

OpenEmu 1.0 Released - brymaster
http://openemu.org

======
suprjami
I have always wanted an interface like this on Linux. You damn fancy Mac
hipsters and your single attractive UI library and your "just works", get offa
my lawn! _waves ancient GTK+ shotgun_

~~~
bjz_
That's partly why so many folks don't use linux. We love our nice UIs. I tried
Elementary OS[1], but even that had really rough corners, and poor application
integration. It's a real chicken-and-egg problem.

[1] [http://elementaryos.org/](http://elementaryos.org/)

~~~
neuromute
Have you tried it recently? I tried an early beta and it was really rough
around the edges. I've been using it in production since beta 2 and it is very
very polished.

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byuu
Congrats on your 1.0 release!

I hate to nitpick, but I assume you want some feedback, right?

On your screenshot, [http://openemu.org/img/controls-
prefs.png](http://openemu.org/img/controls-prefs.png) , you appear to be
missing an option for the B button. Also, I know this is hugely a personal
preference, but the wood grain makes reading the text quite a bit more
difficult for me. Now that Jony Ive's been removing skeuomorphism in OS X and
iOS, it might help consistency to remove and/or tone that down, possibly?

The scrollbar to see the starter pack games does not work with my browser
(Firefox 17.) I can't click it, use arrow keys, or anything of the sort.

Aside from that, it looks really great! I'll try it out when I boot over to OS
X again.

Happy to see another project interested in game libraries and auto-mapping
gamepads! This will definitely be my top multi-emulator recommendation going
forward.

I would like to ask where you're getting your box art from, and what you do
when box art isn't available? (eg no way you have box art for Super Mario
World + All-Stars, as it never had a box; and you probably don't have any for
obscure Japanese titles, I am guessing.) Also, if you support Japanese boxes,
how do you handle the orientation differences between US (horizontal) and JP
(mostly vertical, some horizontal)?

Lastly, how do you handle multiple identical controllers plugged in at once?
It seems that most USB gamepads lack the serial# field, so the only way to
uniquely distinguish them is by USB port# + vendor ID + product ID combined.
The downside there is if you move a gamepad to another USB port, the mappings
need to be updated again.

~~~
brymaster
Hey byuu, thanks for the feedback.

> On your screenshot, [http://openemu.org/img/controls-
> prefs.png](http://openemu.org/img/controls-prefs.png) , you appear to be
> missing an option for the B button

That whole field scrolls down, just doesn't appear so from the screenshot.
Seems we can polish up a few things on the website still.

I have to drag the slider for that horizontal scrollbar but I'm using Firefox
26.

We're using a database called OpenVGDB that I've co-created. I'll hop on your
forums later as I'd like to talk to you about it more. It handles multi-region
and "world" roms of all types and depending on your location (operating system
supplied), can deliver you the correct cover and metadata.

For input, we're still sorting out cases especially with odd adapters and
hubs. We generally go by the port and vendor/product ID.

------
ihuman
It's open source. You can find the source at their Github:
[https://github.com/OpenEmu](https://github.com/OpenEmu)

~~~
brymaster
Thanks, we have a link to the repo at the top of our webpage header too.

------
devindotcom
I'll be sticking to the original emulators used for now. So far I've had
several crashes, many games aren't detected, and control configuration has
layout errors/doesn't work (keyboard controls don't respond in game).
Furthermore many features in the original emulators are not present - rewind
and fast forward, quick save/quick load keyboard bindings.

I really appreciate the effort but for now the drawbacks far outweigh the
advantages (mainly a nice library interface). I've checked in on OpenEmu over
the years and hope to use it in the future.

~~~
brymaster
OpenEmu is meant to remove a lot of the complexity out of emulation. Some more
advanced features we'll expose in the future. I'd be interested in knowing
which games aren't being 'detected' and your input issues might be specific to
a controller you're using.

> rewind and fast forward, quick save/quick load keyboard bindings.

You need to explore the app a little more. In controller prefs, under "Special
Keys" at the bottom we have binds for quick save/load and fast forward.

As for "drawbacks" and any other issues you're having, please submit a
detailed report:
[https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/issues](https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/issues)

HN threads aren't good for bug reports. Luckily this is open source and we can
patch and fix things :)

Edit: By the way, having Google Chrome open with their gamepad API enabled is
known to break input for some reason. If one has that open, please close and
try input in OpenEmu again.

~~~
devindotcom
Aha - the "special keys" dropdown menu broke the layout and exposed no new
options, or overlapped them for me.

~~~
brymaster
Can't replicate that here, anyway, bug reports please:
[https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/issues](https://github.com/OpenEmu/OpenEmu/issues)
:)

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millerm
Awesome! Playing now.

Edit: Dammit, I'm supposed to be doing something productive. Well, it is a
holiday week... Umm....

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rcfox
For those who use Steam, Ice
([http://scottrice.github.io/Ice/](http://scottrice.github.io/Ice/)) will
automatically create "non-Steam game" entries for your ROMs.

------
klrr
Plans on porting to other systems?

~~~
brymaster
No plans. We're focusing on OS X but there is a great multi-platform emulator
called RetroArch: [http://www.libretro.com](http://www.libretro.com)

~~~
parley
Congratulations on what looks like a really nice effort - I'm looking forward
to trying it out. Out of curiosity, what are your main reasons for not making
it a joint effort with RetroArch? I'm a modularity and reusability freak, but
I know often there can be quite compelling reasons for not doing it.

~~~
brymaster
OpenEmu has been in development for a really long time, first around 2009
which is before RetroArch came around. Our focus has always been a native OS X
application while theirs has been cross-platform. Also, cross-platform UI's
are a pain!

~~~
dmix
So why should we use your app instead of RetroArch? :)

~~~
brymaster
That's really personal preference isn't it?

One has a polished cocoa UI, the other is a cross-platform app. There's no
animosity between the two projects here in case anyone is curious.

~~~
dmix
Ah, a very diplomatic answer. I'm just teasing you with the cliche "why are
you better?" pitch test.

OSS with polished UI's are rare and desperately needed. Nice work.

~~~
clarry
The hard part is that once you go cross-platform, there's no such thing as a
"native UI". If you target just one single environment, it'll be so much
easier to make something that feels like it belongs there.

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phaed
OpenEmu is about to change the world of video game emulation... for mac users.

------
JustinAiken
Which database does it scrape game info (covers) from?

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hardwaresofton
This looks like an amazingly polished product. is legality no longer an issue
in emulation-land? been a while since I checked into that scene

~~~
ataylor32
From Nintendo's website:

> it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

Source:
[http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom](http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom)

~~~
mikeash
That's not exactly an unbiased source. For example:

> Are Game Copying Devices Illegal?

> Yes.

I'm pretty sure that's complete crap. There are substantial non-infringing
uses for such devices (e.g. playing your own games on your own computers).
_Using_ such devices to make and distribute illegal copies would, of course,
be illegal, but the devices themselves aren't.

I think they are correct in the part you quoted, but I wouldn't take them at
face value in general.

~~~
brymaster
Yeah, it's definitely fair use to make backups of your own games on the same
medium. Tools like the Retrode are great to use with your carts.

Nintendo is attempting to control the message (no one is going to check them
on it and they're deliberately being ambiguous) and scare people away who
would normally just be pirating their old games.

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xutopia
So say I have a bunch of NES games stashed away in my attic in a box. How can
I extract the data off of them and play this on my computer?

~~~
DanBC
NES dumps have strange origins. There weren't many NES cart dumper devices
around, but this thread might have a few.

[http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?22324-NE...](http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?22324-NES-
cart-copiers-dumpers)

Doesn't look fun.
[http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&th...](http://www.nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=57031)

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kennyledet
Ah yes. Cheers and congrats on this, I've been watching you guys since almost
the beginning. Have been enjoying OpenEmu on my Air and advocating to as many
people I know who are also on OS X and love emulation.

I _really_ want to contribute, but that will have to wait til next year when
I'm a bit more acquainted with Obj-C.

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waal
Hey,

I've just installed OpenEmu on OSX 10.7.5.

It scanned for my PCE roms and then crashed. When I relaunch I get this
prompt: "Restore Windows" and two choices "do" or "don't".

Both don't work. It quits. There's not even a crash report.

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drvortex
OpenEmu is a game emulator for Mac. Retroarch
[http://themaister.net/retroarch.html](http://themaister.net/retroarch.html)
has existed for ages though. What's different about this?

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zyxley
I generally like this, but it needs to ditch the weird animated background of
the first-startup screen and the wood-grain background of the control settings
screen.

------
phatbyte
I Loved this. How can I donate money to this project ?

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plg
How about adding Apple II games? Atari 2600 and Intellivision would be nice
too as well as Commodore 64.

PS yes I am old

~~~
brymaster
Grab our 'Experimental' build where we have way more cores including Atari
2600. We'll continue to add more in the future, though not sure how we'll
handle the old 8-bit computers just yet.

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jon_kuperman
I don't even know what this does yet but the website looks awesome! I can't
stop scrolling...

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anonymoushn
The landing page looks pretty awful at extremely narrow browser widths like
1280 pixels or 960 pixels.

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galang
This looks wonderful guys!! I'm looking forward for a Linux/Win version

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stuaxo
What would it take to port this to other architectures (Linux / Windows).

~~~
brymaster
A complete rewrite as this is a native cocoa app. We don't have any plans to
do this but I recommend using RetroArch which is a great multi-platform
emulator.

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eochs
i do see fast forward, but how about adding a rewind special key? awesome
interface, great work guys!

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t0mislav
Uhh, been waiting for this so long!!

