The topic An ex-Sega engineer made a CRT emulator so realistic, you can hit it to fix visual… is currently the subject of lively discussion — readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.
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Emulators with a CRT TV setting are great at showing retro games as they used to look, but they miss out on the joy of thwacking the top of your screen every time the visuals look weird. Fortunately, an ex-Sega engineer has created a Famicom (NES) emulator for macOS that requires some ‘percussive maintenance’ to fix visual issues, and it feels like I’m back in the 90s again.
As spotted by Tom’s Hardware, this cool feat was performed by ex-Sega engineer GOROman over on X. GOROman is working on an emulator that takes in a VHF RF output (NTSC-J) from a Famicom, the Japanese version of the NES. It’s passed through a Software Defined Radio (SDR) called the HackRF One and displays the game on macOS.
The emulator GOROman created uses realistic CRT TV visual effects, but people on X wanted the ability to tap the top of the monitor to fix visual issues. So, GOROman added it.
But wait, how does the emulator know you hit the top of the monitor? Tom’s Hardware took a peek at the emulator’s GitHub page, and it saw that the code had an input variable called “audio tap.” Tom’s Hardware speculates that the emulator listens through the device’s microphone for the sound of someone hitting the top of a screen.
If this has gotten you in the mood to replay the classics, you’ll be pleased to know that Valve has released a new version of Proton that adds support for some excellent titles.