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5DO 1.0.0-rc.1

Historical release candidate. The current release is 1.0.0; see ReleaseNotes-1.0.0.md. M13 loadability is complete, M14 high-resolution CEL research is post-1.0, and legal/attribution sign-off is recorded (2026-11-02).

Release date: 2026-10-27 Status: historical release candidate, superseded by 1.0.0. The engineering gates passed; legal/attribution sign-off was recorded on 2026-11-02. See ReleaseLegalReview.md. Post-rc.1: the 2026-10-28 pass added the OpenAL crackle fix, PCM tap, and FSR 1.0; the 2026-10-29 passes added the save-state disc warning, console hotkeys (including F6/F7 slot selection and F9 frame advance), desktop input recording, ISO/BIN disc tracks, the OpenAL Soft LGPL notice/source offer, the optional offscreen Vulkan backend, Vulkan xBR/FSR GPU filters, a native Win32 Vulkan swapchain probe, explicit PreferOpenGl handling, custom aspect editing, frontend AOT audio validation, and bug-report hygiene. See CHANGELOG.md and Status.md.

This is a documented-compatibility release: the emulator is supported on the validated platform and against the tested title set, with known issues listed below. Full compatibility with the 3DO library is not claimed and is not a v1 gate.

Highlights

  • Pure C# / .NET 10 3DO emulator with an ARM60 interpreter, 3 MB RAM / 2 MB ROM, NVRAM, CLIO, MADAM CEL and matrix engines, VDLP, SPORT, DSP, Quartz, XBUS, and CD-ROM emulation.
  • Boots the tested BIOS and the 12 titles in the compatibility matrix below.
  • Deterministic save states with JSON metadata and PNG thumbnails.
  • Avalonia desktop shell with game library, settings, keyboard/gamepad mapping, ten save slots, screenshots, fullscreen, logs, and first-run guide.
  • OpenGL/GLES two-stage presenter with accurate, nearest, sharp-bilinear, CRT, xBR, and HQx filters, CPU fallback, and 4K output support.
  • Optional Vulkan 1.0 backend with build-time SPIR-V shaders, accurate/nearest/sharp-bilinear/CRT/xBR/FSR/HQx modes, an embedded Win32 child surface for the desktop path, CPU readback fallback, a headless --vk-probe, and a native Win32 swapchain probe (--vk-window-probe). It matches the CPU oracle at 320x240 (0xD6BD89C5) and measures 0.24 ms mean / 1.06 ms p99 present at 4K sharp-bilinear, 0.32/0.80 ms at 4K xBR, 0.60/1.30 ms at 4K FSR, and 6.82/10.93 ms at 4K HQx 2x (CPU-bound) on the RTX
  • The 4K window probe reports 0.077/0.088 ms GPU and 5.96/6.53 ms present including the 165 Hz FIFO wait, with 0 managed bytes/frame. OpenGL remains the required desktop presenter; see Vulkan.md.
  • 44.1 kHz stereo DSP audio with an exact sample clock, bundled OpenAL Soft live output, audio-driven frame pacing, and WAV capture/analysis (audio analyze <wav> --json).
  • Headless CLI with run, trace, bench, selftest, info, disc, fs, audio, disasm, bios, state, and JSON output.
  • ISO, BIN, CUE+BIN, and CHD disc images, including parent/child CHDs.

Supported platforms

Platform Status
Windows x64 Validated for this release candidate
Linux x64 / macOS x64 Publish outputs are produced; runtime validation is post-1.0 unless separately verified
Windows/Linux/macOS arm64, Raspberry Pi 4/5 Post-1.0

Tested titles

These are the documented statuses for this release candidate. "Boots/menus" means the title renders and round-trips save states, but gameplay input has not been scripted end-to-end.

Title Status
Wolfenstein 3D (USA) Playable: fresh game, movement/fire, save/load
Lemmings (USA) Playable: passcode path, gameplay start, save/load
Road Rash (USA) Playable race; full-race completion is a known limitation
Alone in the Dark (USA) Playable room/menu/intro; inventory not scripted
Space Ace (USA) Playable interactive scene start
Gex Boots/attract scene; input not scripted
Need for Speed Boots/menus; input not scripted
Super Street Fighter II Turbo Boots/attract match; input not scripted
Total Eclipse Boots/attract gameplay; input not scripted
Killing Time Boots/title menu; input not scripted
Theme Park Boots/title menu; captured menu audio is silent
Return Fire Boots/menu; input not scripted

See Compatibility.md and KnownIssues.md for details and evidence.

Requirements

  • .NET 10 SDK for source builds. The published packages are self-contained.
  • A legally obtained 1 MB 3DO BIOS ROM (for example panafz1.bin).
  • Legally obtained 3DO disc images in ISO, BIN, CUE+BIN, or CHD format.
  • Windows 10+ for the validated desktop package.
  • An OpenGL 3.3 or OpenGL ES 3.0/3.1 context for the GPU presenter; the CPU WriteableBitmap fallback is used when OpenGL is unavailable.

BIOS ROMs and game images are not included.

Verification

The release checklist is in ReleaseChecklist.md.

  • dotnet build 5DO.sln -c Release: 0 warnings, 0 errors.
  • dotnet test tests/FiveDo.Tests/FiveDo.Tests.csproj -c Release: 798/798 passing at rc.1 (906/906 after the 2026-10-29 hotkey/input-recording pass).
  • Synthetic benchmark budget gate: 2.28 ms/frame core mean, 4.03 ms core p99, 4.66 ms total p99, 0 managed bytes/frame.
  • Trimmed win-x64 CLI and frontend smoke tests (selftest, bench, info, 300-frame disc run, --smoke-test).
  • Six fresh 36,000-frame soaks and seven archived-state 36,000-frame soaks; all exited 0 with the DSP running.
  • Save/load roundtrip on the showcase titles: zero-frame hash matches and two 120-frame continuations are identical.
  • WGL and ANGLE/GLES 3.0 Accurate parity: 0 different pixels; 0 renderer allocations per frame.
  • Portable win-x64 CLI and frontend archives with README/notices/licensing.
  • Legal/attribution sign-off (owner action; see ReleaseLegalReview.md).

The per-title soak hashes and roundtrip evidence are in Compatibility.md §10.2.

Known issues

See KnownIssues.md. The main limitations are:

  • Road Rash's full 5.5-mile race is not completed by the autopilot; the race and post-race flow are documented.
  • Alone in the Dark's inventory interaction is not scripted.
  • The seven additional titles boot/render but do not have scripted gameplay input.
  • Raspberry Pi/GLES 3.1, arm64 hardware, DPI, Tier B timing, and installers are post-1.0.
  • The Avalonia compositor may pace presentation independently of the requested vsync; renderer cost is reported separately.

Licensing

This project is a C# port/derivative of FreeDO/4DO and uses Opera/libopera as a behavioral reference. It is distributed under the FreeDO modified GNU LGPL; see LICENSE. 5DO is donationware (non-commercial, source-available; voluntary donations only). FreeDO/4DO are not standard OSI-licensed projects; their modified LGPL includes a non-commercial restriction. Read THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md and Licensing.md before distributing builds.

"3DO", "Panasonic", and "GoldStar" are trademarks of their respective owners. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.

Artifacts

The win-x64 release artifacts are:

  • 5do-cli-win-x64.zip
  • 5do-frontend-win-x64.zip

Sizes and SHA-256 checksums are recorded in SHA256SUMS.txt next to the packages. Each archive contains the executable, README.md, LICENSE, THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md, docs/Licensing.md, docs/ReleaseLegalReview.md, docs/OpenALSoft.md, docs/OpenAL-Soft-COPYING.txt, these release notes, and PACKAGE.txt.