Post by RandomInsano on Oct 4, 2006 13:56:46 GMT -5
So, I got my laptop back up and working so to speak (a chunk of the hard drive is dead, so at the moment it's only a 1GB drive). I've installed a couple of things including the beta version of the new ZSNES emulator. So far I'm impressed.
People who have used ZSNES in the past know how cluttered the interface has gotten. The programmers have added tabs to the windows to allow for even more options while taking up even less space. Windows that now inculde tabs are the controller configurations dialog (so the menu is now four itmes shorter), and also the screen resolution page which is now split between the choosing of resultion and the advanced effects. It's a much needed update to be sure.
Also, something that was also needed and didn't work very well in the past were the paths for game saves. A long time ago, our only option was for all of the saves to be dumped in the same folder as the ROM files themselves, and that causes huge problems when all of your ROMs are burned onto a CD because then zsnes wasn't able to save your progress at all.
They improved that by being able to select which path you wanted your saves to be put into, but it still wasn't perfect. The latest official release only allows for absolute paths, which means it needs to be in the form of 'c:\somedirectory\' and for me that doesn't work again, because I need to be able to automatically put my saves on my 1GB compact flash card.
Now in this new test version, they've finally allowed for what are called relative paths which are relative to what directory the program is running in. This is perfect because now I can set the save path to 'saves\' and it will put all the saves and game data into the directory 'saves' in the ZSNES folder on my compact flash card for me to take anywhere.
The next new feature that's going to save me is pausing the game when the window is no longer in focus. While I'm playing ROMs, sometimes I'm chatting with people online so I need to switch between the chat window and ZSNES. This usually results in me dying in game... It's a real problem, but it's fixed now and the checkbox to enable that option can fittingly be found in the options window as 'pause emu in background'.
A place where maybe the most changes can be found is in the the save configuration window. The rewind option now has a lot of new options including how many times you can jump backward in game time and how many times you want to be able to do it. Now every game can seem like Prince of Persia: The sands of Time!
One completely new part of the emulator is the speed configuration window. This allows you to do everything from the classic balls to the wall speedup, or pause the game and step through frame by frame making it impossible to screw anything up. There's also an option to set emulated speed so you can play a game contstantly faster or slower. Built-in cheating is kind of nice I suppose.
And for the most useless feature! Being able to muck with the default font! Now it seems you can open a small file called... zfont I believe and change 0s to 1s to make a pixel on or off for a character. Why you wouldn't want to use the default font, I have no idea, but the option is there if you want it.
I reccomend trying out this beta version, this website has the download, just get the one from september 29th:
www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/snes/zsnes.html
So very very good.
People who have used ZSNES in the past know how cluttered the interface has gotten. The programmers have added tabs to the windows to allow for even more options while taking up even less space. Windows that now inculde tabs are the controller configurations dialog (so the menu is now four itmes shorter), and also the screen resolution page which is now split between the choosing of resultion and the advanced effects. It's a much needed update to be sure.
Also, something that was also needed and didn't work very well in the past were the paths for game saves. A long time ago, our only option was for all of the saves to be dumped in the same folder as the ROM files themselves, and that causes huge problems when all of your ROMs are burned onto a CD because then zsnes wasn't able to save your progress at all.
They improved that by being able to select which path you wanted your saves to be put into, but it still wasn't perfect. The latest official release only allows for absolute paths, which means it needs to be in the form of 'c:\somedirectory\' and for me that doesn't work again, because I need to be able to automatically put my saves on my 1GB compact flash card.
Now in this new test version, they've finally allowed for what are called relative paths which are relative to what directory the program is running in. This is perfect because now I can set the save path to 'saves\' and it will put all the saves and game data into the directory 'saves' in the ZSNES folder on my compact flash card for me to take anywhere.
The next new feature that's going to save me is pausing the game when the window is no longer in focus. While I'm playing ROMs, sometimes I'm chatting with people online so I need to switch between the chat window and ZSNES. This usually results in me dying in game... It's a real problem, but it's fixed now and the checkbox to enable that option can fittingly be found in the options window as 'pause emu in background'.
A place where maybe the most changes can be found is in the the save configuration window. The rewind option now has a lot of new options including how many times you can jump backward in game time and how many times you want to be able to do it. Now every game can seem like Prince of Persia: The sands of Time!
One completely new part of the emulator is the speed configuration window. This allows you to do everything from the classic balls to the wall speedup, or pause the game and step through frame by frame making it impossible to screw anything up. There's also an option to set emulated speed so you can play a game contstantly faster or slower. Built-in cheating is kind of nice I suppose.
And for the most useless feature! Being able to muck with the default font! Now it seems you can open a small file called... zfont I believe and change 0s to 1s to make a pixel on or off for a character. Why you wouldn't want to use the default font, I have no idea, but the option is there if you want it.
I reccomend trying out this beta version, this website has the download, just get the one from september 29th:
www.emulator-zone.com/doc.php/snes/zsnes.html
So very very good.