AGES (emulator)

AGES is a Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Mega CD, 32X, Master System and Game Gear emulator for Windows written by Quinntesson with an emphasis on speedy emulation.

Features

• Emulation of the Sega Mega Mouse, the Sega Teamplayer Multitap, the Electronic Arts 4 Way Play, the Sega Menacer, and the Konami Justifier
• Menus, dialog boxes, and error messages are fully translatable into other languages
• IPS patch loading
• GoodGen.DLL, Good32X.DLL, GoodSMS.DLL, and GoodGG.DLL support
• Genesis Collective Offline Database support
• Wave dumping
• Demo file record and playback
• Serial EEPROM support
• Game Genie and .PAT file support
• Game specific INI for tweaking
• Automatic IPS patch file load (per-game basis)

Missing Features

• YM2612 LFO, RS, DT, SSGEG, FB, stereo control
• 32X/Genesis layering mode 3

Purpose

AGES is a learning project. Quinntesson chose to emulate the Genesis, Mega CD, and 32X because it was collectively unemulated and it is simple in some ways and yet, complex in others. The Genesis/Mega CD/32X combo has elements from older "low-level-complex" and modern "high-level-complex" hardware design styles. Having memory mapped IO, multiple processors (with various data bus sizes and speeds) some CISC and others RISC, and several custom chips, the system is quite a challenge. Quinntesson's endeavour has already resulted in greatly expanding my knowledge of several areas such as various assembly languages, protected mode programming, Windows programming, and Pentium & Pentium Pro & MMX optimizations. Furthermore, Quinntesson has migrated to NASM, the best available assembler for the Intel x86 family.

AGES is for preservation. An emulator is a far more tidy package than an old dusty (and probably non-functioning) video game console with a mess of wires (some of which are probably missing) and a box of cartridges.