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BlastEm - The Fast And Accurate Genesis Emulator

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BlastEm has the goal of being an extremely accurate Genesis emulator while still running on relatively modest hardware by using advanced techniques. Currently, there's a lot of work left to do on the accuracy front and there are a lot of optimizations I want to do, but BlastEm is still quite usable for certain purposes. Many commercial and homebrew games run well and the performance seems to be good on my relatively modest AMD E-350 powered laptop and Intel Atom based HTPC.

Requirements
BlastEm requires a computer with an x86-64 processor running Linux. The only external dependency is SDL 1.2. You may be able to use it on other Unix-like systems if you're willing to compile it yourself.

Features
  • savestates
  • integrated debugger
  • joystick/gamepad support
  • save RAM support


Use
BlastEm currently lacks a proper GUI so it must be invoked from the command line. The only required argument is the name of the ROM file you wish to run. For a list of all command line options, run blastem -h.

Always good to see more emulators, especially ones for a console I had when I was younger, fun!

You can download it here: http://rhope.retrodev.com/files/blastem_0.1.0.tar.gz
Or get access to the source here: http://rhope.retrodev.com/repos/blastem Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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About the author -
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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5 comments

entropy Sep 16, 2013
Does it run this recently released demo properly? :)

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61724
Lord Avallon Sep 16, 2013
It´s always good to see new emulators coming, I use Kega Fusion too, it is excellent and emulates Master System, Game Gear, Sega CD and 32X too, I hope BlastEm is not locked on Genesis.
zikzak Sep 16, 2013
I hope that it will evolve to include the Sega MegaCD. I never managed to compile an emulator for this machine on my 64bit distrib.
Mike Pavone Sep 16, 2013
Quoting: BladeforceI have tried this and while it is fairly good it is not a patch on Fusion, i hope it does get as good but still a long way off the quality of fusion

http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=kega
The "Fast and Accurate" subtitle is somewhat aspirational at the moment. Kega Fusion is probably the better choice for general usage until I get a bit further along. This is especially true when it comes to sound as my YM-2612 core needs a lot of work.

Quoting: entropyDoes it run this recently released demo properly? :)

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=61724
Not yet. It should properly mask out the sprites that display the "your emulator sux" text, but there's another bug that causes it to get stuck shortly after the TITAN logo currently. Fixing this is a relatively high priority for me.

Quoting: Lord AvallonIt´s always good to see new emulators coming, I use Kega Fusion too, it is excellent and emulates Master System, Game Gear, Sega CD and 32X too, I hope BlastEm is not locked on Genesis.
Sega/Mega CD and 32X are planned for the future, though there's still a fair amount I want to fix in the Genesis emulation before I move on to those.
philip550c Sep 17, 2013
I remember that when I was as a kid, I bought either a megadrive or a masters system in Germany, I dont remember which, and brought it to the US and I was disappointed that I couldnt plug it in and use it. lol Maybe now I can finally play some of those games.
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