Note that beginning with SVN revision 2937 we are using a different versioning pattern!

We now just count the releases and follow the simple scheme ’0.XX’, where XX is the release number. So the next version – which would’ve been called ’0.2.b21′ following the old scheme – now becomes ’0.34′ (because we’ve had 33 releases before).

The main reason for this was that some users were irritated by the ‘b’ in the old version string (and QMC2 is far from ‘beta’). But there were more good reasons for it as well… for instance, it’s hard to make a decision when to increase the major or minor release numbers, or when a new “milestone” has been reached. QMC2 is always “in the flow” and evolves together with the emulators it drives (MAME & MESS up until today).

Therefore a simple sequential versioning scheme appears much better suited.

An updated package for Mac OS X has been created and uploaded. See download section for more details.

Marcelo Bossoni has updated the QMC2 packages for Ubuntu to 0.2.b20! See download section for instructions on how to install/update from his repository.

Updated binary packages for openSUSE and Win32 have been created and uploaded to their respective places — see download section!

MAME and MESS 0.143 were released just recently, so this is a good time to also release QMC2 0.2.b20 (since we can make sure to be in-sync with both emulators)!

We will go on like this in future releases, meaning that we will also wait for the MESS release from now on. Thanks to Micko, the MESS releases meanwhile usually follow within 24 hours after the corresponding MAME release, so that it’s better to wait a bit longer instead of publishing updated templates later.

QMC2 0.2.b20 comes with a fairly big number of new features, improvements and bug-fixes. The most important changes this time include:

• Many useful MESS-related improvements such as an added cabinet detail, a customizable (default) software-folder and a number of usability enhancements based on comments and requests from users (special thanks go to Anna Wu, Kaylee, R. Belmont, etabeta78 and Micko over at the Emuversal Bulletin Board)
• New command line option -qmc2_config_path to allow for overwriting the path where QMC2 reads & stores its setup
• Updated template format (v0.2.4) to support pre-defined and dynamically filled selection lists (i.e. BIOS selections, available video modes etc.) and multi-part floating point values as used by the new HLSL PixelShader 3.0 options
• Variant launching is now also supported on Windows
• QMC2 can now also be built using the MinGW (GCC) compiler on Windows (see build instructions for more details)
• The user can now decide if ROM status icons are to be shown or not in any of the game-/machine-list views
• Searching for games/machines can now also be done by entering (parts of) its short name
• Added a number of tool functions to allow for forced removal of all game-/machine- and software-list related caches at run-time
• Avoid potential (and rare) blocking when synchronously calling external programs (emulator binaries)
• The Phonon post-mortem crashes on Mac OS X are supposed be history now (according to reports from users)
• Added a built-in YouTube video player for game-/machine-attached video streams, implemented as a new game-/machine-detail (make sure you’ve a decent Phonon back-end installed, together with good Codec support for FLV and MP4 video formats; see the detail-setup to activate/deactivate this feature)
• WIP: Improved support for software-lists, still incomplete though (note that the official binaries will NOT include this feature as they’re built with ‘make WIP=0′!)

As mentioned above, QMC2 0.2.b20 is in-sync with MAME and MESS 0.143 (this has been tested on all supported platforms).

The source code is now available in the download section.

Expect updated binary packages within the next few hours and days… the Mac OS X binary package may take a bit longer this time, though, as I first need to reinstall my OS X environment. BTW, a dedicated maintainer for Mac OS X packages would be greatly appreciated !

For even more details, please see the change-log of the current release.

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team

Note that there’s a new QMC2 add-on package to extent the MAME development tools with Qt and zlib support. This allows building QMC2 with MinGW GCC on Windows (recent QMC2 SVN revisions). See download section for more details.

Marcelo Bossoni has updated the QMC2 packages for Ubuntu to 0.2.b19! See in the download section (under Ubuntu) for instructions on how to install/update from his repository.

Updated binary packages for openSUSE, Win32 and Mac OS X (x86) have been created and uploaded to their respective places — see download section!

Today we proudly announce the release of QMC2 0.2.b19, which incorporates a great number of improvements, bug fixes and new functionality — the latter mainly related to the ROMAlyzer and the emulator embedder.

The most important changes in this release include:

• ROMAlyzer improvements: faster identification by CRC for files from ZIP-archives, greatly improved progress indication and batch processing ability
• ROMAlyzer fixes: ROM status determination for special no-dump ROMs (MAME & MESS) and sets that need no ROMs at all (MESS-only)
• New ROMAlyzer functionality: a checksum wizard with an optional set repair function, a set rewiter to rewrite clean new sets, the determination of the merge-status of each individual ROM / CHD file and a copy to clipboard function for an individual set’s analysis report (as formatted ASCII text)
• Embedder improvements: use of additional space for maximized embedded emulator windows, nicer maximization-toggle
• New embedder functionality: automatic emulator pausing / resuming when its window gets hidden / shown, process status indication through traffic-light icons
• General improvements and fixes: optimized / faster log widgets, all game/machine detail images now contain a context menu with a copy to clipboard item
• New support for a number of players column in all game/machine lists

The emulator configuration templates are synced with MAME 0.142 and MESS 0.141. If required, updates to the MESS templates for 0.142 will follow as soon as it’s available.

For details, please see the change-log of the current release.

Have fun,

The QMC2 dev-team