New updates for Ares, DOSBox-X, ScummVM, and the future of PC emulation in PCem and 86Box

Is there anything left on the Internet that is not AI slop generated by a chatbot to permanently kill any remnant of human creativity? Probably not, therefore I’m still here, despite the overwhelming AFK chaos to deal with, the aftermath of a devastating relocation, and job insecurity as a permanent lifestyle, producing some new posts to feed to the generative monster that makes the world’s richest Nazi serial killers like Elon Musk have seraphic orgasms. Actually, no, I will keep blocking AI bots via robots.txt (for what it’s worth…), and my spirit as an old gamer tired of everything still is passionate about the same old topics. Starting with emulation, a world that couldn’t be more alive and brimming with developments than it is right now.

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DREAMM, 86Box, DOSBox-X: new updates for the trendiest PC emulators

After working on the MAME project for years, Aaron Giles has now put his efforts and legendary coding skills to work in the PC emulation biz. DREAMM is designed to simulate a stripped-down version of the 32-bit Windows API and all the hardware components needed to run a long list of LucasArts games. In the past few months, Giles released a new major release of his non-generalist x86 emulator, an update which brings significant improvements to a project that is becoming increasingly enticing for fans of graphic adventures, Star Wars games from the 1990s, and much more.

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86Box 4.1.1 fixes bugs from the previous PC emulator release

As I have said in the past few weeks, 86Box is a PC emulator that is constantly updated and is probably destined for great things in the future. A month after the release of version 4.1, developers have now released a minor update mainly designed to fix the bugs that surfaced in the previous release. While not particularly noteworthy for emulating historically important technology such as the Matrox video cards added in the aforementioned version 4.1, 86Box 4.1.1 doesn’t miss the chance to add new virtual peripherals to the ever-growing list of PC hardware emulated by the program.

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RPCS3 shows off two years of improvements in PlayStation 3 emulation

This post is part 14 of 16 in the series High-end emulation

Despite being on the market for nearly 13 years, RPCS3 is a project in a perpetual Alpha state for which no official stable builds exist yet. The open source PlayStation 3 emulator is updated quite frequently, but the development mode makes it difficult to keep track of all the progress and milestones the program has achieved over time. Fortunately, the RPCS3 developers themselves make things much easier by periodically releasing summary videos about how one of the most technologically advanced emulation projects ever is evolving.

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New version for DOSBox-X, the PC emulator that goes beyond DOS

The last official update for DOSBox dates back to 2019, with minor release 0.74-3. Since then, one of the most significant projects in the history of PC emulation has been like suspended in time, while SVN builds compiled from the most recent changes to the source code have been idle for months. Meanwhile, DOSBox forks have continued to evolve introducing new features, bugfixes and a much broader compatibility with DOS software. One fork in particular, DOSBox-X, seems in my yes to be the one capable of providing the most interesting advanced emulation experience for an old command prompt dog like myself.

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86Box 4.1 brings emulation of Matrox video cards and much more

As I wrote a few weeks ago, 86Box is one of the most interesting emulators for Windows retrogaming around today. Born as a fork of PCem in 2016, 86Box can recreate in software a long and ever-growing list of virtual hardware components to run vintage software, operating systems and video games. Unlike PCem, 86Box generally provides lower performance (given the same host hardware) focusing on emulation accuracy instead.

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ScummVM, DREAMM, 86Box, DOSBox ECE: four significant developments from the emulation world

Over the past few months, while terrible and wicked forces (…) kept me away from the blog, code craftsmen have been hard at work turning retrogaming and emulation into even more complete and easy-to-use experiences. In particular, I’m talking about ScummVM, DREAMM, 86Box and DOSBox ECE: the first three projects are no doubt alive and well, while the last program needs a brief yet due obituary.

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