Home Page Forums Other Emulator Message Boards Audio Overload Coming back to the PC

There's a new Audio Overload version 2.3 that Mac users have been enjoying for a few months now, with added .SID support. Work is in progress on fixing that for everyone else, but it's been about a century in terms of technology on both Linux and Windows since I last shipped AO on those platforms. AO Linux was based on GTK+ 2 and OSS audio. That's so old OSS back-compatibility is no longer shipped with most distros. AO Windows was based on MFC, which originated around the Windows 95 timeframe and has been cancelled and reinstated several times since, and DirectSound 5 for audio. Microsoft has introduced and abandoned 3 or 4 UI technologies since then and audio has also advanced.

So I started completely over from scratch, using Qt 6.5 for the interface and PortAudio for audio output. That nets us nice things like one code base for both OSes, automatic dark mode support, and low-latency audio on top of modern APIs (with no need to install any Direct X runtimes). Also it lets me develop on my MacBook Pro in Qt Creator and then transfer over to Linux and Windows to build there, which fits how I usually work now. Yes, that means I have a working doppelgänger of Richard's Cocoa version, mwa ha ha.

It's not ready yet. I'm going to say sometime this summer because there are more technological end bosses still: the Linux version will be packaged as a Flatpak for maximum distro compatibility and I have to figure out how to do app icons because Qt leaves you on your own there. But in the meantime here are some alpha screenshots of the Linux version running. Yes, the buttons will have icons instead of ASCII art before release!

Very nice!

Don't feel obliged to totally replicate what I've done in terms of UI. If you think there's something that could be better, I'm all ears – maybe I can update the Mac version with it too

Windows put up slightly more of a fight, but I got it on par with Linux now. For those who used the previous AO Windows version, the oscilloscope is 60 FPS this time.

Nice! Looking forward to trying it.