Thanks to Tommy, Sasha and everyone else that has done a tremendous amount of work here. The following is from Tommy.

Tommy here with a nice little pre-Christmas present to keep you entertained while we wait for the next version of RetroCopy: It's the third installment of RetroCopy's Media Library, with covers, screenshots and more from all your favourite - and not-so-favourite - retro games.

The present is not so small, actually. At least it doesn't feel that way, having worked on it for the last 9 months now (with some help from others). It's taken an enormous amount of energy and work hours (I wouldn't dare to count them), and there's been many times during these months when I wondered if I would ever be able to finish it. Well, I (and some helpers) have now, so it is with great pleasure I finally present this huge package of retro game covers, screenshots ... and more.

As you probably know, RetroCopy is capable of showing both covers and screenshots from games. That has been the case since the very first version of RetroCopy was released back in 2009. It is possible to make this happen yourself, creating archives connected to the metanames in RetroCopy's game databases, but if you want to do this for many games, it will take a lot of time (I should know). So what would be better than to just simply download a complete Media Library, containing thousand of covers and screenshots? That is what this is.

So, where do all of these covers and screenshots come from, you might ask. Well, the screenshots have been taken using RetroCopy, so what you see in the screenshots is what you will see in RetroCopy as well (at least in the version of RetroCopy that was used to capture the screenshot). The screenshots have been converted to jpg-files, standardized to 200*150 pixels.

Regarding the covers, I wish I was able to say they come from my own collection of games, because that would make me a very rich man, but unfortunately I can't. The truth is they come from hundreds of different sources (including some I have scanned myself). There would be no point in listing them all, and if you compared the covers you can find in this Media Library package with the ones you can find on the Internet, you wouldn't find many that are identical. The reason for this is I have done quite a lot of work on them in Photoshop in order to make the original scans look as good as possible, adjusting their brightness levels, contrast and tonal range, to make the colours look like they do in real life - before being scanned (you should do this with every image or photograph you have before presenting them to ohers). By this, I don't mean I have changed the covers in any way, like the people at "The Cover Project" seem to do. If you study what they call "retail covers" closely with original scans, you will see that in many cases their "retail covers" are different. (They also change the size of them, to fit them into their universal game cases). I think their goal is to just have some nice artwork to look at, while my goal has been to archive the covers exactly like they are. After all, these covers are part of gaming history, and RetroCopy's goal is make an exact copy of history, not to falsify it.

Unfortunately, covers from sites like "The Cover Project" are spreading all over the Internet, often without the sites using them knowing they are not always identical to the real covers. So a lot of time has been spent on making sure all covers this package presents are real, comparing them to many different sources (pictures, E-bay etc). Furthermore, every cover has been checked to make sure they are high resolution, and do not contain any watermarks.

I have downloaded (and even paid for) some collecton of covers in the past, that were incomplete, low resolution and full of watermarks, telling me how little time the people responsible had spent on the covers (just a quick copy and paste job). I intend this collection to be anything but that. That is why I don't want to present any covers with watermarks on them, and why I in some cases where a cover with a watermark was the only one available (or the best one except for the watermark) have spent hours on removing it. It is in fact possible to remove watermarks, but it is a slow process if you want the end result to look any good. When I tell you later on how many covers this package contains, you may realize why it has taken me such a long time to finish it...

The first installment of the Media Library was released in February of 2010, containing only Sega Master System covers and screenshots (175 MB in total). The next one was released in September 2010, adding screenshots of the Arcade games RetroCopy supports, as well as some new SMS additions and fixes (217 MB in total). Well, this third one is a massive upgrade (1 GB in total)! So, without any further ado, let's find out what it contains:


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SEGA MEGA DRIVE/GENESIS COVERS (NEW)
- All main standard plastic case cover for every game released in Europe, USA and Japan added!
- Many standard plastic case covers from Brazil, Australia, Korea, Taiwan and other parts of Asia added as well.
- A total of 1771 covers

This would be the front page story if this RetroCopy Media Library package was a newspaper, and the main reason why it has taken such a long time to complete it. The Mega Drive/Genesis-library of games is HUGE, and if you want to be accurate and make sure everything you do is correct, like I always do, working on something like this is a nightmare. Luckily I had some help with the covers in the beginning, by Mezonix and Kevin, who did a great job! There was still a lot of work to do though, but I am proud of the end result. I am absolutely certain this is the best collection of Mega Drive/Genesis-covers you will find anywhere on the Internet! It is also the most complete, and many of the covers you find here you will have a hard time finding anywhere else. And like I said before: All covers are high resolution (1248*800) and have no watermarks etc.

The only thing missing (besides some backsides that are not available) is the covers RetroCopy can't show yet, like cardboard boxes and some covers in other shapes than the standard plastic one. Just figuring all this out was a lot of work, as many American Genesis games were released both with plastic cover and in a cardboard. You can see my findings, searching through lots of online auctions and other sources here: http://www.retrocopy.com/forumthread/550-1/boxescovers.aspx

SEGA MEGA DRIVE/GENESIS SCREENSHOTS (NEW)
- Screenshots of all games that work in RetroCopy added!
- A total of 6293 screenshots

Sasha is the main man to thank for this. He did most of these screenshots. And let me tell you - doing 6300 screenshots takes a lot more time than counting to 6300! And I dare you to try! The point of the screenshots is to show different parts of the game, and also make them look varied and good when lined up next to each other. So to do 6300 of them ...

SEGA GAME GEAR COVERS (NEW)
- A total of 242 Game Gear covers added

If you didn't spend your youth playing 16-bit games on your TV and instead held 8-bit in your hands, we have great news for you as well: Game Gear has found its way to the RetroCopy Media Library! Unfortunately you're not able to see these 240 Game Gear covers I've added in RetroCopy 0.960, as the resolution they use (1316*1000) wasn't supported in that version. You'll be able to see them in the next version though. The exception is the Brazilian Game Gear boxes, as they were standard plastic size - same size as SMD/GEN and SMS.

SEGA GAME GEAR SCREENSHOTS (NEW)
- Screenshots for all games added
- A total of 2183 screenshots

Before I started working on Mega Drive/Genesis covers, I did (in February) screenshots for all Sega Game Gear games. They have been online for quite some time in the online game database, and here they are in the Media Library as well.

ARCADE FLYERS (NEW)
- 23 arcade flyers added

Arcade flyers have found their way to the Media Library as well, although you'll have to wait to the next version of RetroCopy in order to see them.

ARCADE CABINETS (NEW)
- 13 arcade cabinets added

The same goes for arcade cabinets. You will see them where you normally see the console for other systems.

SEGA MASTER SYSTEM COVERS AND SCREENSHOTS
- Many new Master System covers and screenshots added
- Some covers replaced with better scans
- Added all sides of Japanese Mark III boxes

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Another feature that has been added to this installment of the Media Library is information in the filenames about which region a cover is from. RetroCopy doesn't use this information yet, but it can be used in the future.

That concludes my summary of what this package contains. As you can see, there are quite a lot of new things in it compared to the last one, and the size it takes on your hard drive is also much larger - 1 GB! This is 2011 though, so if your computer is able to play RetroCopy, finding 1 GB to store this collection probably won't be a problem. If you don't need the whole package, it is also possible to download individual game media archives from within RetroCopy. Just click on that button that tells you that an "update is availbale"!

So, that was my pre-Christmas gift to you. I hope you enjoy it, and ... I expect at least two presents back from every one of you under my Christmas tree this year! ... Just kidding! Happy holidays! And head on over to the download section in order to download the torrent!

A big new release of RetroCopy is available, bringing it up to v0.960

Download Here



Here is what's new.

[SG1000/SC3000] Added SG1000 and SC3000 emulation.
[SMS VDP] Added TMS9918 gfx mode 1. Fixes Super Boy 2
[SMS VDP] Changed TMS9918 palette to be a bit more accurate
[SMS VDP] Fixed how the graphics modes were selected
[SMS VDP] Fixed issue with vcounts in non 192 line modes (fixes GG Turrican)
[SMS VDP] Fixed no vscroll in last 8 column bug (fixes Fray Shugyou)
[SMS VDP] Fixed small bug that wouldn't reset CRAM to 0 in all cases

[GAME GEAR] Fixed a few issues with gear-to-gear cable link emulation. All games should work now
[GAME GEAR] Implemented SMS Mode for the few titles which use it on Game Gear. With an emulated LCD scale effect similar to real system
[GAME GEAR] Moved cartridge system over to SMS one, fixes a few games
[GAME GEAR] Fixed an issue in the mapper dealing with SRAM over 16KB and less than 32KB. (Fixes Shining Force 2 and Moldorian)
[Z80] Improved handling of NMI

[CORE] Added SK-1100 keyboard emulation
[CORE] Implemented 16bit memory map system that can be used by any core. Has some tight low level code for speed. Makes Z80 about ~5% faster
[CORE] Many bug fixes to small emulation related things

[GUI] Removed default RetroCopy 3D game boxes and replaced it with garage door type animation
[GUI] Completely new configuration area, graphical based with right click menus.
[GUI] Can now see visually and configure input for games before you run them
[GUI] Added ability for cartridge/card scans to be used in the interface for all systems
[GUI] Fixed a few issues with stretched blits
[GUI] Fixed small mouse scroll issue with scrollbars
[GUI] Added bg click functionality to scrollbars
[GUI] Added better image scaling, box sampling, bilinear and bicubic used when appropriate
[GUI] Now remove textures when windows are hidden, not just deleted, to save VRAM
[GUI] Fixed issue with non client area mouseenter/mouseleave
[GUI] Changed mouse behaviour when in Windowed mode. Can now leave the window during when no game is played

A small bug fix for RetroCopy has been released.

Download Here

[CORE] Fixed an issue where files were placed in wrong directory when user fixed game files.
[CORE] Recoded some parts to remove a few warnings
[WINDOWS] Removed Link Time Code Generation for MSVC10 builds as it buggy

The latest version of RetroCopy is available for download. The main features added to this build are performance, bug fixes and GUI enhancements. It is available for Windows and Linux platforms, in both 32bit and 64bit. Here is what's new.

Download Here

[SEGA MEGA DRIVE] Fixed a few crash issues that mostly presented themselves in badly written homebrew (I Love Cube)
[SEGA MASTER SYSTEM] Fixed bug with FM sound selection
[SEGA MASTER SYSTEM] Fixed crash bug in SMS OPTIONS when switching between two different slot types
[SEGA MASTER SYSTEM] Optimized some parts of the emulator for a speed boost
[VIDEO PLAYER] Fixed bug with aspect ratio which stopped content and zoom / crop modes from working correctly

[INPUT] Fixed bug with gamepad HATs not showing correct value on return to input page
[INPUT] Fixed crash bug that was caused by the ordering of items on a device [Didado / RobertoMalone]

[CORE] Fixed a few small text errors caused by UTF-8 migration
[CORE] Fixed bug in reading of zero byte files that would keep the handle open
[CORE] Added new screen curvature and phosphor shader [cgwg]
[CORE] Added much better CPU leveling algorithm that adjusts to each system dynamically to reduce any stutters or sound pops
[CORE] Changed a few settings default values for a better experience

[3D] Non power of 2 texture support wasn't properly enabling itself in the GUI
[3D] Improved handling of graphics cards without shader support in the game room
[3D] Fixed small bug with maximum dynamic light calculations
[3D] Fixed issue that was preventing dynamic shadows and screen casting

[GUI] Added + and - icon to game containers to make it more obvious
[GUI] Can now open multiple GAME containers instead of only one
[GUI] Now hide status bar if it pops up and you move the mouse over it
[GUI] Added info tab which now shows the screenshots and some .GAME related information such as unicode names
[GUI] Changed layout of 3D covers to 2x3 instead of 3x2 so that they consume more of the screen
[GUI] Now load gamebrowser only when clicked instead of on app startup
[GUI] More GUI related settings are now saved on exit
[GUI] Redid game grouping. Now have NAME and .GAME groupings [Tommy]
[GUI] Recoded some aspects of game browser for speed and to reduce memory fragmentation
[GUI] Fixed bug in multitext that could cause a crash in certain instances on init
[GUI] Improved handling of read only properties with edit controls
[GUI] Fixed small bug in movie seeking display
[GUI] Fixed a bug that could cause non OpenGL thread to update a texture
[GUI] Wired up the save state / load state buttons on the game menu
[GUI] Added emulator statistics window, enabled by pressing F2. Shows CPU usage, sound buffer, etc

[WINDOWS] Upgraded C++ compiler to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, fixes a few floating point bugs and is a bit faster

The latest version of RetroCopy has been released, but for Linux only! To celebrate the fact RetroCopy now supports Linux we are releasing a Linux only version. Simply extract it to your Linux filesystem, run the executable and you're away.

Download RetroCopy for Linux

Here is what's new.

[3D] Fixed issue with eye coordinate being set to an unknown value on virtual room startup
[SMS] Changed ordering of default input devices [Neville]
[GUI] Now use UTF-32 internally for all text handled in GUI and controls
[CORE] Fixed bug in core handling that made it difficult in some cases to interrupt or close a running core
[cORE] Fixed many issues relating to lowercasing strings for comparison
[CORE] Changed all internal text and handling of text to UTF-8
[CORE] Thousands of small changes and cleanups mostly relating to GCC support
[CORE] Added Linux support (32bit and 64bit) . Uses ALSA audio backend and X11 so should work on a wide variety of Linux distributions
[CORE] Updated boost library and changed filesystem to v3 now that it properly supports unicode
[CORE] Removed own OpenGL extension handling and now use Glee
[AUDIO] Fixed issue that wasn't clamping sound in some cases

RetroCopy v0.911 has finally been released to the public. Available in both 32bit and 64bit versions for Windows.



This release has several new and extensive features. Input latency in every emulator core has been reduced from 25-50ms down to 4ms in a worst case scenario. This offers a massive improvement in the FEEL of the emulator, giving you a better connection to what is being displayed. Also added was a way to fix the "input latency" that plagues NVIDIA and ATI hardware when VSYNC is enabled. RetroCopy now doesn't use SDL, instead relying on it's own asynchronous window and inputing engines to provide the best in performance and features.

With the emulation, VGM support was added and proper Dendy NES emulation has also been added and according to people with the real devices is the most accurate Dendy emulation available. The whole GUI has been reworked so that each system feels like it has its own place in RetroCopy. Control configuration now has visual controls you can click on to set input. Read below for full changes.

[MEGA DRIVE] Added busy emulation to YM2612 sound
[MEGA DRIVE] Added Menacer lightgun
[MEGA DRIVE] Removed CRAM dot emulation until more information is known about it. Fixes a few pixels being misplaced in a few games
[SMS] Fixed problem with ROMs not multiple of 1KB not having their last segment mapped. Fixes a few homebrew games
[SMS] TH/TR writing wasn't completely disabled for Mark III and Japanese SMS consoles
[SMS] Added new korean mapper for Janggun-ui Adeul. It features hardware byte flipping to do easy sprite flipping
[SMS] Added SG Commander input device which is similar to a SMS control pad but with autofire options.
[NES] Added "content" mode to display which clips 8 pixels off top and bottom like a real TV does with overscan
[NES] Recoded some of the PPU
[NES] Added controller selection
[NES] Added emulation of Dendy and other PAL famiclones
[NES] Made PAL emulation more accurate through better PPU/CPU alignment
[NES] Improved read/write to $2007 emulation, fixes scrolling bug in Young Indiana Jones
[EMU] Input devices are no longer system specific but port specific. Allows any controllers with same port to be used on any system like real life. ie SMS Joypad on Megadrive
[EMU] Changed SMS Joypad, SMS Light Phaser, SMS Paddle, SMS Sports Pad, Megadrive 3 Button, MegaDrive 6 button controllers to DB-9/DE-9 pinouts
[VGM] Added VGM player support. Can now play SMS and MEGADRIVE/GENESIS VGMs using RetroCopy's high quality audio engine.

[GUI] Stopped "Download Content" button from reappearing when switching tabs after having downloaded new content
[GUI] Fixed issue when previous game showing screenshots when less than 5 screenshots were shown [Tommy]
[GUI] Added bilinear filtering for stretched bitmaps instead of nearest neighbour
[GUI] When a window was being removed it was rendered for one frame longer than it should
[GUI] Droplist now sets own list style
[GUI] Added small intro sequence
[GUI] Random VGM music now plays in the interface

[AUDIO] Now disable sound low/mid/high filtering unless gain is specified for one of the bands, changed default setting to "no gain" for speed boost
[AUDIO] Implemented some speedups to 3D sound mixing

[CORE] Added LCD persistence graphics filter. Simulates old LCD screens like that found on Nintendo GameBoy and Sega Game Gear
[CORE] Fixed small issue with scanline brightness setting. Scanlines can now be lighter than the content rather than only darker
[CORE] Now detect monitor used to launch retrocopy.exe so fullscreen mode goes to correct monitor
[CORE] Fixed hanging issue in .GAME conversion when a blank NAME was found
[CORE] Fixed conversion bug that would write the same game twice for an incomplete .GAME set
[CORE] Fixed problem when running a game in the DB that used the same ROM but a different name or setting
[CORE] Upgraded libraries: freetype, boost, tinyxml
[CORE] Fixed multithreading bug in game browser
[CORE] Allowed copying and posting from windows GUI clipboard to/from RetroCopy GUI
[CORE] Added option to fix input lag due to poor OpenGL VSYNC behaviour. Ensures input is matched to the display
[CORE] Removed SDL and wrote new Windowing and Input system. Fixes numerous input and other bugs caused by SDL
[CORE] Separated video and input threads. Now input events happen asynchronously and won't be limited by VSYNC
[CORE] Implemented low latency input into all of the emulator cores. Input latency has worst case response of only 4ms now
[CORE] Now disable screensaver when RetroCopy is running
[CORE] Ensure Windows doesn't think it's idle when user doesn't use mouse or keyboard
[CORE] Added more descriptive input text as given from input drivers themselves (Z axis instead of Axis 1 for instance)
[CORE] Fixed issue with broken .GAME files possibly causing crash when run
[CORE] Removed some thread locking on cores that have "Seek" capabilities to remove unneeded slowdowns. Fixes video playback issue on some systems

[ONLINE] New .GAME files with metanames longer than 32chars weren't properly being logged online [Tommy]

Read the WHATSNEW.TXT

RetroCopy v0.850 is ready to be downloaded. You can install it over the top of v0.800 if you want.



Download Here

Here is what's new.

[GENESIS] Improved speed by 10-15%
[GENESIS] Fixed bug in SRAM handling that would sometimes cause a crash [Micky/Sasha]
[GENESIS] Fixed bug with IO reads that caused a few games to not register joypad reads [Micky/Sasha]
[GENESIS] Implemented /TIME mapper support (Beyond Oasis)
[GENESIS] Fixed issue with sprite limitation only allowing 79 sprites instead of 80. Fixes Risky Woods [Sasha/Neville]
[VIDEO] Updated libavformat/libavcodec
[3D] Fixed a few issues in the "old television" 3D model
[3D] Fixed a bug with OpenGL states in model class
[3D] Corrected issue with specular lighting
[3D] Fixed bug in shader that made "High" quality the same as "Ultra"
[3D] Rewrote part of the lighting shader to work better with NVIDIA hardware

[SOUND] Fixed issue with timing delays on lower resource systems. Solves sound buffering issues

[CORE] Implemented multi system support for the online game retrieval system now that arcade and gamegear are online
[CORE] Fixed linking issue with font engine and SDL

[DB] Updates to GameGear, SMS and Arcade databases
[DB] Added more descriptions for games instead of relying upon ROM description [Tommy]

RetroCopy v0.800 has been released, currently available only in 32bit version.



Here is a brief summary of changes :-

* New arcade systems. Sega System 1, Sega System 2, 1942
* Sega Genesis/Megadrive accuracy improvements
* New 3D engine allows you to edit and move around virtual game room in first person mode
* New 3D sound engine
* Video playback. RetroCopy now is a media player as well, takes all common formats
* Hundreds of GUI changes

View Complete Changelog

RetroCopy v0.720 has been released, available in both 64bit and 32bit versions.

Here is a brief summary of changes :-

* Massive improvements to Genesis / Megadrive accuracy
* New sound engine that resamples audio at highest quality for NES/SMS/MEGADRIVE/GG and arcade
* New high quality sound equalizer that lets you manually adjust bass, mid and high frequencies
* Save state support. Automatic (Wii virtual console) and manual saving supported
* 10-20% speed improvement

View Complete Changelog

RetroCopy v0.700 has been released. The biggest additions in this version are downloadable covers,screenshots,reviews,cheats and trivia from within RetroCopy. And finally something I don't think that has been done before in an emulator, Game Gear network link emulation.

Also included is a complete Sega Master System database that Tommy has worked on for hundreds of hours.



Here is what's new :-

-[EMU] Upgraded the YM2413 FM core to stereo, fixes bad sound in SMS FM games
-[EMU] Added GameGear Gear-To-Gear network link emulation.
-[EMU] Fixed bug in GameGear VDP that made it act like a V1 SMS VDP
-[EMU] Fixed bug in SMS VDP that was clearing lower bits in status register (PGA Golf)

-[CORE] Now support .ZIP files for conversion, including zip files with mulitple ROMs inside
-[CORE] Singular official .game files are now saved if a complete set isn't found
-[CORE] Added screenshot saving with two modes. The "Full screenshot" mode saves the borders so it's like a real TV and the other mode is "content only" which is purely the content.
-[CORE] Added option to change fast forward speed
-[CORE] Upgraded SDL version
-[CORE] Now warn there may be issues when display isn't at least 1280x720
-[CORE] Usage stats for games played are now saved on the RetroCopy server, allowing you to view the most played games
-[CORE] Changed the way covers are loaded. Now all media relating to a game is stored in a .ZIP file in a media subdirectory, reducing clutter
-[CORE] Finalized Sega Master System .GAME headers . All Sega Master System games have been added
-[CORE] Updated arcade.dat and removed GameGear, Megadrive, Nintendo NES dat files until we have properly covered the games in them.
-[CORE] Fixed over 60 memory leaks and other small resource issues
-[CORE] Added rewind buffer size option instead of a default time limit, defaults to 256MB. Allows you to use up to 1GB of memory which would would allow you to rewind for a few minutes on some systems. This allows users with low RAM to use the MegaDrive emulation, which in last version using over 500MB for rewind.
-[CORE] Added feature to .GAME which allow us to specify whether a game is a hack, official release, etc
-[CORE] Added country information to .GAME header

-[SOUND] Fixed issue with audio latency that sometimes would not autofix itself like it should have

-[3D] VSYNC option now doesn't need a restart to take effect
-[3D] Added mipmaps and anisotropic filtering to emulator output for increased quality in virtual game room (optional, NVIDIA users can't use this as all drivers are broken and it's too slow)
-[3D] Increased performance of mipmap generation, now there is little delay even when loading 10 megapixel images
-[3D] Added Anisotropic Filtering option, will use maximum amount when enabled
-[3D] Changed viewpoint calculation to better suit some displays
-[3D] Changed and cleaned up the way game covers are loaded for better resource usage and lower loading times
-[3D] Multiple 3D game box models can now be used for each game
-[3D] Added GameGear 3D box model (export)
-[3D] Changed the way 3D game boxes are viewed, now no manual rotation is necessary, simply left and right click on the boxes to get them to rotate or zoom.
-[3D] Fixed issue of game boxes not always being centered in the game cover area.

-[GUI] Implemented new font caching mechanism to speed up font operations, greatly increasing GUI performance
-[GUI] Fixed issue with fonts sometimes not loading language specific unicode characters (Portugese, French, Norwegian, etc)
-[GUI] Added new textbox control with scrollable areas
-[GUI] Changed game browser layout
-[GUI] Added country flags and other icons to game browser
-[GUI] Added Reviews/cheats/trivia sections, they are automatically filled in with data from the server allowing dynamic content and user participation
-[GUI] Increased size of 3D game box area and added screenshot section above it
-[GUI] Can now download game covers for any game with a single click within RetroCopy
-[GUI] .GAME conversion and Directory Browsing now happen in another thread
-[GUI] Added more information to the .GAME conversion window
-[GUI] Changed the way windows are removed to cleanup code dealing with window management
-[GUI] Added .GAME filtering, filter by country, name, year released, cooperative, single player, etc
-[GUI] Added .GAME grouping options. Now can group similar games (ie Sonic USA / JAP / EUR / v1 / v2) so you can more easily select the game you want without clutter
-[GUI] Some buttons now change to reflect custom button mappings assigned to them
-[GUI] Can now select the system you want to use without scrolling through all of them

-[WEB] http://www.retrocopy.com/games.aspx - Online database added

-[INPUT] Added "reset to default" button
-[INPUT] Keyboard mapping now is relevant to your specific mapping (QWERTY, DVORAK, etc)
-[INPUT] Now reset global input state before testing user input on config page. Fixes broken input drivers that send fake/incorrect commands on startup (DKT70)
-[INPUT] Now use directinput instead of MMapi.
-[INPUT] Upgraded joystick config to allow upto 32 axis, 8 hats and 64 buttons
-[INPUT] Added joystick info page that shows in real time the status of all controllers connected, including their current axis values, button values and hat directions.
-[INPUT] Added more configurable commands such as 3D movement, use, turn off, etc

RetroCopy v0.666B has been released. The biggest addition in this version is accurate Sega Genesis / Megadrive emulation.

If you are an emulator related site could you please link to the individual emulator pages for RetroCopy if you put it in any categories :-

http://www.retrocopy.com/sega-genesis.aspx - Sega Genesis / Megadrive Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/nes.aspx - Nintendo Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/sms.aspx - Sega Master System Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/gamegear.aspx - GameGear Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/arcade.aspx - Arcade Emulator




Here is what's new :-

-[EMU] Added accurate Sega Genesis / Megadrive emulation. It should be the most accurate Genesis emulator available as it is nearly completely cycle accurate. Features include crisp stereo sound emulation, gameplay rewind, Sega Virtua Processor (SVP used in Virtua Racing), EEPROM, SRAM, accurate interlace emulation (Sonic 2 - 2 player mode). Takes advantage of 64bit (x64) CPUs. More details here :- http://www.retrocopy.com/sega-genesis.aspx

-[EMU] Added cycle accurate stereo sound to gamegear. Used by Outrun, Aleste, Galaga, Woody Pop, Xmen etc
-[GUI] Mouse cursor now disappears after 3 seconds of inactivity so it's not obscuring gameplay
-[CORE] Added option that lets RetroCopy manage how CPU cores are used. Useful for some AMD systems running on Windows XP if they have timing problems
-[CORE] Fixed memory leak in game loading
-[SOUND] Changed the ingame "fullscreen" to Stereo sound. The 3D world still uses mono as the TV's don't have two separate virtual speakers for the sound to come from yet.
-[SOUND] Fixed bug which could cause glitches in the sound on some systems

RetroCopy v0.500B has been released. Lots of new things in this release.

If you are an emulator related site could you please link to the individual emulator pages for RetroCopy if you put it in any categories :-


http://www.retrocopy.com/nes.aspx - Nintendo Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/sms.aspx - Sega Master System Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/gamegear.aspx - GameGear Emulator
http://www.retrocopy.com/arcade.aspx - Arcade Emulator



Here is what's new :-


-[EMU] Added cycle accurate Game Gear emulation
-[EMU] Added multiplayer support (same machine) to NES, SEGA-E arcade and SMS drivers.
-[EMU] Fixed bug in NES PPU that was causing crashes for certain games upon loadup
-[EMU] Fixed a fews bug in NES APU that were causing slight issues with sound generation when DMC was used
-[EMU] Added korean mapper to SMS and corrected a few CodeMaster mapper games
-[EMU] Cleaned up the SMSVDP core (used by SMS, Gamegear and SEGA-E arcade cores) and made it more accurate using the new information found about the TMS9918 graphics processor.

-[CORE] Can now select whether to start playing on the emulated 3D television or in "fullscreen mode"
-[CORE] Added configurable input, you can now change every input to whatever you want including using key modifiers like SHIFT, ALT, etc.
-[CORE] Added joystick/joypad support. Up to 4 joysticks/joypads plugged in at once are supported.
-[CORE] Fixed issue with ENTER or SPACE causing the menu buttons to be pushed if you had focused a button while playing a game
-[CORE] Replaced most of boost::filesystem with own disk layer functions to reduce exception handling
-[CORE] Changed file functions to morph any "indirect" paths to a full path name to resolve any issues with working directory being set to something other than the RetroCopy directory
-[CORE] Added texture cache
-[CORE] Moved all system specific dat files to a dat subfolder to reduce main directory clutter
-[CORE] Added the emulator benchmark ROM internally into RetroCopy to avoid issues with not having the file
-[CORE] Can now run RetroCopy in a window on your desktop or fullscreen (default).
-[CORE] Every option is now saved in a config file
-[CORE] Now convert "unknown games" in the directory to a default GAME file so that they can possibly be played if valid
-[CORE] Fixed a few issues with GAME conversion, made it more reliable

-[3D] Added new 3D furniture into the Virtual Game Room
-[3D] Added a new 3D TV, it is more modern and has a widescreen aspect ratio to give more options for playing games accurately
-[3D] Added game gear 3D model upon which you can play games on. Even has a semi accurate LCD flicker effect.
-[3D] Changed shader code to only allow 5 active lights to improve performance.
-[3D] Fixed issue with camera tilting on Y axis after entering game room
-[3D] Added antialiasing and VSYNC options
-[3D] Fixed possible bug that may have detected shader capable cards when they didn't support all features needed

-[AUDIO] Can now change sample rate up to 192000Hz for those seeking insane audio quality. Minimum allowed is 22050Hz which gives a tiny speed boost over the default of 44100Hz.

-[GUI] Tweaked the 3D game browser to make it easier to use
-[GUI] Fixed a very random crash bug that was caused by scrollbars not being properly initialized in some instances
-[GUI] Now show a 3D arcade machine in the area gameboxes go when viewing the arcade games since they don't have gameboxes
-[GUI] Changed the theme of some buttons/windows to make a more cohesive looking interface
-[GUI] Added an animation effect when switching areas within RetroCopy
-[GUI] Added a random message generator on the main part of the interface that shows "witty" slogans.
-[GUI] Added login panel

RetroCopy v0.400B has been released. This one has a lot of major additions.

If you are an emulator related site please link to the individual emulator pages for RetroCopy :-

http://www.retrocopy.com/sms.aspx for the Sega Master System emulation
http://www.retrocopy.com/nes.aspx for Nintendo emulation
http://www.retrocopy.com/arcade.aspx for Arcade emulation



-[EMU] Added Sega System E arcade emulation. The first cycle accurate Sega System E arcade emulator. It's more accurate than MAME and sounds better!
-[EMU] Added new YM2413 (SMS sound chip) emulator which sounds a lot better than old one
-[EMU] Improved SMS/SEGAE VDP performance by 40%
-[EMU] Improved Z80 emulator performance by 20%
-[EMU] Changed the way the YM2413 and SMS-SN79489 were emulated in comparison to other components. They are now accurate to the cycle in line with the Z80/VDP rather than being slave devices, this comes at a small cost in performance but is less cluttered
-[EMU] Fixed SN79489 bug where data byte wasn't correctly setting noise channel low bits and a bug with noise channel using incorrect period when set to TONE2 mode
-[EMU] Fixed various bugs relating to border emulation in the SMS VDP
-[EMU] Added TMS9918 chaining to the SMSVDP
-[EMU] Switched default NES buttons around to match real control pad (NIKOLA)
-[EMU] Fixed a few bugs in the Z80 core relating to undocumented instructions that the SEGA E games used
-[EMU] Refactored every emulator core and implemented versionized save states in preparation for disk loading/saving

-[CORE] Added an emulator benchmark. Allows you to see how many millions of emulated cycles your system can push. The latest CPUs are getting close to 150 million emulated cycles in RetroCopy now!
-[CORE] Implemented new GAME ROM format based on suggestions from users. Now each GAME file can have multiple ROMs inside it, each with their own settings. Works for every system whether console or arcade and achieves compression ratios 20:1 and over in some cases over plain ROM data. There are too many new GAME features added to list here so check my blog for more details.
-[CORE] RetroCopy now automatically converts SMS/NES/ARCADE ROMs it detects to new GAME format on first load, no more trouble with conversion as it's seamless
-[CORE] Added graphics filters SCALE2x / SCALE4x / SCALE4x with scanlines, they run in a separate thread to maximize performance on multicore CPUs.
-[CORE] Added pixel filter and made it the default when fullscreen. Can switch between this and linear filtering with all the filters
-[CORE] Added ability for cores to specify video rotations if necessary for arcade games, like those in the sit down cocktail format
-[CORE] Fixed bug that stopped fast forward working
-[CORE] Fixed crash bug for people with old or non existant OpenGL based hardware. RetroCopy now works in the Microsoft "Software" renderer though hardware accelleration is a lot better.
-[CORE] Stopped SDL from dynamically creating some text files (stderr.txt and stdout.txt)

-[3D] Tweaked the pixel shaders a little bit to give a better lighting effect
-[3D] Fixed an issue with mouse view movement giving variable results depending upon the framerate

-[GUI] When clicking on PLAY GAMES the default is now looking at a game list with a 3D TV already selected, rather than having to first select a 3D TV to play on
-[GUI] Changed around the "in game" menu buttons and mode a more distinct difference between the 3D world and playing games
-[GUI] Added a different way to roam the virtual 3D game room using the mouse scroll buttons (Tommy)
-[GUI} Added UNICODE (UTF-8 externally, UTF-16/32 internally) support to the GUI, though none of the current fonts support the more exotic languages.
-[GUI] Changed GUI to accept resource image/cursor data as a per project setting
-[GUI] Added more cursor modes to give some feedback to the user
-[GUI] Added features to listview such as in place editing, indenting, etc
-[GUI] Fixed some small bugs in the software renderer
-[GUI] Added YEAR RELEASED and NUMBER OF PLAYERS to the game display list, taken from the GAME file.
-[GUI] Now up to six 3D game covers can be loaded when you click on a game
-[GUI] Increased size of 3D gamebox window to fit in more 3D boxes at once
-[GUI] Added new Sega Master System 3D gamebox which is a lot more accurate and based on real world dimensions
-[GUI] Added shader based lighting to the 3D Gameboxes (if capable) which makes them near photo-realistic now.
-[GUI] Changed the way you select to play SMS games. Now you select the console you want (SMS2 PAL, JAPANESE SMS, MARK III, SMS1 NTSC, etc) instead of selecting the video/region settings manually. There are slight differences in each console and RetroCopy emulates them for accuracy
-[GUI] Implemented keyboard navigation and searching within listview contents
-[GUI] Improved the game select screen and added some icons

-[GAMEDB] Wrote a completely new GAME database editor in the RetroCopy GUI code. If you want to help with becoming a GAME ROM database maintainer for the NES/SMS/etc please contact me.

RetroCopy v0.300B has been released. This one has quite a few major additions.



Here is what's new
[quote]
-Added cycle accurate NES emulation. Not perfect yet but most USA mappers have been added and most USA games work. Import your NES games to the .GAME format the same way you do for the SMS games.
-Added 3D virtual game room with dynamic pixel lighting and 3D sound. Select a TV to play on and load a game. Automatic detection of modern cards should still allow old 3D cards to run RetroCopy
-Allowed multiple systems to be run at same time which required reworking the main emulator thread
-Reduced EXE size by removing some unused visual assets from RetroCopy like the old 2D TV
-Added new camera class that has a lot more functionality and improved view of the 3D world
-Fixed bug in sound core which forced all cores to use same output buffer resulting in distortion with multiple games
-Moved sound to its own thread to offload 3D sound and general audio processing from the emulator thread
-Fixed bug in SMSVDP v1 where SMSVDP2 video modes were allowed
-Fixed bug in SMSVDP v1 with the last 4 sprites only being zoomed vertically
-Added .3DS loader and got rid of the milkshape 3d loader because the model format breaks often. Now specular lighting and other effects are better
-Improved movement in 3D world by increasing speed and ensuring framerate has no effect on precision. Also simulated popular FPS games like CounterStrike with left shift allowing slower movement in the 3D world
-Fixed bug which allowed you to zoom into the middle of the 3D game boxes
-Fixed bug in audio not being completed reversed when rewinding, Sound quality is now much improved when rewinding
-Added mipmaps to 3D modes which generally increases quality. If you have a card capable of Anisotropic filtering it will be enabled by default which further increases quality
-Reworked ROM browsing/loading interface. Now you have to select a TV before the ROM browser appears. It is now also shown transparently over the virtual gameroom[/quote]

v0.200b of RetroCopy has been released! Here is what is new :-

-Added 3D TV to replace old 2D TV, with phosphor glow emulation and curved screen for real 80s gaming.
-Added 3D world which can be moved around in when viewing the games in windowed mode. Press F3 to switch between 3D movement and GUI movement
-Added cycle accurate TMS9918 MODE2 emulation to the SMS VDP. Games like F-16 Fighter use it
-Added version label inside program so it's obvious what version you are running
-Fixed issue with background image not filling up entire display if resolution was over 1680 x 1050
-Fixed emulation thread appearing to "hang" that happened when CPU usage was high
-Scrollbar buttons now work
-Removed the .GAME extension in rom browser
-Forgot to call glFinish before swapping buffers, leading to a one frame delay which was noticable when VSYNC was enabled


And here is a video showing some off some of the new features.

Finally the first build of RetroCopy has gone public. You can grab it off the download page. Unfortunately NES isn't included in this build, but it will be back soon.

The RetroCopy website is operational. There are still a few tweaks to be made here and there, so if you spot anything please post it on the forum.