3DO emulators

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3DO Interactive Multiplayer
3DO-FZ1-Console-Set.png
Developer The 3DO Company
Type Home video game console
Generation Fifth generation
Release date 1993
Discontinued 1996
Emulated

The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer is a fifth-generation home video game console released by the 3DO Company on October 4, 1993. It retailed for $699.99. It had a RISC CPU ARM60 at 12.5 MHz with 2MB of RAM and 1MB of VRAM. Due to the unpopularity of the system and the cost, the emulation scene is almost non-existent. However, there are a couple of emulators available.

Emulators

Name Platform(s) Latest Version Libretro Core FLOSS Active Recommended
PC / x86
Phoenix Windows Linux macOS 2.8.JAG
4DO / Opera Windows
Linux macOS FreeBSD [N 1]
1.3.2.4
Git
[N 2]
3d'oh Linux SVN
MAME Windows Linux macOS FreeBSD 0.264
FreeDO Windows macOS v1.9 beta
Mobile / ARM
Real3DOPlayer Android 1.0.32
  1. Only available outside of Windows as a libretro core (e.g. RetroArch).
  2. Main branch is dead, but the libretro core is still alive.

Comparison

Phoenix
A newer, closed-source project by a long time FreeDO contributor. It is the most compatible 3DO emulator (claiming 100% compatibility). The PC versions are completely in Russian (you can download an English translation patch here). Most of the settings are translated in this picture.
4DO / Opera
4DO is a fork of the FreeDO emulation project and is only available for Windows. The website has been shut down and the most recent release is a many years old[1]. It can overclock up to 400% of the original 3DO clock speed, which makes low frame rate titles (e.g. Doctor Hauzer) much more playable. It allows upscaling the game in a higher internal resolution by up to 2x, but the game is still only rendered at 480p. Severe audio glitches are very common no matter what settings are used. A libretro port renamed to Opera is available, though overclocking options present only to 2.0x speed (unlike original 4.0x), that still may seem slow[2].
3d'oh
Seems to have lower compatibility. However, most of the more popular 3DO titles are compatible. It's a source-only release, so it has to be compiled.
MAME
Has four 3do drivers (two for the NTSC/PAL models, one for the BIOS, and one for the unreleased M2 version). Commercial games do not load in the drivers yet (as it is reported as not working and the sound as unimplemented) but MAME supports the arcade hardware.
FreeDO
An older abandoned emulator that never left beta. Paved the way for preliminary 3DO emulation development while spawning 4DO and Phoenix. Was open source at one point but became closed due to fear of legal issues[3].
Real3DOPlayer
The Phoenix emulation project is released as separate emulators for Android, this is the 3DO version. Identical compatibility to PC version according to the author. Requires 1.5 GHz dual-core ARM or better for full speed.

Resources

References