Atari Lynx emulators
| |
| Atari Lynx I | |
| Developer | Epyx |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Atari Corporation |
| Type | Handheld video game console |
| Generation | Fourth |
| Release date | September 1, 1989 |
| Discontinued | 1995 |
| Emulated | ✓ |
- For emulators that run on the Atari Lynx, see Emulators on Atari Lynx.
The Atari Lynx was a fourth-generation handheld game console released by Atari on September 1, 1989 and it retailed for $179.99 ($468 in 2026). It has a WDC 65SC02 CPU. Notably, it was the world's first handheld system that used a color LCD screen, as well as having fairly advanced graphics for the time.
Unlike contemporaneous machines, its architecture is based upon a frame buffer and a scaling blitter, providing both 2D sprite and background scaling and hardware support for lines and filled triangles. Because it has no inherent concept of a tile map or any sprite-specific hardware, the drawing budget is per frame rather than per line; there is no enforced limit in terms of the number of sprites or sprites per line other than that implied by the amount of drawing that can be achieved within an acceptable frame rate.
Emulators
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Comparison
edit- Mednafen
- Based upon Handy, but unlike other forked cores, its emulation only improves upon the original. Despite having the .lnx extension, No-Intro ROMs aren’t directly compatible with Mednafen nor Handy and must be converted with make_lnx, which is bundled with Handy.
- Felix
- Inspired by Handy. Created in C++20 using DirectX. Under MIT License. It's a cycle-exact Atari Lynx Emulator with good compatibility. It has a simple GUI and can load roms in .lnx, .lyx and .o format, change rotation and EEPROM properties, has Xinput Gamepad support and redefinable key mapping.
- Handy
- Hasn't been updated since 2007. Only included here for reference.
Enhancements
edit| Name | Mednafen | MAME | Felix | OpenEmu | Gearlynx | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Controls | Input lag mitigating | |||||
| Turbo button | ||||||
| Graphics | Remove sprite limit | |||||
| Resizable internal resolution | ||||||
| Texture packs | ||||||
| Widescreen hack |
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| Performance | Overclock | |||||
| Post-processing | AI-powered filter (Freestyle) |
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| Filters | ||||||
| Inverse tone mapping compatible | ||||||
| Shader chain | ||||||
| Quality of life | Automatic updater | |||||
| Big Picture Mode | ||||||
| Built-in cheat manager | ||||||
| Built-in custom resolution/CRTSwitchRes For using this on Windows, you need CRT Emudriver. Another option is using EDID editor tool such as "Custom Resolution Utility". |
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| Built-in mod editor and manager | ||||||
| Built-in patch manager | ||||||
| Command-line options | ||||||
| Pause/Resume emulation | ||||||
| Per-game profiles | ||||||
| Portable and stealth Useful enhancement feature for non-personal computer use or plug-and-play scenarios. However, the software may still require the necessary prerequisites and dependencies for your operating system if it is not statically linked. |
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| Streamable compression format | ||||||
| TAS features | Fast forward/Turbo speed | |||||
| Frame step (forwards and backwards) |
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| Macros/Scripts/Lua | ||||||
| Movie recording/playback | ||||||
| Rewind | ||||||
| Save states | ||||||
| Misc. | Audio filters and presets Simulation of characteristic playback limitations and coloration of vintage consumer audio hardware, such as CRT television speakers, arcade cabinets, handheld consoles, early PC sound outputs, and low-fidelity integrated speakers. These filters are not intended to be perfectly accurate recreations, but rather to evoke the tonal qualities, distortion, bandwidth limits, resonance, and compression associated with 8-bit and 16-bit era devices. Examples include mono or narrow stereo output, reduced frequency response, speaker cone distortion, mild saturation, aliasing, and preset lo-fi profiles inspired by classic TVs, portable game systems, radios, and retro multimedia hardware. |
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| Debug features | ||||||
| EmuVR support | ||||||
| Netplay | ||||||
| RetroAchievements | ||||||
| Rich Presence (RPC) Allows the emulator to share real-time game session details (e.g., current game title, level, boss, playtime, or custom status) with external applications. This enables features such as displaying what you're playing on your profile, inviting friends to spectate, or triggering join-in-progress functionality where supported. |
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| Screen translator Using optical character recognition (OCR) and other techniques, this feature can provide live translation of in-game text, text-to-speech for visually impaired users, and more — either on demand or automatically. |
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Hardware features and peripherals
edit| Name | Mednafen | MAME | Felix | OpenEmu | Gearlynx | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware features | Save game (homebrew) | |||||
| Peripherals | Comlynx cable | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Misc. | Atari Jaguar connectivity Jaguar's board has ComLynx signal I/O, and you can get a ComLynx cable hooked up with some soldering as Atari planned connectivity support between the two, but there's no official software to run and the feature is unused. Homebrew can be potentially written to utilize it. |
✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Switch between Lynx I and Lynx II emulation | ? | ? | ? | ? | ✓ | |
BIOS
editAll emulators require a dump of the 512-byte BIOS named lynxboot.img. On Mednafen, put it on the root folder.
LLeny made HLE BIOS for Handy's libretro core, it can run Lynx games directly
