Emulator Enhancer

v3.2.0 (November 24th, 2022)

http://www.bannister.org/software/

About

Emulator Enhancer is a plugin which adds additional features to many popular

emulators for Mac OS X. At the time of writing, some twenty seven emulators in total are
supported; a full list is available at http://www.bannister.org/software/.

Note that v3.2 of Emulator Enhancer is only compatible with emulators

released on or after November 24th, 2022.

Installation (for experienced users)

The Emulator Enhancer folder (containing "Emulator Enhancer 3.bundle") should be

placed intact in /Library/Application Support or ~/Library/Application Support.

Installation (for beginners)

For those who need more detailed instructions, there are two approaches you can use
to install Emulator Enhancer:

Route One

- Open /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app
- Type chflags /Library nohidden
- Open your Hard Disk.
- Open the Library folder.
- Open the Application Support folder.
- Copy the Emulator Enhancer folder (included with this document) into that folder.
- If you double click on the Emulator Enhancer folder the only file within should be
"Emulator Enhancer 3.bundle".

Route Two

- In the Finder, choose “Go To Folder” from the Go menu.

- Enter the path /Library/Application Support
- Copy the Emulator Enhancer folder (included with this document) into the folder that
opens.
- If you double click on the Emulator Enhancer folder the only file within should be
"Emulator Enhancer 3.bundle".
If these instructions are too difficult to follow, then I am unlikely to be able to
help you out despite my best efforts. I would encourage you to ask
somebody you know to perform the installation from you. Sorry!

Testing your installation

To test if Emulation Enhancer is working, go to the About Box in a supported emulator.

(Note that if the emulator is dated before December 14th, 2019 you will need to
download an updated version). You should see the words "Emulator Name (with
Emulator Enhancer)".

Shareware

Emulator Enhancer is not free. If you decide to keep it, then please register. This can be
done immediately and online by going to Preferences and Registration. For your
convenience a reminder dialog will open every time you use Emulator Enhancer in its
unregistered state.

Emulator Enhancer registered users may request a complimentary serial number for
Blitter Library for use with older emulators.

Please note that Emulator Enhancer is fully functional in its unlicensed state.
There are no extra features enabled with a purchase.

Reinstalling

If you have previously registered Emulator Enhancer and need to re-enter your code,
then you can do so by choosing the "Reinstall" option presented when Emulator
Enhancer loads. Please note that your serial number will be verified online as part of
this process; an active internet connection is required for this to work.

Emulator Enhancer 3.1 requires a different serial number to previous releases. Those
who registered a previous version will have been sent details on upgrading by e-mail. If
you have not received this information from me then please get in touch, including your
existing order number and e-mail address.

Joystick support

Emulator Enhancer enables the use of USB joysticks and gamepads in most supported
emulators. However, the pads will not just work; rather, you need to configure them
first. To do this, please go to Preferences->Input. Click on each button in turn, then
press the appropriate button on your controller.
Network Play

Emulator Enhancer supports Network Play in certain emulators. This feature should be
considered preliminary at this time.

To start a network game, open the same ROM on both machines, and choose Host
Network Game on one side with Join Network Game on the other. Due to the latency
issues involved, this is not recommended (or supported) for Internet Play. It can be
made to work, but only if the ping time between players is quite low.

Version History

v3.1.2 - November 24th, 2022

- Fixed long-standing issue where modifier keys (Control, Shift, Option, Command)
would get stuck if held down for more than about half a second. Thanks to Martin for
helping me track this down.

- Fixed issue where invalid files could sometimes be added to the Recent items menu.

- Fixed crash when using the Quick Screenshot and Quick Audio Record functions with
no open ROM.

- Recent game information now uses much less disk space.

- Upgraded embedded version of ZLIB to 1.2.13.

v3.1.1 - May 1st, 2021

- Improved performance and efficiency on Mac computers with Apple silicon.

v3.1 - December 14th, 2019

- Fixed a typo that made the Xbox 360 Controller family unusable with Emulator
Enhancer. This will likely resolve issues with other analog controllers too.

- Added support for multi-device HID adapters (such as Mayflash Retro Controller
Adapters).

- Fixed an issue where establishing a network connection sometimes failed for no

reason.
- Resolved an issue where Quick Freeze (etc) could only ever be used once from a
USB controller.

- Switched payment processing system from eSellerate to Paddle.

v3.0.1 - March 30th, 2018

- Added a new aspect ratio preference to restrict window sizes to multiples of the
emulated display.

- Fixed a cosmetic issue where emulators would fail to exit full screen mode properly
when a ROM was closed with the Command-W shortcut.

- Resolved an issue that caused PS4 Dual Shock controllers to crash Emulator
Enhancer.

- Improved support for HID hat switches (RetroBit USB Adapter et al).

v3.0 - March 10th, 2018

- Rebuilt from the ground up using 64-bit Cocoa APIs.

v2.4.0 - August 26th, 2010

- Fixed one situation where black frame could occasionally appear on machines with
more than one processor core. There is a separate issue where this occurs on
resolution changes which may be fixed in a future release.

- Fixed a bug where the shell would crash when taking a screenshot if a ROM name
had a percentage sign in it.

- Rewrote portions of the shell to eliminate dependencies on deprecated APIs.

v2.3.2 - May 12th, 2010

- Updated eSellerate SDK to latest version, to resolve problems with an expired

security certificate.

- Added support for more than eight saved data folders per emulator (will be required
for next release of BSNES).
v2.3 - September 27th, 2008

- Fixed an obscure endian bug that resulted in odd window sizes when an emulator
preferences file was moved between PowerPC and Intel.

- Modified the behaviour of the Quick Freeze function, so that the last ten quick freezes
for each game are kept in ~/Library/Application Support/Bannister/(emulator
name)/Saved States. You can restore these at any time using the Defrost menu
command. Added code to stop the quick freeze and quick defrost keys from being
repeated. Thanks to David McCabe for the suggestion.

- Replaced custom about box with standard HIAboutBox. Removed option to pause
execution when about box is open.

- Brushed metal mode is now off by default on new installs, as well as existing installs
where users press the Default button.

- Audio recording no longer stops when emulator is switched to background, provided

that the option to keep emulating in background is on. Recording will still stop if the
emulator does.

- Fixed several minor visual glitches in the Preferences dialog box.

v2.2.3 - June 7th, 2008

- Corrected a bug where pressing certain keys while the Emulator Settings window was
open could cause a Fatal Assertion Failure on line 1772 of ce_prefs.c.

- Worked around a bug in OS X 10.5 or higher that sometimes resulted in menu items
being greyed out incorrectly.

v2.2.2 - March 3rd, 2008

- Tweaked the behaviour of the Prioritise speed over smoothness option to improve
sound quality when VBL sync is on.

v2.2.1 - November 12th, 2007

- Updated the eSellerate libraries to the latest version, necessary for registration to
work properly on Leopard.
v2.2 - June 6th, 2007

- Fixed a nasty crash that could occur when using high requirement blitters (HQ4x/etc)
on slower multiprocessor machines.

- Added a hidden preferences option to disable the information placards ("Emulator

Reset", etc). To change this, open the preferences plist file in a text editor.

- Added proper code interface for getting the mouse position on display. Nestopia uses
this for Zapper support, and TEO/Thom use it replacing a horrible hack used previously.

v2.1.1 - February 15th, 2007

- Some tweaks to the HID manager support code to hopefully fix issues with dual
joypad converter boxes.

- Resolved assertion failure, ce_file.c, line 379, when saving a saved state with the
same name as an existing file. Thanks to about two hundred people for reporting this
one :-)

v2.1 - September 16th, 2006

- Major rewrite to internal file handling code. This brings support for long file names and
non-ASCII character sets. The most visible aspect of this change is that Japanese file
names now appear correctly in the emulator. (You may need to rename some existing
battery RAM files/saved states so that this update can see them correctly.)

- Fixed several endian bugs; of particular note, screenshots and audio recordings now
work correctly on Intel Macs.

- File extensions are now included by default when saving screenshots or audio
recordings.

- Worked around issue preventing keyboard from working in full screen mode in Arnold
and Frodo.

- Resolved a number of situations where keyboard input would be registered even

though the emulator window was not active.

- Resolved a visual glitch in the Preferences->Filter dialog.

- Updated eSellerate engine to prevent dead items being left in trash every reboot.

- Fixed issue where occasionally serial numbers might be rejected.

- Fixed endian bug preventing network play from working between PowerPC and Intel.

v2.0 - April 15th, 2006

- Ported to Xcode and recompiled as Universal Binary.

- Interleaved blitters now work properly on multiprocessor machines.

- Fixed an issue where keyboard configuration could occasionally get confused during
an emulator upgrade. In this situation, the keys are now reset to their defaults.

- Internal code now uses FSRef instead of FSSpec.

- Placard drawing ("Emulation Reset" etc) now uses CoreGraphics instead of

QuickDraw.

- Fixed an issue where Close menu item was not disabled when no ROM was open in
some emulators.

- Removed some obsolete code that was slowing down overall performance.

- Fixed several memory leaks.

- Added support for auto fire.

- Added support for custom icon generation for ROM files.

- Full screen mode now captures the display properly, so notifications should no longer
appear on top of the emulator display.

- Changed registration system to make it obvious how to reinstall. Note that an active
internet connection is required for registration and reinstallation.

- The check boxes in Preferences->Filters work properly again.

v1.6.5 - November 13th, 2005

- Addressed an issue with the sound buffering code that had caused poor quality sound
output in BSNES. This may have a positive effect on other emulators too.

- Added the ability to turn off the "Recent Games" window.

v1.6.0 - October 6th, 2005

- Addressed an issue where the menu bar would not appear properly on program
launch in certain situations.

- Configure Keyboard button is no longer present in emulators that do not support it.

- Some internal changes to allow compilation in Xcode.

- Added statistics gathering (Time Played, Files Opened) to the code. There is no way
to view these yet, but this will come in future.

v1.5.4 - December 19th, 2004

- Revised joystick code; HID.bundle included in previous versions is no longer used

and can be deleted.

v1.5.3 - December 11th, 2004

- Fixed bug causing unreasonably high CPU usage when in background when the "Run
as fast as possible" option was set. Thanks to Ty Wangsness for the report.

- Fixed assertion failure, ce_file.c line 202, when using the "Open With" contextual
menu in the Finder on Horizon. Thanks to Eric Crouch for the report.

- Fixed issue where Turbo key in console emulators did not work correctly when "Sync
to Monitor Refresh" was on. Thanks to Revned for the report.

v1.5.2 - September 30th, 2004

- Removed "Cancel" button from Preferences. It hasn't worked for several releases
anyway.

- Quick Screenshot now adds a three digit number to file names. Useful if you want to
take multiple shots of one game.

- Added the ability to record audio. Note that this option requires emulator updates.

v1.5.1 - July 9th, 2004

- Fixed small memory leak in windowing code.

- Added the ability to modify the frame rate colour.

- Opening prefs in Full Screen no longer leaves mouse hidden.

v1.5 - June 19th, 2004

- Some reworking under the hood to make things work on Mach-O.

- Saved states/etc now get put in /Users/*/Library/Application

Support/Bannister/Emulator Name/*.

- Quick Screenshot now saves files on the desktop.

- Added the ability to pause emulation when the active user is switched.

- Improved support for Macs with more than one monitor.

- Separated Blitter module (see "Developer" above) and added some new Altivec blitter
code for the most common effects. In most cases this is significantly faster on G4/G5
machines. (The old code is still available too for G3 users).

- Further performance enhancements in OpenGL code.

- Revised Preferences handling to use official Apple API and .plist file.

- Large numbers of bug fixes.

- Support for network play in some emulators. This feature should be considered
preliminary at this time.

- Added support for Aspect Ratio correction.

- Added support for Audio Units (Reverb, EQ). Thanks to zones (Snes9x Custom) for
the idea.

v1.4.2 - February 5th, 2004

- Sped up code used to draw frame rate.

- Improved error handling in the sound code.

- Removed some redundant code connected with the shareware handling system.
v1.4.1 - December 23rd, 2003

- Fixed a bug which prevented emulator saved states from getting the correct file type.
This change requires emulator updates.

- Further tweaks to the HQX blitters.

v1.4 - December 12th, 2003

- Implemented major optimization to the OpenGL code. People with supported video
cards may see as much as a 100% performance improvement.

- Fixed bug in HQX blitters introduced in v1.3.1, which caused the bottom row of video
to be corrupted in certain situations.

v1.3.1 - December 1st, 2003

- Fixed possible memory corruption with emulators that change their video size during
execution. (Genesis Plus, TGEmu, ...)

- More optimizations to the hqx blitters, improving the worst case performance
significantly.

- Rewritten HID code for the third time in order to make Logitech game pads work
correctly.

v1.3.0 - November 21st, 2003

- Addressed an issue where keys would continue to work when certain emulators were
in the background.

- Added "quick screenshot" function (requires emulator updates).

- Added "automatic full screen" function.

- About box now observes brushed metal preference (which is now on by default).

- Some optimizations to the main program loop for improved performance. There is still
more to do, though.

- Major bug fixed in the frameskipping code; people on slower Macs should see a
substantial improvement in frame rate. (Be sure to leave the frame skipper in Automatic
mode for best results).
- Improved support for HID manager hat switches.

v1.2.3 - November 4th, 2003

- Did some serious optimization to hq2x, hq3x, and hq4x, leaving them up to 300%
faster than previous versions. (The source code to my optimized version has been sent
back to Maxim Stepin, the hq2x/hq3x/hq4x developer).

- Fixed a situation where placard displays ("Emulation Reset", etc) failed to disappear
correctly.

v1.2.2 - October 30th, 2003

- Added support for frame rate changing at run time (required by Generator and
Rainbow).

v1.2.1 - October 12th, 2003

- Addressed an issue where the Quick Start dialog might not appear under OS X 10.3.

- Placard displays now work again ("Emulation Reset", "Quick Freeze", etc).

v1.2 - September 30th, 2003

- Corrected an issue where the open command might not work correctly after exiting full
screen mode.

- Corrected an issue where Bilinear Filtering did not work on some configurations.

- Added some hooks needed by fMSX.

- Added hq2x and hq4x Blitter modes (the latter of which *does* need a dual 2.0 G5).

- Added 3x Simple Smoothing mode (pretty fast).

- Fixed an issue preventing windows being bigger than 5x actual size.

- Fixed a bug in Preferences handling that could make options not work when the
Default button was pressed.
v1.1 - September 3rd, 2003

- Added a new "Quick Start" dialog box to supported emulators. This allows you to
launch anything from the Open Recent menu quickly and easily.

- Added support for overriding the generic keyboard handling (needed for computer
emulators such as MO5 and Oric).

v1.0.1 - August 9th, 2003

- Added support for non-power-of-two textures. The cards that need this the most
(RAGE 128 and earlier) do not support this extension. However, everyone else should
see a performance improvement.

- Tweaked window resizing to match QuickTime. Aspect ratio is preserved by default;

hold down shift key to go to strange sizes, or hold down option key to stick to regular
multiples.

- Adjusted window alignment code to limit to four-pixel boundaries instead of eight.

- Increased number of items in Open Recent menu to ten, and added "Clear Menu"
option.

- Fixed issue where battery RAM and freeze states did not work correctly when
Emulator Enhancer was installed. Note that this requires emulator updates; look out for
these soon).

- Cursor is now hidden properly in full screen mode.

v1.0 - August 7th, 2003

- Initial Release