MESS

MESS, the "Multiple Emulation Super System", is just that - an emulator which allows you to run games written for various different systems, and in particular a whole stack of games consoles, including the Sega Megadrive and Nintendo Entertainment System. The Megadrive emulator gives access to some of the most successful games ever, such as the seminal Sonic the Hedgehog, and is the only Megadrive emulator publically available for Acorns.

This work of art is part-developed by Gareth Long, who is entirely responsible for the Acorn version. At the current state of development it is rather slow on my Risc PC 700, with the NES emulator running at about 2 frames per second, whilst the Megadrive one runs at between 1 and 3 seconds per frame! Using frame skip you can run some of the console emulations at the correct speed on a StrongARM, however, and Gareth is working hard to make the emulators ever faster by hand-coding assembler cores.

MESS uses a system of console drivers as opposed to emulating each individual machine separately - the NES driver, for example, is provided by the xNES team. The core MESS development team is small, consisting of Gareth Long, Brad Oliver and only a few others.

This is a true worldwide freeware project involving people from across the globe, but, as Gareth points out, it can be truly said that right from the outset it began on Acorn machines!

Keep an eye out for regular updates.

...this page last updated: 7/12/98...
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