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Finally,

YameCE 0.38g

(the old homepage doesn’t work any more)

This emulator was supposed to be a direct port of the, on desktop Windows, (some 8-9 year ago) well-known, (then) pretty good and compatible multi-console Yame emulator.

Unfortunately, the project was discontinued back in 2002 and, now, it's REALLY hard to get hold of the emulator - except for Michu's homepage (ARM download HERE), you can get it nowhere else.

Unfortunately, the currently available only version (the latest one), 0.38g, doesn’t support TurboGrafx-16 on Windows Mobile models with ARM CPU’s - that is, ALL Windows Mobile devices starting with the Pocket PC 2002 operating systems. This is caused by, as is stated by many, a compiler problem. Previous versions (0.38f, 0.38e etc.) did still support TurboGrafx-16 but these versions are, unfortunately, nowhere to be acquired.

If YOU have them (preferably 0.38f) somewhere lying around, PLEASE let me or Michu know so that we can make it online! It'd be REALY worth making it public again because the Yame emulation core has better compatibility ratio than other cores currently used in Windows Mobile emulators. For example, it's the only emulator to correctly (without major bitmap problems) run Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi.

It's only on VERY old MIPS devices that you can have TurboGrafx-16 emulation (the MIPS build doesn't lack TurboGrafx-16 support as can be seen in, for example, THIS screenshot taken on my E-125). For this to happen, however, you must have a Casio Cassipeia E-750 overclocked to 280 MHz so that you can have usable emulation speed. On a 150 MHz E-125, emulation is uselessly slow even with the sound disabled. See the Bible of Windows Mobile Games – Part I for more information on MIPS devices.

Also see THIS, THIS and THIS for more info on the lacking TurboGrafx-16 support of version 0.38g.

Emulators for the desktop Windows

You may also want to know how you can run TurboGrafx-16 games on your desktop computer. As the related Wiki article is just a list and doesn’t contain any evaluation / recommendation / comparison of the available desktop emulators, I've decided to review and compare them too.

The four recommended titles (Ootake 1.03, Xe (Build: Nov 1 2006), Magic Engine v1.0.0 pr10 and Yame 0.38) are elaborated on and linked in (with several screenshots) from the Comparison Chart. In here, I only list and quickly elaborate on the desktop emulators that I do NOT recommend.

Hu-Go: couldn’t start it (even when installing GTK). BTW, this is what the MorphGear module is based on.

The in 1999 discontinued xpce v0.11a crashes upon trying to load anything.

Mednafen: doesn’t start on my XP desktop.

PC2E: as can be seen in here, the emulator is no longer available for download

The comparison & compatibility chart

It's HERE. DO CHECK IT OUT, it contains a LOT of additional information best elaborated on in tabular format!

As with all my previous emulation-related articles, I've made a LOT of real-world compatibility tests with both the freely and legally downloadable Chris Covell's Creations and commercial games.

As can be seen, current emulators, except for the non-VGA-compliant SmartGear, can't run all parts of the Bonk series (only the second one - except for MorphGear, which crashes on the first in-game screen).

None of them (except for the, currently, as of 0.38g, MIPS-only YameCE) is able to correctly render the bitmaps in Street Fighter II Champion Edition and Shinobi either.

As the current desktop emulators - even free, open source ones - have no problems running these programs (see the compatibility info in the chart), someone (Masterall?) may REALLY want to consider porting a CURRENT emulator core to Windows Mobile with all he necessary goodies (stereo sound, Landscape support and on-screen tap areas) so that all (including all the Bonk) games become playable.

Recommended links

Chris Covell's Creations - free graphical demos. Note that they won’t really do what they are supposed to on the Pocket PC!

Michu’s related link collection

My other game emulator reviews in the Games section of the Smartphone & Pocket PC Magazine's Expert Blog. I plan to cover / discuss ALL emulators available for Windows Mobile and have already published some of these articles. Do make sure you follow / read these articles - nowhere else will you find a better source of emulation-related information, I'm absolutely sure.