UberNES - Nintendo Screen Saver

Nintendo Screen Saver History

Nintendo Saver 2016 04/06/2016

  • Added ability for multiple games to play sound simultaneously
    • Each game "cursor" on the wall of games can now play sound
    • Added option for 3D sound to help differentiate games emitting sound

  • Added support for adding/removing input devices while screensaver is running

  • Improved performance - now runs faster and uses less CPU
    • Added SSE-optimized upscaling routines to improve graphics throughput
    • Improved multithreading code and cleaned up other issues to drive down CPU usage


Nintendo Saver 2015 01/27/2015

  • Released Mac port for OS X
    • Fully-featured Mac version - includes all video, input, audio, and multiple monitor functionality found in Windows version
    • Includes native Cocoa UI for configuring options
    • Works on Mavericks and Yosemite (OS X 10.9+)

  • Added multiplayer support
    • Previously, there was a single "game cursor" that was fixed to the keyboard
    • Now, every keyboard and game controller connected to the PC can have its own cursor on the wall of games
    • Each game cursor can "take over" a game independently - there can be multiple games being played simultaneously
    • If two cursors take over the same game, the second cursor will automatically be assigned to the "controller 2" port. This makes it really easy to set up 2P coop or head-to-head matchups

  • Improved multiple monitor support
    • Added ability to select exactly which monitors the screen saver uses
    • Greatly improved handling of multiple monitors with varying resolutions

  • Added OpenGL renderer
    • Includes support for pixel buffer objects and asynchronous texture uploading for maximum performance


Nintendo Saver 2011 02/11/2011

  • Emulation core is now ~90% faster; screen saver can run more games using less CPU

  • Added playlist function for customizing the movies and games displayed by the screen saver
    • Movies and games are pre-tagged, making it fast and easy to add groups of games to a playlist (e.g. clicking the "Racing games" tag adds all racing games to the playlist instantly)
    • Movies and games can be manually added/deleted to a playlist, giving users precise control over playlist contents
    • Several preset playlists are included such as "Mega Man games", "No death play-throughs", etc.

  • Added Direct2D renderer for Windows 7/Vista machines while retaining full compatibility with XP


Nintendo Saver 2010 03/15/2010

  • Added "infinite wall" effect (Demo video)
    • When the user tries to select a game outside the boundary of the wall, the entire wall will slide over and a new row/column of games will scroll in

  • Improved emulation and rendering performance
    • Emulation core is now ~10% faster
    • Implemented 16 and 32-bit color depth GDI blitters, which can be used for much faster NTSC and HQX upscaling
    • Render color depth can now be assigned independent of desktop color depth

  • Added host of new rendering effects
    • Added screen curvature / "fishbowl" effect, which simulates the curve of old CRT televisions
    • Added "oversampler" effect that can be used to stretch NES display to proper aspect ratio, crop NES artifacts, and more
    • Scanlines effects can now be applied on top of all existing upscalers, and scanline intensity is now user-controlled
    • All of these effects can be used in any combination by user

  • Added fast-forward function (press F4)

  • Added ability to zoom-in on selected movie without directly taking over and playing it (press F2)

  • Improved support for multiple monitors, particularly multi-monitor set-ups in which the screen resolutions are not uniform

  • Restructured configuration GUI into more sensible tabbed design

  • Added "preview" support for the Windows screen saver control panel


Nintendo Saver 2009 revision 2 10/6/2009

  • Added bug fixes related to following issues
    • Multiple-monitor support
    • Joystick axis input
    • NES database handling

  • Added option to play sound only when user is actively playing a game

  • Users can now reset the game they are playing by pressing F1


Nintendo Saver 2009 revision 1 09/28/2009

  • Added ability to repeat games in movie wall
    • An entire screen's worth of games can be displayed even if screen saver is CPU-bound
    • User now simply selects how many unique games to emulate at once
    • Movie wall can be configured in more detail from an "advanced" options dialog

  • Added better movie wall spacing options

  • Streamlined user interface


Nintendo Saver 2009 08/06/2009

  • Added ability to emulate and display multiple movies at once (Demo video)
    • Users can now specify how many movies to emulate, creating a "wall" of NES movies that are all emulated and rendered in real time
    • Users can also control how many CPU cores the screen saver should use for emulation
    • By pressing the arrow keys, the "active" movie in the grid can be selected.

  • Added ability for user to "take over" for a movie and play the game themselves (Demo video)
    • When the user presses the space bar, they take over the selected game and begin playing as usual using the keyboard/joypad/etc
    • Pressing the space bar again will release control of the game back the the movie

  • Added support for multiple-monitor systems

  • NES games can now be played in their native "demo" mode rather than requiring an UberNES movie file
    • The balance between UberNES movies vs. native demo modes can be configured


Nintendo Saver 2008 08/06/2008

  • Rewrote video subsystem
    • Added ScaleX, HQX, and NTSC software upscalers
    • Added DirectDraw graphics interface
    • Improved custom screen mode support
    • Hardware and software video scaling can now be independently controlled


Nintendo Saver version 1 05/12/2007

  • Initial release