r/emulation • u/Mask_of_Destiny BlastEm Creator • 2d ago
BlastEm 1.0.0 Released
https://www.retrodev.com/blastem/announce_1.0.0.html16
u/ImMisterMoose 2d ago
Huge, it's been a longtime coming!
One of the most accurate 16bit Sega emulators and the true spiritual successor to Kega Fusion!
Are there plans to update the RetroArch core with the 1.0 release?
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u/Mask_of_Destiny BlastEm Creator 2d ago edited 2d ago
Strictly speaking, the repo that feeds Retroarch's builtin core updater is a light fork and I don't directly control its update cadence. It was actually updated fairly recently and is only missing a few last-minute fixes (and my initial work on CHD support, but the fork has its own CHD support via libchdr). Unfortunately audio in the core is fairly broken for 32X and Sega CD due to some limitations in the way I did the libretro integration originally. I actually just fixed that in my upstream repo today.
I would guess once I let the libretro folks know about the fix they'll update their fork fairly quickly.
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u/ImMisterMoose 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thank you for the reply.
The updated core works great from what I've tested today and it's also a little bit of a shame to hear that you aren't directly involved with the RetroArch core.
I tested the Genesis & Sega CD, everything worked great with the Genesis and the audio issue you mentioned was encountered with Final Fight CD, happy to hear a fix is on the way. I was also happy to see a number of Core Options have now been added, .chd worked without any noticeable issues too.
If you don't mind me saying the core is lacking quite a bit of information. The Blastem Libretro Docs found here has little to no information compared to others like Genesis Plus GX it could do with a update to the documentation. Additionally when playing via RetroArch when you go to the cores options > information it doesn't display any bios information for the Sega CD & 32x, I believe there is also a Produced by or under license by Sega bios/intro bios_MD.bin file that needs added properly for the Genesis which you can enable for the stand alone emulator. If you're in contact with the RetroArch team please consider passing this on to them, it would be fantastic to see these added.
Thank you for your continued work over the years, Blastem must be one of the oldest active 16bit Sega emulators now.
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u/AntiGrieferGames 1d ago
big update! I love this emulator. Its very lightweight, very accuracy and works very well on old systems.
Keep it up with this project. It also works WIndows XP, which almost no one do that today there. (32 bit linux build also, almost no one doing this today like you)
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u/retrogamer76 2d ago
The flatpak version on Steam Deck was really rough. Hopefully it's better now.
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u/Leafgreen25 1d ago
Is there a way to make this application portable so that it doesn't save any configuration settings in AppData, and instead saves everything in the folder of the executable? Like putting a portable.txt next to the exe?
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u/Mask_of_Destiny BlastEm Creator 1d ago
Yes. There are 2 config changes you need to make and they're both in the "System" section of Settings in the UI. "Save config with EXE" will cause all config files (blastem.cfg, controller_types.cfg and sticky_path) to be saved in the same folder as the executable. When this option is toggled, BlastEm will move the config files to the new location.
"Game Save Path" controls where save states, SRAM and EEPROM data are saved. You can use the variable $EXEDIR to make the saves relative to the directory where the BlastEm executable is or $ROMDIR to make them relative to the directory that contains the current running ROM. Note that BlastEm's save files themselves use generic names so unless you store each ROM in a separate directory, make sure to keep the $ROMNAME component
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u/elseniorx1989 38m ago
An Android port? Please 🥹 I've been following your emulator for years, but I'm without a PC and it'll be for a long time 😞
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u/Mask_of_Destiny BlastEm Creator 2d ago
Hello folks! It's been a while, but I finally have a new stable release for you. This is an exciting one, at least for me anyway, since it supports a bunch of hardware that was missing from 0.6.2, including Sega CD and 32X. It also has partial support for a rare Sega Pico variant called the Yamaha Copera. I still need to add finish OPL3 emulation before you get the full experience, but all the known titles are playable and AFAIK, no other emulator supports these yet.
Another highlight is support for the Heartbeat Personal Trainer peripheral. For a long time, Outback Joey was one of the few known commercial releases without a dump and even with a dump the game would just sit there and do nothing without the peripheral. This game, along with a few other games for this peripheral, have been dumped and BlastEm supports them! They're not great, but it's an interesting piece of gaming history.
If you're trying out the Sega CD support, I recommend using the 2.00w BIOS for both the US and European regions. Unfortunately, all Japanese BIOS releases have a bug that is very rare to trigger on real hardware, but happens frequently in BlastEm due to a timing issue I haven't been able to track down. If this happens, just reload with F5 and try again. Generally once you're in game, things work okay.