bit color video and a processor with MMX support, for example the Pentium 1. By the end of the project, in March 2002, it recommended only DirectX 3.0 with 233 MHz MMX processor. For joypad support it recommended the use of DirectX 5.0. Regarding help with the project, we had the roms website, Eidolon's Inn, the emulator converter for Windows, Atani, and the creators of MD emulators, Charles MacDonald from Genesis Plus, Steve Snake from Kega at the time, Stef from Gens, among others.

RetroDrive (2000)

RetroDrive

RetroDrive was a 32X and Mega Drive emulator. RetroDrive began in January 1998 by American Tim Meekins under the name Vegas, in an attempt to develop a Mega Drive and 32X emulator. It was released in April 2000 for Windows, and was already able to run some games from the proposed consoles. A stable version for Mega Drive was only released in May 2000. In July 2000, it was already able to perfectly run 32X games, such as Doom, Knuckles & Chaotix, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing and others. In August 2000, the emulator's name was changed to GENSX. That month, it also supported games compressed in .ZIP format and loading save states in the GS0 format of the Genecyst emulator.

Vegas (Golden Axe III/About)

In May 2001, the emulator's name was changed again, now being called RetroDrive. In this version, it began to support automatic loading and saving in the console's battery RAM. From 2001 onwards, the emulator was more functional for 32X. Three versions were released as Vegas, one as Gensx and five as RetroDrive, the last one being released in March 2002. Among the emulated hardware functions, we have emulations of the SH-2 microprocessors, the M68k by Bernd Scmidt and Markus Gietzen, the Z80 by Marcel de Koge, and the FM synthesis chip, YM2612 by Tatsuyuki Satoh. The emulator ran on a Pentium 200MhZ at a speed of 30 to 40fps.

GENSX (Mega Drive/Grind Stormer/About)

On a Pentium 3 with GeForce265, it ran at 60fps. In September 2001, with the success of the 32X emulation, the SH-2 emulator was released, which made the Hitachi SH7604 Risc processor emulator available for use in other emulators. The project had three versions released, the last one in March 2002, on the same date as the last version of RetroDrive. Outside of emulation, Tim, born in 1968 and originally from California, is still known in the gaming industry today. He started working on the game Pick'n Pile for Amiga in 1990, still as a tester, and then working from 1992 to 1995 on games for SNES as a technician, programmer and software engineer, on titles such as Taz-Mania, Clay Fighter, Claymates, WeaponLord and mainly sports games MLBPA Baseball, Madden NFL '94 and Bill Walsh College Football.

RetroDrive (32X/Motocross Championship)

He was involved in some PSX games, such as Viewpoint and One, and another sports game, NHL 97, both between 1996 and 1997. His greatest passion was sports games, peaking in 2000, when the NBA 2K franchise for Dreamcast began. He has participated in eighteen games in the series up until 2020, playing on GameCube, PS2, Xbox, Xbox 360, PS3, Windows, PSP, Wii, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Google's streaming service, Stadia. In all of them he worked as a software engineer, a role he has held since 1995 on the game WeaponLord. He was also involved in the NFL 2K franchise (2000-2004).

Xega (2001)

Xega

Xega was released in June 2001 for Windows by Michel Gerritse, known as Gerrie, and although it was released as a Mega Drive emulator, its intention was to run 32X and Sega CD. In October 2001, in the second version released, it gained support for Sega CD and a few 32X games. Sega CD games could be run both with CD media and with .BIN files. It was one of the first emulators to run Sega CD along with Gens, which supported the add-on a month earlier. In the same October version, it also added Richard Mitton's Z80 RAZE emulator in place of Neil Bradley's and support for DAC, which is a digital stereo to analog mono converter.

Xega (Menu/Sega CD/About)

Xega also featured Neill Corlett's M68k emulation and Tatsuyuki Satoh's YM2612. The 32X project did not go ahead. Gerrie's claim for both the Sega CD and the 32X was that they had limited access to games, and he asked users to donate games to him. He left the project for good to dedicate himself in November 2002 to the project of emulating a Dreamcast accessory called DreamVMU. In June 2003 he also joined the SMaSher project, to run Master System and Game Gear. He developed many other projects in the field of game programming, emulator support, and others.

Xega (About/Mega Drive/Air Diver)

He never finished any of his projects, although he claims to have finished Xega. The project had four versions released, and required a PC with 16MB of RAM and DirectX 8.0. As for help, the authors of the MD, Gens, Genital, Genesis Plus, KGen, RetroDrive emulators, as well as DGen, from which Xega used some parts, helped in the consolidation of the project, as well as Neill Corlett with his 68k emulator, Tatsuyuki Satoh with his YM2612 emulator, Christian Schiller from the Eidolon's Inn website, Atani who created Windows versions of MS-DOS emulators, among others. The emulator required a PC with 16MB of RAM and DirectX 8 and support for video with 16-bit color.

Other Emulators

In addition to the projects already mentioned, many others emulated Sega CD and 32X, and some of them had the best emulation and popularity of these add-ons.

Initially on 32X, after May 1998 with the execution of the same by AGES and in July 2000 by RetroDrive, other emulators also began to run it, such as Genital in December 2000, Gens in August 2002 (giving greater prominence to this emulation) (and with ports for XBox, Dreamcast and Android), Kega Fusion in July 2004 (which in fact popularized the add-on), Regen in 2007, PicoDrive in November 2007 (which also had versions for portables such as PSP, Gizmondo and GP2X/Wix, and a port for Nintendo DS), HazeHD in 2009, among others.

About Sega CD, the emulator that became one of the pioneers in emulating the accessory after AGES was Gens, which brought it in September 2001 (later with ports for XBox, Dreamcast and Android), exactly one year after AGES. But the popularity and consolidation of Sega CD emulation came with Kega in January 2002, with improvements in the continuity of the project from September 2002 with Kega Lazarus and becoming popular with the last emulator of Steve's project, Kega Fusion, or simply Fusion from July 2004. The other projects that emulated the Sega CD were Genital in December 2000, Genesis Plus GX in 2005 (for GC and NWII), PicoDrive in November 2007, HazeMD in 2009, MD.emu (for Android) in 2012, among others.

Regarding multi-system emulators, the 32X add-on also ran on MAME in 2009, RetroArch and OpenEmu in 2013 (both via PicoDrive), Ares in 2020, and BizHawk (via Genesis Plus GX) in 2021.

The Sega CD was on Xe in 2005, RetroArch in 2012 (through the Genesis Plus GX, and in 2013 through the PicoDrive), MAME in 2015, OpenEmu in 2015 (through the Genesis Plus GX) and BizHawk (through the Genesis Plus GX) in 2017.

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