The History of Multi-Console Emulators - Part 2

BSNES / Higan / Ares (2004)

BSNES

BSNES (Interface)

BSNES was released in October 2004 for Windows by Byuu/Near. In October 2005, it was ported to MacOS X by Richard Bannister and maintained until May 2021. What sets this emulator apart from others is its precision in emulation, which requires more robust machines to run it. It also has 100% game compatibility. Another difference is the execution of games from the MSU-1 chip, a virtual chip for modified Super Nintendo ROMs created by Byuu himself, and developed between 2000 and 2007, which allows the reading of a large flow of information with 4 Gb of storage, in addition to CD-quality music, and full-motion videos. Practically a Sega CD version of the Super Nintendo. Some everdrivers can emulate this chip and make these modified games run on the console itself. By August 2006, it was already supporting the SA-1, Super FX, SPC7110, DSP-3, DSP-4, ST-010, ST-011 and ST-018 chips, as well as the Super Game Boy, Sufami Turbo and Satellaview peripherals. In parallel, in 2010, it developed a fundraising campaign to unpack SNES cartridge coprocessors to extract their firmware (hardware instructions), and thus made BSNES the first emulator to have 100% compatibility with games. An interesting fact: The code of the sound emulator it developed for BSNES, the NEC uPD7720, was used by the late Stephen Hawkins' team to produce a more portable version of the voice program it used. Returning to BSNES, in January 2011, 64-bit versions began to be released. In October 2011, it began supporting the Game Boy and NES. After that, they added support for GBC in November 2011, GBA in April 2012 and NDS in August 2012.

Higan

Higan (Interface)

In January 2013, the emulator changed its name to Higan, with the last version as BSNES released in August 2012. This version comes without support for NDS, maintaining all other BSNES systems. Over time, several systems were included. Among them, WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color in April 2016, Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive and PC Engine in January 2017, SuperGrafx in June 2017 and Pocket Challenge V2 in April 2018. In May 2018, the idea of ​​resurrecting the original BNES project arose, which recovered it from the 2009 stage when it only ran SNES. The team began to call itself BSNES Team. From then on, BSNES also began to support Lior Halphon's emulator, Sameboy, which is known as the most accurate in emulating GB and GBC.

Higan v115

Higan v115 (Interface)

The new BSNES project has parts of an experimental emulation project by Byuu called csnes. Within this new BSNES, a way to improve video rendering is also being developed. This allowed programmer DerKoun to change the pixel quality, managing to increase the resolution of a game from 256x240 to 3840x2160, thus transforming the games into HD. This gave rise to the BSNES fork, called BSNES-HD, created in May 2019 for Windows and MacOS, and in June for Linux. At the same time, Byuu and the Higan Team continue to develop Higan. Some members work on the team for both emulators, such as Screwtapello. In 2019 onwards, Higan has new additions, such as FDS in November 2019 and ColecoVision, SG-1000, SC-3000, MSX, MSX2, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Sega CD and SwanCrystal in December 2019. Also in December, it modifies its front-end, leaving the selection of consoles and portables at the bottom of it.

Higan (GBA)

Higan (SNES)

In February 2020, Byuu was released, a fork of Higan, with the intention of adding other systems, such as PSX and N64, which cannot be run on Higan, due to its continuous cycle emulation model. It came with the proposal of having the precision of Higan and the ease of use of BSNES. The emulators were the same, with the exception of SC-3000 and SwanCrystal, which were exclusive to Higan. Byuu was updated until March 2020. Also in March, BSNES and Higan had their last update made by Byuu, being taken care of from then on by the BSNES Team and Higan Team. This latest version of Higan also comes with ports for MacOS, Linux and FreeBSD.

Ares

Ares (Interface)

Still in March, he started his newest project, Ares, named after the character from the game Lunar: The Silver Star, being a continuation of the work of the Byuu project, and automatically a direct continuation of Higan. The main purpose of the project was to emulate PC Engine CD and Nintendo 64. In May, he actually announced the project. From March to June, Ares had four releases only as source code. It was released in June, with support for PC Engine CD. The project was launched until July 2020, having been developed privately from August 2020 onwards. In February 2021, he released new versions of the emulator again, and from this version onwards with support for PSX. He released versions until May 2021. On June 27, 2021, Near was found dead in his home, a victim of suicide. Since 2020, he had been suffering harassment on the internet and this began to make him sick until it culminated in this tragedy. The latest versions of their emulators released were March 2020 for BSNES and Higan and May 2021 for Ares. From October 2020 to October 2021, an update of BSNES was created, called BSNES Nightly. But it was not updated by Byuu, but by the project team, the BSNES Team. The same happened with Higan, with updates from November 2020 to August 2021, called Higan Nightly, and updated by the Higan Team. When both versions are released, versions are released for Windows, MacOS, and Ubuntu.

Ares (NES)

Ares (32X)

After his death, Ares returns in July 2021, with Screwtapello in charge, who was part of the current BSNES and Higan teams. He did not leave his name in the credits, but rather the Ares Team. The project becomes the continuation of Byuu's legacy. This July version comes with the executable named Lucia, we don't know for sure why. Maybe some tribute to Byuu with the name of a character or important person in her life (just my speculation). The name Lucia returns in other versions. Sometimes in the name of the executable, sometimes in the title of the emulator. In February 2021, the emulator begins supporting the PSX. In July 2021, it begins supporting the Nintendo 64 (thanks to the ParaLLEl-RDP graphics renderer by The Mainster from the RetroArch project), 32X, Neo Geo MVS and AES. The curious fact about The Mainster is that his RetroArch emulator was inspired by Byuu's BSNES. He also left a note on his website LibRetro.com about his colleague's death. The addition of his ported graphics renderer specially for N64 emulation on Ares, which is the continuation of Byuu's work and legacy, carries a lot of meaning. For me, it is a thank you and fulfillment of one of Byuu's last wishes, which was to emulate this console.

Ares (PSX)

Ares (WonderSwan)

In July, Englishman Luke Usher joined the project and became a permanent member in August, replacing Screwtapello. Screwtapello left the project permanently in September. In November, American Stephanie Gawroriski joined the team. In March 2022, the project gained its own website. In June 2022, versions for MacOS also began to be released. Ares is still being developed to this day. BSNES influenced the creation of the RetroArch emulator in 2010. Later, several ports for the multi-emulator inspired by the BSNES core emerged, such as Beetle BSNES in 2012 (a port of Mednafen's BSNES) and BSNES2014 in 2013. In 2010, BSNES became part of the Mednafen multi-emulator. In 2012, it was time to integrate the BizHawk multi-emulator. The first versions of BSNES used in these multi-emulators were 0.58 on Mednafen and 0.87 on BizHawk. There was also a fork of Higan made by Rex-USR around June 2017 called nSide. And about Byuu or Near, he was also known in the emuscene for having translated the game Dragon Quest V from Japanese to English in 2001. He has been in the emulation scene helping to program Super Nintendo emulators since 1997.

The History of Multi-Console Emulators - Part 1

MESS (1998)

MESS (MS-DOS and Windows)

MESS, Multi Emulator Super System, previously mentioned in the Arcades section, was created by Richard Bannister alongside Brad Oliver and the MESS Team in 1998, and was released in March 1998 for MS-DOS. Its purpose was to emulate computers, consoles and portables, and was the first major emulator to come with this purpose. Bannister and Oliver had been part of the Nintendo xNES project since 1997, and from there the idea of ​​a multisystem emulator emerged. To do this, they used some elements of the MAME source code. The first system to be emulated in MESS was the NES itself, which was created from the old XNES code. Richard was also already a well-known name for porting emulators to MacOS, such as Gameboy, Mega Drive, NES, and others, and it was with this knowledge that he supported so many hardware. After more than a year without releasing any version, he returned in October 1999 with a completely reformulated version, and using all of the MAME source code. Since this version, MAME has been released simultaneously using the same version numbering as the source code emulator. Several cooperations have taken place between the two projects, bringing them closer together over the years. In April 2000, they finally released the Windows version. From January 2002 onwards, it gained an interface, previously working only through command line, by the hands of Michael Soderstorm and Christopher Kirmse, who were inspired by another of their creations, MAME32. In December 2007, MAME32 became MAMEUI and also gained a version for MESS, called MESSUI. The partnership between emulator and GUI continued until May 2015, when MESS merged with MAME and the project ended. Despite this, MESSUI continues to release versions of MESS using the updates made in the MAME project. About the systems that run on the emulator, in its first year of life it already supported the Mega Drive, NES, ColecoVision, Atari 5200, Master System, Game Gear, and Vectrex systems, and some computers such as Apple Series and Atari 800. In the following years we have the addition of the PC Engine, Atari 7800, and several computers such as Commodore Amiga and Apple II in 1999. The Gameboy portable, followed by CPS Changer and ZX Spectrum 48K in 2000. Atari 2600, TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine, the third variant of the NES, and the 13th variant of the ZX Spectrum in 2001. Atari Lynx I and II, MSX 1 and 2, Arcadia 2001 and SNES in 2002. Gameboy Color, Pocket, and Super Gameboy, PSX, Odyssey, Intellivision and Sega Mark III in 2004. Atari Jaguar in 2006. N64, 3DO, Sega Saturn, SC-3000, SuperGrafx, and WonderSwan and WonderSwan Color in 2007. And Dreamcast and SG-1000 1 and 2 in 2008. One of its distinguishing features was being the first multisystem emulator to emulate fifth and sixth generation games. In 2002, four years after its launch, it already supported 239 systems, most of them computers. Among the illustrious people who contributed to the project are Dan Boris,Ernesto Corvi and Charles MacDonald, respectively creators of Atari 2600, SNES, and Sega 8 and 16-bit emulators, among many others. In addition to MS-DOS and Windows, the project also had ports for MacOS, Unix, ARM systems, AmigaOS, RiscOS, Solaris, among others.

Darcnes (1998)

Darcnes

Darcnes was created in 1998 by Alastair Bridgewater, aka Nyef. Its first version is dated December 1998 for Linux, based on the NES documentation, Nes.Doc, and the 6502 emulator, both by Marat Fayzullin, and the NES documentation called Nestech.txt by Jeremy Chadwick, aka Yoshi. Right at its launch, Alastair made it clear that the emulator would be multisystem, considering later launching support for the PC-Engine and Master System consoles. From 1999 onwards, the emulator began to support the Game Gear, PC Engine/TurboGrafix 16, Master System, ColecoVision, SG-1000, Apple II PC, PC Engine CD (only on UNIX), Famicom Disk System, SC 3000 and MSX PC systems, added respectively in January, March, May, June and November 1999, January, February and June 2000, and March 2001 (the last two systems mentioned, SC and MSX, were released in this same version in March 2001). Its DOS version (the best known) ran on command line, with only additional functions of volume control and frameskip. It supports both keyboard and joystick control. The games, specifically NES, SMS and GG, performed well, without bugs and with great sound. PC Engine ran well, but without sound and ColecoVision and FDS did not work. The Windows version was very simple, with a menu just for loading ROMs and no other additional functions. It was controlled only by keyboard. The games performed well on NES, SMS, GG and SG-1000, but the buttons didn't work on GG and SG-1000. On the PC Engine, not only did the buttons not work, but the emulation was also very fast. And ColecoVision and FDS didn't work either (at least in the tests I performed). It was also another prototype project with a great future ahead.

SG-1000 and Master System

NES and PC Engine

Gamegear

In addition to the UNIX version, Darcnes was also ported to several other operating systems, such as MS-DOS in January 1999, Amiga in March 1999, BeOS in June 1999, Linux in August 1999, Windows in January 2000 and NetBSD in April 2001 Some of those responsible for the ports are famous people in the field, such as AmiDog, who ported emulators such as Handy, Frodo, MAME, MESS and FPSE to the Amiga, Abazan who ported DOS and ZX Spectrum games and the Dgen emulator to the BeOS, the Brazilian Rafael Rigues, Sephiroth, who worked in companies that spoke of Linux, such as Conectiva and Revista do Linux, with the ports of the emulator to DOS and Linux, and the creators of the Japanese system NetBSD, as well as Vector with the Windows version. Alastair also made two official ports, for Windows in January 2000 and for BeOS in May 2000. The latest version of the emulator was released on April 1, 2001, the same day as the NetBSD port mentioned earlier.

MAME (2003)

MAME

The MAME emulator, Multi Arcade Machine Emulator, previously discussed on Random Lives, was started in February 1997 by Nicola Salmoria, combining previous emulation projects by its creator. The emulator was initially released for MS-DOS, and in May 2001 for Windows. It works with the main arcades launched in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, such as boards from Sega, Nintendo, Taito, Konami, SNK, Atari, Williams, Irem, Data East, Namco, Kaneko, among many others, but it was only in 2003 that it began to add home consoles to the project. Initially, it included the Atari Jaguar and PS1 (through the Arcade Capcom Sony ZN-1), Mega Drive, Game Gear and Master System (through the Arcade MegaTech coming from MESS), Sega Saturn (through the Arcade Sega Titan) and Super Nintendo (through the Arcade Nintendo Super System also coming from MESS). From 2004 onwards, they started emulating the NES. In 2005, the N64 (using the Seta Aleck64 board). In 2006, PC Engine/TurboGrafx16. In 2007, Atari 2600 (with a better emulator than Stella in some cases) and Dreamcast. In 2009, 32X. In 2013, PC Engine CD. In 2014, Gameboy and Gameboy Color. In 2015, Sega CD and Xbox. In 2016, Game Boy Advance, SG-1000 and Virtual Boy. And in 2017, PC-FX. Among others. Some systems never worked well in MAME, which is the case of the Sega CD, 32X, Playstation, N64, Dreamcast and Atari Jaguar. Among others. Many of them came about because of arcades that were similar to console hardware, such as the PS1, Mega, SNES, N64, Master, Game Gear, Saturn, and others. In 2015, MAME formally merged with MESS, with which it had been a partner for the past few years, acquiring its entire programming library. It currently runs over 8,000 games, out of a total of 10,000 listed games (some of which still don't run). The emulator was the one that gained the most forks, over 70! Many of them for specific emulations, such as Neo Geo or CPS2, for example. It also works on several operating systems, such as MacOS and MacOS portables such as GP2X, PSP, among many, many others. Its last release was in October 2024.