FakeNES
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| FakeNES | |
 |
|
 FakeNES v0.5.8, running Castlevania 3. |
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| Developer: | FakeWare |
|---|---|
| Latest release: | 0.5.8 WIP / April 27, 2006 |
| OS: | Cross-platform |
| Use: | Emulator |
| License: | GPL-compatible |
| Website: | http://fakenes.sourceforge.net/ |
FakeNES is a free, portable, and Open source NES emulator written in C, using the Allegro game library, released under the zlib/libpng license, which is compatible with the GNU GPL. It runs on any operating system that Allegro supports, such as 32-bit DOS or compatible, any version of Windows released after 1995, and POSIX compliant systems such as Mac OS X and Linux.
It is one of the more common NES emulators, and is well-known for its "old school" GUI.
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[edit] History
FakeNES was created by Randilyn McDowell (then known as stainless or stainlessKnight) with the help of Ian Smith (RobotBebop), after an IRC chat on DALnet. They created the name, and then went searching for developers. Many joined the project, and among them was Charles Bilyue´ (TRAC) of the SNEeSe project. However, shortly afterwards, RobotBebop left the project.
The first milestone release was finally made on January 24, 2002[1], after more than three months of work by Randilyn and TRAC, with Lord_Nightmare and amit providing additional code for cross-platform support, particularly on Linux-based systems. amit also left the project shortly after that release, though his contributions remain a part of FakeNES.
Development efforts were stalled for most of 2003 when Randilyn's mother had a severe heart attack[2], prompting the authors to take the entire spring and summer off. Development continued in September 2003, with a new release and a new branch, finally dubbed "FakeNES Stable" after nearly 2 years of development.[3]
On October 23, 2004, FakeNES was officially cancelled.[4] The authors announced that it was just too buggy and couldn't be fixed without a complete rewrite. Despite this, on May 6, 2005, Randilyn announced that it was once again under limited development, and on October 26 a work in progress file was released.[5]
Between March and April 2006 the project had constant updates. However, there has been no news from the developers about FakeNES' development since.
[edit] Features
FakeNES supports emulation of the Four Score (a 4-player adapter), and the Zapper, the NES' light gun. It also supports joysticks/joypads or the keyboard for playing, palette selection, sound-related tweaks, cheating-device emulation, video filters, and also, there are plans to implement NetPlay, including a framework based around HawkNL.
OpenAL is fully supported for audio output, and AllegroGL is supported for video output via OpenGL. Although the support for OpenGL is still in its infant stages as of 0.5.8, it is mostly functional. Because Allegro already provides numerous system drivers, neither OpenAL or OpenGL are strictly required, and are provided as more of a courtesy.
Family Computer (Famicom) emulation is partially implemented to varying degrees.
[edit] Codenames
Throughout its lifetime FakeNES has had several codenames which have sometimes also appeared in various logos for the project.
- 0.2.x - Zero 2
- 0.4.x - Zero 4 (Unreleased)
- 0.5.x - Panta (Under development)
Up until the Panta series, Capcom's Mega Man was the official mascot for the project.[6] However, recently the use of Nintendo game characters in FakeNES logos and background artwork has been discouraged, due to obvious potential legal issues.
[edit] Future
FakeNES remains as one of the last high profile NES emulators to still use per-scanline emulation, which is an outdated emulation technique.[7]
Most of the developments of NES emulation in recent years have been towards per-cycle emulation[8]. This same method of emulation has been used by mainstream NES emulators such as Nintendulator and Nestopia for quite some time now. Because of this, the future of FakeNES remains in question, although Randilyn has said that she is implementing per-cycle emulation (or an equally as accurate emulation technique) in an upcoming version[9].
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ SourceForge.net - FakeNES 0.1.0 release files. Retrieved Sep. 02, 2006.
- ^ Archived copy of the FakeNES home page from 2003. Retrieved Sep 02. 2006.
- ^ SourceForge.net - FakeNES 0.3.0 release files. Retrieved Sep. 02, 2006.
- ^ Archived copy of the FakeNES home page from 2004. Retrieved Dec 06. 2006.
- ^ ipher's WIP Page: FakeNES 2005 WIPs. Retrieved Dec 06. 2006.
- ^ Emulacja.com - informacje. Retrieved Dec 06. 2006.
- ^ nesdev forums - Overall status of NES emulation. Retrieved Sep. 02, 2006.
- ^ nesdev forums - cycle for cycle stuff. Retrieved Sep. 02, 2006.
- ^ ZSNES forums - FakeNES. Retrieved Sep. 02, 2006.
[edit] External links
