Mupen64Plus

Mupen64Plus
Developer(s) richard42g
Stable release 2.5 / April 27, 2015
Development status Active[1][2]
Written in C and C++
Operating system Android,[3] AROS, FreeBSD, GNU/Linux, OS X, Windows
Type Video game console emulator
License GNU GPL
Website code.google.com/p/mupen64plus/

Mupen64Plus is a free and open-source cross-platform Nintendo 64 emulator written in C and C++. Mupen64Plus allows the user to play Nintendo 64 games on a computer by reading ROM images, either dumped from the read-only memory of a Nintendo 64 cartridge or created directly on the computer as homebrew.[4]

Background

Mupen64Plus was previously known as Mupen64-64bit and Mupen64-amd64.

History

Mupen64, the forerunner to Mupen64Plus, was released December 10, 2001 by Hacktarux.[5] Mupen64 was designed to be multi-platform, the first release running on both Linux and Windows operating systems. As the emulator progressed, support was added for FreeBSD, AROS and Mac OS X, but these ports were not maintained as much or as well as the Linux and Windows versions.

Mupen64 version 0.5 was released August 26, 2005. This was the last version of Mupen64 to be released by Hacktarux, although there were several branches of the project made, one of which was Mupen64Plus. Mupen64 was forked by Richard Goedeken (richard42) in October 2007.[6] His work went through several releases before settling on the name Mupen64Plus.

Mupen64Plus originally aimed to provide a 64-bit recompiler and to fix bugs present in Mupen64 0.5. The emulator expanded over time, maintaining and improving existing video plugins, and providing extra features outside of the project's original scope.

In late 2009, the Mupen64Plus project undertook a major re-design of the emulator's architecture. Like many N64 emulators (including Sixtyforce, 1964, and Project64), Mupen64Plus uses four modular plugins (dynamic libraries) which adhere to a specification written by a developer called "Zilmar". This specification was originally written in the late 1990s, when all of the Nintendo 64 emulators ran only under Windows. The plugin architecture used GUI code inside of each plugin, which presents difficulties for programmers wishing to support many different operating system platforms. For this reason, the Mupen64Plus team presented a design proposal to modify the plugin API in order to place all of the user interface code in a single software module and make other improvements to streamline the operation of a cross-platform N64 emulator. This decision was controversial at the time but the proposed changes were implemented and the software has continued to evolve. The first "beta" release of Mupen64Plus with the revised API (version 1.99.1) was released December 14, 2009. Several other beta versions have been released since then. Mupen64Plus 2.0 is currently being developed. Its source can be downloaded from the project's git repository.

Reception

Brandon Widdler of Digital Trends considers the emulator one of the best for the Nintendo 64 along with Project64 citing its cheat functions, dynamic recompilers for 32-bit and 64-bit machines, and speed adjustment feature.[4]

Branches

See also

References

  1. ↑ https://github.com/mupen64plus/mupen64plus-core
  2. ↑ Revisions to the source code
  3. ↑ "Mupen64Plus, AE (N64 Emulator)". Google Play. 2013-07-09. Retrieved 2013-07-09.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Brandon Widder (2013-04-20). "Best Emulators (NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, and more)". Digital Trends. Retrieved 2014-03-26.
  5. ↑ Mupen64 Homepage – News (with release dates)
  6. ↑ Richard42's first release of forked Mupen64 code
  7. ↑ https://github.com/libretro/mupen64plus-libretro
  8. ↑ Adam Zeis (2012-06-21). "Mupen64Plus-PB - Nintendo 64 emulator for the BlackBerry PlayBook". Crack Berry.
  9. ↑ Steven Romano (2012-12-27). "Booyah! OUYA Development Kits Could Arrive by Tomorrow". Geeko System. Retrieved 2014-03-27.
  10. ↑ Steven Romano (2013-01-13). "OUYA Can Play Emulated Games, Will Likely Be Its Sole Purpose". Geeko System. Retrieved 2014-03-27.

External links