EmuNations

Most Recent Changes

--3.0.0--

Adds Sega 32X, and brings a large round of improvements to cheats, recording, menus, the Large interface, the Modern style and the User Guide. The Genesis Plus GX emulator core is unchanged; 32X games run in the PicoDrive library, which is included.

Your settings, saves, states, cheats and profiles from 2.0.0 are kept.

Sega 32X

• 32X games run through the PicoDrive library (Plugins\picodrive_libretro-64.dll or -32.dll, included). A game with a SEGA 32X header (.32x, or a .bin, .zip, .7z) is recognized by itself.

• Works for 32X games: save states, Auto Resume, rewind, input recording, video / audio / GIF recording, screenshots, region, FM chip (YM2612 or YM3438), Console Model, High-Quality FM, 3-Band EQ, low-pass filter, Sample Rate, NTSC filter, LCD ghosting and all render filters and shaders.

• Cheats and Cheat Search for a 32X game: the cartridge ROM, the 68000 work RAM and the SH-2 SDRAM (a Memory choice in Cheat Search).

• PWM sound: Mute PWM Sound (Audio > Mute, Ctrl+P) and a PWM Preamp slider in Levels and Latency. The FM and PSG levels work too.

• Netplay for 32X games.

• VGM recording of the FM, PSG and PWM.

Sega Pico (New)

• Sega Pico is a console of its own in the game list, the file dialogs and the folders. Pico games are found by their header, also inside .zip and .7z files, and the scan stays instant (the headers are read in the background).

Cheats

• Work RAM byte codes (aaaaaa:dd), a clear Status for every code, sortable columns (the # number stays with its cheat), and Similar Cheat Files (load one to replace the list, or insert its cheats).

• Export... saves the list as a .cht file; RetroArch .cht files are read; Cheat Code Converter lists a code as Raw, Action Replay and Game Genie in columns; Size All Columns to Fit.

• Cheats work in netplay (both PCs need the same ones on; they are compared when connecting).

• The red screen is fixed. Many games check their ROM when they start, and a code already in the ROM made them show a red screen. ROM codes now go in after the game has started: after the first button press (two seconds at least, twenty at most), also after a reset.

• Cheat Search: First Scan and Next Scan, the scan is kept when the window is closed (until the game stops), and the Memory choice is remembered for the game.

Recording and VGM

• VGM recordings begin with the state of the sound chips (the FM chip, PSG and, for 32X, the PWM), so a recording started mid-game sounds right, and the end of a recording releases every held note. Shift+F10 starts a VGM recording.

• Video recording options (size 1x to 4x, quality, and shape: the console's own, 4:3 or 16:9 widescreen) in Settings > Options; 2x is the default size. Screenshots: Screenshot Output (Raw, Corrected, Final) and Screenshot Size (1x to 4x).

Picture

• More render filters, sorted by name in a sub-menu for each family: Super Eagle, Super 2xSaI, 2xSaI, the real HQ2x/3x/4x, LQ2x, xBR 2x/3x/4x, ScaleFX 3x, CRT Geom 3x/4x, bicubic Catmull-Rom, Mitchell and B-Spline 3x/4x, Sharp Bilinear 3x/4x, Lanczos 3x/4x, Scanlines 3x/4x, Glow Scanlines 3x, CRT Aperture Grille and Shadow Mask, LCD Grid 3x/4x.

• Interlaced Mode (single or double field): a double-resolution picture (Sonic 2's two player mode) no longer shakes or blurs, and moving sprites are no longer drawn in blocks. Rewind works with it.

• Picture Adjustments window (Video menu): Contrast, Saturation, Gamma and Hue sliders, with a Restore Defaults button.

Look and Feel

• Modern style reworked: flat rounded controls, a rounded chosen item in menus, system menu colors.

• Accent color everywhere: list rows, drop-downs, slider knobs, and (in Classic too) check boxes and radio buttons. 19 accent colors.

• Colorful Icons option for the menu icons, toolbar and favorite star.

• Large interface polished: menus, icons, a dark menu frame, bar titles, a wider Settings window.

• Sizes and text follow the display scale (menus, toolbars, status bar, dialogs).

• Dark menu bar in fullscreen with no white flash.

• Radio items in menus show a dot (Render Filter, Select State Slot and others).

Settings and Controls

• Controls: the Advanced tab is now Extras (ports and combos).

• Turbo Rate: Slower, Slow, Medium (default), Fast and Faster, 7.5 to 30 presses a second.

• Rewind Speed: Slow, Normal, Fast or Very Fast.

• Always on Top moved to Settings > General and the View menu.

Others

• User Guide (was the Menu Guide): a formatted page you can resize and maximize, with the names of items in bold, the Settings, Controls, Cheats and Netplay windows, the BIOS and Firmware files last, right-click Copy and Select All, and the logo and credits on the first page.

• Extras
  A few hidden surprises were added.

Notes

• BIOS files are not included (only Mega CD games need them): see readme.txt.

• Based on Genesis Plus GX by Eke-Eke, core by Charles MacDonald; 32X through PicoDrive by Dave, notaz, irixxxx and others. Same license terms as Genesis Plus GX: source must accompany modified redistributions, and it may not be sold or used commercially.

• Full documentation: README.md.

--2.0.0--

The project is now Genesis Plus EX (it was "Genesis Plus"). This is a large update over 1.0.0: new look, new audio outputs, a much bigger game library, more recording options, and a lot of polish.

New look

• Classic or Modern style (View → Style). Modern draws flat, rounded buttons, check boxes, drop-downs and tabs, softer toolbar buttons, messages on a rounded plate, rounded window corners and a themed title bar (Windows 11), in Segoe UI.

• Accent colors (Default, Teal, Green, Purple, Pink, Red, Orange, Gray) for selections, tabs and list headings. Light, dark and system themes remain.

• Toolbars with a choice of size, and a Larger UI option.

Sound

• New outputs: WASAPI shared (the default), WASAPI exclusive and XAudio2, besides the old waveOut. Sound device choice.

• Levels and Latency dialog: master, FM, PSG, CD and Sega CD PCM volume, buffer size and a live level meter.

• New tone controls: Stereo Width, Bass Boost, Overdrive, Even Out Loudness, and Console Model presets (Model 1 / Model 2).

• Master System FM unit option, Mute FM / PSG shortcuts, Mute When Inactive.

Game library

• Grid view with cover art (sizes Tiny to Extra Large, Ctrl+wheel to resize, rounded corners, captions, card frame), cached covers.

• Search bar and filters (region:, console:, genre:, type:, fav:), filter bar by console, genre and region.

• Several ROM folders with exclusions; subfolders scanned.

• Favorites, a Recently Played group, Group by Console, an A-Z strip, more sortable columns, Clean Game Names (also in File → Recent Files), list spacing.

• Per-game right-click menu: play with a state, cheats, cover, favorite, desktop shortcut.

Saving

• Auto Resume with a "resume next time" box on exit.

• Rolling backup states (every 1-10 minutes, three backups; Load State → Load Backup State).

• Manage States window with thumbnails, copy to file, delete; load/save any .gpstate file; Undo Load/Save State.

• Rewind bar with history size 128-768 MB.

• Skip-intro option.

• Per-console, per-game data folders for saves, states, covers and cheats.

Recording and capture

• Animated GIF (picture only, up to 6 s) and VGM sound logs, besides MP4 video and WAV audio; a separate folder for each kind under recordings/.

• Recording now stops in the background (no freeze), with taskbar progress.

• Input recording and playback (.gpm) for speedruns and bug reports.

• Screenshot output mode: Raw, Corrected (4:3) or Final (after filter); screenshots are written on a worker thread.

Controls window and combos

• Rebuilt Input → Controls window with tabs for Player 1, Player 2 and Advanced. Click a button, then press the key or pad button you want: one press works for keyboard and gamepad, with no separate mode. Esc or right-click cancels, and Auto Assign goes through all buttons in turn.

• A key or button can be on only one pad button; assigning it takes it from the old one and says so.

• Turbo box beside A/B/C/X/Y/Z with a Turbo Rate, a stick Deadzone, and Controller Model / port devices on the Advanced tab.

• Combo buttons (Advanced tab, up to 12): one key or pad button presses several game buttons. Set a Trigger, then add game buttons with Hold (0.25-10 s or until you press it) and Pause steps, e.g. a Sonic spin dash on one button. A How It Works guide is in the window.

• Profiles (Load / New / Save / Delete) store both players, pad types and combos in the profiles folder.

• Gamepad Hotkeys put shortcuts on pad buttons (fast forward, rewind, states, pause, reset, screenshot, fullscreen, mute, recording, game speed, in-game pause menu) with an optional hold button; Enable Background Input.

Tools

• Cheat Search to find a value in memory, a Cheat Converter, shared CRC32 cheat lists in cheats/library.

• Controller profiles, turbo and combo buttons (12 rows), and gamepad hotkeys.

• Netplay improvements: session codes, Find hosts, optional UPnP port opening, mismatch detection that names the setting, drift check every second, reconnect for up to a minute.

• More peripherals, including the EA 4-Way Play.

• Game Speed and overclock options.

Picture

• Bezel image in fullscreen, Flicker Blending, Dither Smoothing, Contrast / Saturation / Gamma / Hue, exclusive fullscreen with its own resolution, Original Console Pixels aspect as the default.

Launchers

• Command-line options: --fullscreen, --windowed, --exit-on-close, --state N, --state-file, --mute, --paused, --scale N, --help; Keep Only One Instance. Setup notes for LaunchBox, Pegasus, Playnite, ES-DE / EmulationStation / RetroBat.

--1.0.0--

Genesis Plus is a Windows emulator based on Genesis Plus GX. It plays Sega Mega Drive / Genesis, Master System, Game Gear, SG-1000, Mega CD / Sega CD and Pico games, with a native Windows interface (no SDL).

No installation is needed. Settings, saves and states are stored in folders next to the exe, so the whole folder is portable.

Highlights

• Game browser: list or grid view with cover art, a toolbar, a search bar (Ctrl+F shows / hides it) and filters by console, genre and region (your choice is remembered). Lines between the columns, optional lines between rows (Show Grid Lines), and the ROMs directory is searched with its subfolders (switchable).

• Your library: favorites (star column, toolbar button, "Show Favorites Only"), "Show Recently Played" (your last games grouped at the top, clearable from the right-click menu), "Clean Game Names" (hides the (...) / [...] tags and the extension), and a Genre column.

• Settings window: every menu option on tabs (Options → Settings), applied immediately, with tooltips.

• Video: Direct3D 9 / 11 or GDI, Scale2x/3x, Eagle, Smooth, real xBRZ, CRT and Sharp filters, NTSC filter, scanlines, LCD ghosting, Smooth and Integer Scaling, and librashader .slangp shader presets (64-bit).

• Fullscreen: Alt+Enter or Esc. The menu bar and toolbar appear when you move the mouse to the top edge.

• Audio: five FM chip options (YM2612 Nuked by default, YM3438 Nuked and three MAME variants), low-pass or 3-band EQ filter, 44100/48000 Hz, Mute FM / Mute PSG.

• Input: keyboard, XInput and DirectInput gamepads, remappable per player on a controller picture with live press indicators; Turbo buttons; the right stick as four extra buttons; a warning when a key or button is already used; control pad, mouse, light guns, Activator, paddle, sports pad, Graphic Board and Team Player.

• Hotkeys: every keyboard shortcut can be changed (Input → Hotkeys), and Gamepad Hotkeys (in Controls) put fast forward, rewind, slow motion, save / load state and previous / next slot on pad buttons, the right stick by default.

• Saves and play: save states to the selected slot or any of 10 slots (keys 0-9 load, Shift+0-9 save), with thumbnails, Undo Save and Undo Load; Auto Resume (carry on where you left off); rewind, fast forward and slow motion (with sound), each also a tick in the Emulation menu, and frame advance; cheats (Game Genie / Action Replay / raw); multi-disc Mega CD; LAN netplay; video and audio recording.

• Archives and discs: .zip, .gz, .7z, .cue and .chd. Only games the program can run are listed: archives with nothing playable, track files of a disc, and discs of other systems (Saturn, PlayStation...) are left out.

• ROM information: a two-column list (game, cartridge header, ROM) that can be copied.

• Frontend support: works with LaunchBox, Pegasus, Playnite, ES-DE and similar launchers.

Launching from a frontend

"Genesis Plus.exe" [options] "<rom>"

OptionWhat it does-f, --fullscreenStart the game in fullscreen-w, --windowedStart the game in a window-x, --exit-on-closeQuit when the game is closed, so the frontend gets control back-s N, --state NLoad save state slot N (0-9) after starting

Notes

• BIOS files are not included. They are optional, except for Mega CD games. Put them in the bios folder.

• Windows 7 or later.