Native Console 0.1.3

The hub now tells you how far each console has come, and offers exports only where they have been tested.

Changed

• Each console is marked in the hub. The console list tags the ones that are not fully playable yet ("some", "not yet"; hover for the details), and a game's page and Settings say the same:

  Console	Status
  Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance	Playable: the most tested, and the ones to start with
  Super Nintendo, NES	Some titles work; others may not start, or may break
  Nintendo DS, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii	Not playable yet: games build and may start, but expect wrong graphics, missing sound and crashes

• Compile for export offers only what has been tested. A target nobody has exported a console's game for and run is refused, with the reason:

  Console	Windows	Linux / SteamOS	macOS
  Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Super Nintendo	yes	yes	yes
  Nintendo DS, Nintendo 64, GameCube	yes	not yet	not yet
  NES, Wii	not yet	not yet	not yet

• A new layout. The recompilers are in recompilers/ and the runtimes in runtimes/, in the repository and in this archive; the documents are in docs/. Nothing changes for the games you have built, their saves or your settings.

What you need

1. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
2. Visual Studio Build Tools (or Visual Studio) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. Every game is compiled on your computer, and the hub finds the compiler, CMake and Ninja that come with it by itself.
3. Your own games, dumped from cartridges and discs you own. Nothing of any game is in this release. Please read ROMs, piracy and preservation.

Getting started

1. Unzip native-console-0.1.3-windows-x64.zip and run native_console_hub.exe. Windows may say the program is from an unknown publisher, because it is not signed: choose More info, then Run anyway.
2. Drop a ROM, or a folder of them, onto the window. Each game is recompiled, compiled and added to your library; click it to play.

Your library and settings from an earlier release are kept.

How this was checked

Built with MSVC from commit 13b2828, with the C runtime linked in. The archive passed the project's release test on Windows: moved to another folder, it recompiled, built and ran a test program for every console, and the hub imported and built a game with no settings and with the settings of a release that is gone. It was also unzipped on its own, with the build's source and SDL2 moved away, and given a library made by 0.1.2: the games rebuilt with 0.1.2's folder still there and again after it was deleted.

native-console-0.1.3-windows-x64.zip SHA-256: 76a00ace7298bd05de7199f828e432f92673c324788b4bb9ace08ad96c7e46f9

Native Console 0.1.2

A fix for anyone who used an earlier release: 0.1.1 could fail every build with "gbrecomp executable not found".

Fixed

• A build no longer depends on the folder of a release you have deleted. The hub keeps its settings in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NativeConsole\Hub, and an earlier release had saved the paths of its own recompilers and SDL2.dll there. With that release's folder gone, 0.1.1 kept those paths and stopped at "toolchain not ready". The hub now always uses the recompilers, SDL2.dll and SDL2 folder beside itself, and looks again for anything else it had saved that is no longer there (CMake, Ninja, the compiler, Docker).

If you are on 0.1.1 and would rather not download again: open Settings, choose Auto-detect toolchain, then Save.

Nothing else changed since 0.1.1: SDL2 is in the archive, Nintendo 64 is in the archive.

How far each console has come

• Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance have had the most testing, and are the ones to start with.
• Super Nintendo, NES, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 64 are in progress, with one commercial game each checked so far.
• GameCube is in progress and has been tested with one game only, Shrek 2, which is playable but still needs work.
• Wii is not supported yet, and is off until you turn it on.

Native Console is experimental: a game that builds may still not run correctly everywhere.

What you need

1. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
2. Visual Studio Build Tools (or Visual Studio) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. Every game is compiled on your computer, and the hub finds the compiler, CMake and Ninja that come with it by itself.
3. Your own games, dumped from cartridges and discs you own. Nothing of any game is in this release. Please read ROMs, piracy and preservation.

Getting started

1. Unzip native-console-0.1.2-windows-x64.zip and run native_console_hub.exe. Windows may say the program is from an unknown publisher, because it is not signed: choose More info, then Run anyway.
2. Drop a ROM, or a folder of them, onto the window. Each game is recompiled, compiled and added to your library; click it to play.

Your library and settings from an earlier release are kept.

How this was checked

Built with MSVC from commit b2289b1, with the C runtime linked in. The archive passed the project's release test on Windows, which now starts the hub twice: with no settings, and with the settings an earlier release would have left behind, naming a folder that no longer exists. Run against 0.1.1, that second step fails as 0.1.1 did. The archive was also unzipped on its own and given the real settings file from the report, and built the game it had failed on.

native-console-0.1.2-windows-x64.zip SHA-256: 36149c0f42417daa579d2b6f5495a8967e9acbea504d1b999579450f3c02f149

Native Console 0.1.1

The hub and the recompilers, built for Windows x64, so that you can turn your own games into native executables without building this project first.

New since 0.1

• Nothing to set up but a compiler. SDL2's development files are in the archive and the hub finds them beside itself. In 0.1 every build stopped with "SDL2 CMake directory not found" until you had downloaded SDL2 and pointed Settings at it.
• Nintendo 64 is in the archive: n64recomp and its runtime, which 0.1 left out.
• The README says how far each console has come.

How far each console has come

• Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance have had the most testing, and are the ones to start with.
• Super Nintendo, NES, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 64 are in progress, with one commercial game each checked so far.
• GameCube is in progress and has been tested with one game only, Shrek 2, which is playable but still needs work.
• Wii is not supported yet, and is off until you turn it on.

Native Console is experimental: a game that builds may still not run correctly everywhere.

What you need

1. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
2. Visual Studio Build Tools (or Visual Studio) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. Every game is compiled on your computer, and the hub finds the compiler, CMake and Ninja that come with it by itself.
3. Your own games, dumped from cartridges and discs you own. Nothing of any game is in this release. Please read ROMs, piracy and preservation.

Getting started

1. Unzip native-console-0.1.1-windows-x64.zip and run native_console_hub.exe. Windows may say the program is from an unknown publisher, because it is not signed: choose More info, then Run anyway.
2. Drop a ROM, or a folder of them, onto the window. Each game is recompiled, compiled and added to your library; click it to play.

The hub keeps its library and its settings in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NativeConsole\Hub. If you used 0.1 and set the SDL2 folder by hand, that setting is kept and still works.

In the archive

• native_console_hub.exe, the hub
• the recompilers: gbrecomp (Game Boy, Game Boy Color), gbarecomp, snesrecomp, nesrecomp, ndsrecomp, n64recomp, gcrecomp (GameCube and Wii)
• each console's runtime as source, which every game you build is compiled with
• SDL2/: SDL 2.32.10's headers, import libraries and CMake files, with SDL2.dll
• the licenses of what is included

Not in this release

• Linux, SteamOS and macOS builds of the hub. Build from source (LINUX.md, MACOS.md); the hub on Windows can also export a game for them.

How this was checked

Built with MSVC from commit e5dff21, with the C runtime linked in, so no redistributable is needed. The archive passed the project's release test on Windows: unpacked somewhere else, it recompiled, built and ran a test program for every console in it, each built against the archive's own SDL2. It was then unzipped on its own, with the folders it was built from out of the way, and the hub imported, built and ran a Game Boy and a Nintendo 64 test ROM with nothing set up.

native-console-0.1.1-windows-x64.zip SHA-256: 4fd46ac1194da984f6546cd85ea40f3a2fbcba81ddd2d84963bc4ef16735816d

Native Console 0.1

The first release of Native Console: the hub and the recompilers, built for Windows x64, so that you can turn your own games into native executables without building this project first.

Native Console is experimental. Game Boy and Game Boy Color are supported; Game Boy Advance, Super Nintendo, NES, Nintendo DS and GameCube are in progress, with one commercial game each checked so far (see the README).

What you need

1. Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
2. Visual Studio Build Tools (or Visual Studio) with the Desktop development with C++ workload. Every game is compiled on your computer, and the hub finds the compiler, CMake and Ninja that come with it by itself.
3. SDL2's development files for Visual C++: SDL2-devel-2.32.10-VC.zip from SDL's releases. Unzip it anywhere.
4. Your own games, dumped from cartridges and discs you own. Nothing of any game is in this release. Please read ROMs, piracy and preservation.

Getting started

1. Unzip native-console-0.1-windows-x64.zip and run native_console_hub.exe. Windows may say the program is from an unknown publisher, because it is not signed: choose More info, then Run anyway.
2. Open Settings and set SDL2 CMake directory to the cmake folder of the SDL2 download. Until that is set a build stops with "SDL2 CMake directory not found". Everything else on that page should already be filled in.
3. Drop a ROM, or a folder of them, onto the window. Each game is recompiled, compiled and added to your library; click it to play.

The hub keeps its library in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NativeConsole\Hub.

In the archive

• native_console_hub.exe, the hub
• the recompilers: gbrecomp (Game Boy, Game Boy Color), gbarecomp, snesrecomp, nesrecomp, ndsrecomp, gcrecomp (GameCube, and the Wii, which is not supported yet and is off until you turn it on)
• each console's runtime as source, which every game you build is compiled with
• SDL2.dll, and the licenses of what is included

Not in this release

• Nintendo 64. Its recompiler is not in the archive yet; it builds from source.
• Linux, SteamOS and macOS builds of the hub. Build from source (LINUX.md, MACOS.md); the hub on Windows can also export a game for them.

How this was checked

Built with MSVC from commit 4ba73b1, with the C runtime linked in, so no redistributable is needed. The archive passed the project's release test on Windows: unpacked somewhere else, it recompiled, built and ran a test program for every console in it. It was then unzipped on its own and used as above to import, build and run a Game Boy test ROM.

native-console-0.1-windows-x64.zip SHA-256: debddd0baa64af5dfb8fb6b799adb6cbed7e6dba49b99e500c70eaea02a0075d