Philips CD-i emulators

From Emulation General Wiki
Revision as of 11:52, 24 July 2018 by 192.54.145.66 (talk)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Philips CD-i
CD-i-910-Console-Set.png
Developer Philips, Sony, Magnavox
Type Home video game console
Generation Fourth generation
Release date 1991
Discontinued 1998
Predecessor Philips Videopac + G7400
Emulated ~

The Compact Disc Interactive (CD-i), is an interactive multimedia CD player and format developed and marketed by Philips in 1991/1992. Notably, it featured intellectual properties from Nintendo, such as Mario and Zelda, due to previously having tried to develop a CD add-on for the SNES. Their takes on Nintendo intellectual property were so infamously terrible that you would be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't think of them when you mention the CD-i. However, there were a few cult classic games for the system.

Emulators

Name Operating System(s) Latest Version Active Accuracy Recommended
MAME Multi-platform 0.264 Mid
TinyCDi Windows [1] Mid
CD-i Emulator Windows 0.5.3 beta 3 (Patched) Mid
CD-iCE Windows, Linux 1(?) Low

Comparisons

MAME
Has incomplete support but is much easier to control, and it actually emulates better audio than Cdiemu in some cases. It is recommended to start the emulation with the game already loaded, either with the game picker or through a soft reset after mounting the disk.
TinyCDi
This is a 'Tiny' MAME build containing the CDi code from MESS as it is on 28th October 2009 using a fixed gamelist like MAME. Works better than the last official MAME builds with some games (for example Zelda's Adventure).
CD-i Emulator
A payware emulator that hasn't received an update since 2006. Its compatibility isn't very good and it only responds to mouse movements for control, making most games unplayable unless you use an additional program called Mah Boi. Preliminary keyboard support has been added in 0.5.3 betas.
CD-iCE
One of the first made CD-i emulators. It doesn't need a BIOS and can only play Rise of the Robots as that's what it was solely developed for.