Super ZSNES 0.320 adds first RetroAchievements support and a switch to turn enhancements off

The rebuilt ZSNES now unlocks RetroAchievements in softcore only, with hardcore promised later. The update also adds OBC1 chip emulation, new audio enhancements and an option to skip loading enhanc...

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Super ZSNES, the from-scratch SNES emulator by the two original ZSNES developers, is up to version 0.320, two weeks after 0.310. The official site now offers 0.320 for Windows, Mac and Linux, and the itch.io page for the Android APK, updated on 9 October, lists it as the current release.

RetroAchievements, softcore first

The headline change is an "Initial Retroachievements implementation." The release notes say it does not have hardcore mode yet, and that hardcore will come "once we verify that all is working well." Hardcore is listed under the site's "What's Coming" heading alongside netplay and custom widescreen support for patches.

Enhancements you can now switch off

Super ZSNES's selling point is its Super Enhancement Engine, which the developers are working through one game at a time. The site lists nine supported titles: Chrono Trigger, F-Zero, Gradius 3, Mega Man X, Super Castlevania 4, Super Ghouls & Ghosts, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World and Super Metroid. Enhancements include hand-drawn high-resolution detail, texture and normal maps, overclocking for games that slow down, widescreen where a game's code supports it, replacement uncompressed audio and 3D height-mapped tiles on perspective Mode 7.

Version 0.320 lets you stop the enhancement data, visual and audio, from loading at all, and disabling enhancement textures now also turns off the Star Fox 3D textures. New audio enhancements arrive for Mega Man X, Secret of Mana and Super Metroid from Milon, who the notes welcome to the enhancement team, along with an initial Star Fox audio enhancement using Milon's samples. Enhanced audio gains Gaussian and cubic interpolation.

Smaller fixes

The site repeats two notes. The PC version may trigger a false trojan warning in some virus scanners, which the developers put down to patterns common in emulators, and there are still emulation bugs, with not every special chip implemented. Enhancement data contains no ROM or copyrighted data, so you supply your own games. The Android APK on itch.io costs $3 or more and needs Android 8.1 and a decent GPU.

Sources

Image: ZSNES

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