Articles tagged with: Macscene

News Round-up: May 4 - June 2

mossy_11 on Wednesday, 02 June 2010. Posted in News

portalLeading digital distribution platform Steam finally made its way to the Mac on May 12, with around 50 launch games. The Mac Steam library now includes 96 titles, including newly released ports of Half-Life 2, Torchlight, and Portal. Check out the MacScene community’s reaction here, here, and here, in addition to a Portal-specific thread here.


As proof of a drastically changing tech landscape, Apple’s market capitalisation surpassed that of Microsoft last week, making it the largest technology company in the world. This marks one of the most incredible turnarounds in any company’s history, with Apple having been all but dead back in 1997, when Steve Jobs returned as CEO. Don’t celebrate too soon, though, because the happy folks at Microsoft are still way ahead on revenue.


In exciting news for Amiga fans, a new emulator called PUAE has been released. PUAE merges Richard Drummond’s E-UAE 0.8.29 with the latest version of WinUAE, and is available for Unix-based platforms. You can download the latest version from here, or check out Ultimate Amiga for more information.

News Round-up: April 8 - May 3

mossy_11 on Monday, 03 May 2010. Posted in News

gamebase64-browserA Mac-native version of GameBase64 Browser has been released. GameBase64 is a database of over 20000 Commodore 64 games, with detailed information and screenshots for each game. Setting up is not exactly intuitive if you do not already have the database file -- you’ll need to drag a folder (any folder) to the application, then it will tell you that the folder contains no valid database file. It will then allow you to download the database file from within the application. You can get screenshots and sounds packs here. It offers the ability to launch games in your C64 emulator of choice, but I couldn’t seem to get that feature working. Despite this strange configuration problem, it’s very impressive, so be sure to check it out (provided you have Snow Leopard installed).

A new version of the open-source IA-32 (x86) emulator Bochs was released on April 25. Release 2.4.5 implements X2APIC and Intel VMx2 extensions, fixes some CPU emulation bugs, reworks the configuration options, and more. Check the changelog for full details.

Those of you desperate for Steam on the Mac will have to wait just a little longer, with Valve announcing that it will be released on May 12. No word yet on what games will be available at launch, although you can be sure a few of Valve’s titles will be there.

More updates after the break.

Final Fantasy Coming to the iPhone

Niemann on Friday, 22 January 2010. Posted in News

Seems like there's just a ton of iPhone news for us over the past couple days; and now we have news that Square Enix is bringing one of the most successful RPG series of all time to the iPhone and iPod Touch.  In December of 1987 the original Final Fantasy was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System.  Since then Final Fantasy has released twelve sequels (most recently Final Fantasy XIII for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360) and countless spin-offs.

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On Wednesday, Square Enix posted a series of screenshots to their facebook page under the title "FINAL FANTASY and FINAL FANTASY II for iPhone / iPod touch".  The only other information included is:

"Over 20 years since the original releases, FINAL FANTASY and FINAL FANTASY II are coming to iPhone / iPod touch!  Release date: TBA.  Stay tuned!"

The interface appears to be slightly modified from the original GUI elements we have seen in previous remakes of the game.  This implies that Square Enix is taking advantage of the touch screen to navigate menus as opposed to other ports and remakes which have centered around an overlay gamepad.

View more of the screenshots after the break.

Apple Boot Camp Now Supports Windows 7

Niemann on Tuesday, 19 January 2010. Posted in News

Apple has just released an update to Boot Camp that includes support for Microsoft's latest incarnation of their operating system; Windows 7.  The update also fixes a number of bugs, addresses a lot of various issues, and adds support for Apple's latest peripherals.

This update adds support for Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate), addresses issues with the Apple trackpad, turns off the red digital audio port LED on laptop computers when it is not being used, and supports the Apple wireless keyboard and Apple Magic mouse.

The new version is Boot Camp 3.1 and is available in 64-bit and 32-bit flavors.  Support for Windows 7 requires an authentic copy of Windows 7 or a legitimate Windows 7 upgrade.  A number of systems are not supported by Boot Camp 3.1, including iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac Pro models introduced in 2006.

"Come see our latest creation" Gaming Oriented?

Niemann on Tuesday, 19 January 2010. Posted in News

Multiple sources are posting that many gaming related media outlets as well as game developers have been invited to Apple's January 27th media event.  The overwhelming majority of news sites and analysts expect Apple to be introducing their tablet device and recent reports from Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and CNN have brought up the possibility of iPhone OS, iLife, and iWork updates.

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Snes9X Updated to v1.52

Niemann on Sunday, 17 January 2010. Posted in News


byuu on the forums pointed out an update to the popular Super Nintendo emulator Snes9X.  This open source emulator sports incredible compatibility and has been the most popular Super Nintendo emulator for Windows and Mac for years.  This update includes a large amount of bug fixes, an updated sound core, and some Leopard and Snow Leopard specific changes.

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While Snes9x sports a must faster emulation core, if you are looking for cycle-exact emulation try out Richard Bannister's BSNES.

The New MacScene

Niemann on Tuesday, 15 December 2009. Posted in News

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As many of you know, MacScene v9.0 has crashed.  Some sort of technical error with our hosting service has caused the database to become corrupted, and our frequent requests for a weekly backup (a service we pay for) have gone unfulfilled.  Most notably the database table containing all of the posts made over the past two years of MacScene v9.0 is lost.  This put us in a bit of a jam.

 I have not been active with MacScene since I developed the latest incarnation of site a number of years ago, however my company (which spawned from Emuscene) has continued doing web development.  In fact most of the people I have worked with and who have done work for me were members of the MacScene community.  This new site is built on the software my company uses to rapidly develop social networking sites, and it's based (at least in part) on the work done on MacScene.  It seemed only fitting that we transfer MacScene to a new server and use this software to create a new site.

If you were posting news on the previous incarnation of MacScene, or if you're interested in learning how to post on our new system; let me know. 

There are a lot of new features in this site, and a lot of things that have been disabled for now.  I have to admit my own ignorance in how the MacScene community has grown over the years, and I hope that this site will (sooner rather than later) fulfill the needs of the community and help it grow.  But I would like to hear feedback from the community.  What should the focus be?  Should we stay devoted solely to emulation on the Mac; or have we continued to evolve to simply be a video game-centric group of Mac users?  Do we need photo and video sharing?  Is the live chat (try setting up an account and logging in) useful or creepy?  Should we have friend/buddy lists?  I want to hear what you want before I continue developing any aspects of the site.

Read more to find a breakdown of some of the new features included initially.