VT Emulation Network - Magic Engine Review

Magic Engine

Magic Engine

A Turbo Grafx 16 and Turbo Duo Emulator for Windows Reviewed on 8 / 4 / 2003 by Wesley Pollow

Magic Engine is known to many Turbo Grafx and Turbo Duo fans as the only emulator, and for good reason. Magic Engine may not be able to run 50 instances of itself simultaneously, automatically patch ROMs of 200 different formats or provide 30 different hardware accelerated rendering modes but it can do one thing well, and that's emulate it's target platform and provide all of the necessary features to make it comfortable. Magic Engine stands in a class alone in it's respective category.

      Turbo Grafx hardware is very hard to find these days, yet it had some of the greatest games of all time, a lot of which have never appeared on other systems. I know what you're thinking. Calm yourself, and take a sigh of relief, because I've got your answer, and it won't cost you $400 or more on eBay. Magic Engine is a Turbo Grafx, Turbo Duo CD, and Super Grafx emulator, and its here to remain as king of the Turbo Grafx/Duo emulators for a long long time to come.

      Although Magic Engine lacks advanced graphics features, such as FSAA, and OpenGL, it makes up for it all in how solid the emulator really is. The graphics are generally emulated flawlessly in most games. It's not often you find a Turbo Chip (aka HuCard) ROM that it doesn't run perfectly, and even the few I saw mistakes in were VERY playable.

      Magic Engine is once again short of special features, but really pulls through, because with this emulator, you don't care that they are missing. Sound emulation is no exception to this rule. The music, as well as the sound effects, is crisp, clear, and without flaws.

      One of the subtle beauties of Magic Engine is the fact it was designed in (and for) NT. No redesigning with every new version of Windows. It started as NT, thus runs perfectly in any Windows version from Windows 98 to Windows XP. To top that all off, there is a Mac version as well, and a DOS version being worked on as you read this. Due to the NT nature of the application, it generally isn't known for any stability problems.

      Assuming you have a small collection of PC game pads, Magic Engine can be a lot of fun as a multiplayer system. Unfortunately, it lacks netplay, and may drive a lot of Turbo Duo fanatics to ZSNES for netplay. While the emulator may support 1 - 5 players at once, unless you love Bomber Man and chose to pass up ZSNES, you may find yourself only using it as a 1- 2 player emulator, which isn't a bad thing for a little classic gaming "me time".

      Magic Engine should generally run on any PC over 500mhz for Turbo Grafx and Super Grafx ROMs, but may need a system with a little more power to make it run the Super CDs well. Over-all, this emulator is basic, but rock solid. If you like Turbo Grafx/Duo a lot, this emulator is for you. The demo is free, but there is a $16 price tag, which is well worth it. This emulator is a must have for any serious gamer.

Emulator Information

Author: Cedric Michel

Netplay Support: No

Players Supported: 5

Homepage: Click Here

Platform: Windows 9x/NT

Version Reviewed: 0.99b5

Features Supported:
- Bilinear Filtering
- Save State Support
- Joystick Support
- Sound Interpolation
- Turbo Duo Support
- Vsync Support
- Full-Screen Mode
- Windowed Mode

The Final Verdict

Compatibility: 8.0
Almost perfect for Turbo Chip roms, but this emulator was decked in an extra point in this category for slightly less perfect Super CD emulation.

Stability: 10.0
An easy 10. It was made in NT, likes NT, and is one of the most stable emulators there is.

Video: 8.0
Solid graphics that are true to the system's original talents. Despite the apparent lack of graphical options, features such as bilinear filtering do exist, but most graphical options need to be invoked by manually editing the PCE.INI file.

Audio: 9.5
Excellent audio emulation, but 1 or 2 sound effects were out of place in the 30-40 roms that were used during the evaluation.

Overall Rating: 9.0
Outstanding emulator, but it would definitely be a plus if some of the more advanced features could be changed within the emulator itself instead of having to manually edit INIs.