HD emulation mod makes “Mode 7” SNES games look like new

     A modder going by the handle DerKoun has released an "HD Mode 7" patch for the accuracy-focused SNES emulator bsnes. In their own words, the patch "performs Mode 7 transformations... at up to 4 times the horizontal and vertical resolution" of the original hardware.
      Games that made use of the SNES "Graphics Mode 7" used backgrounds that were coded in the SNES memory as a 128x128 grid of 256-color, 8x8 pixel tiles. That made for a 1024×1024 "map" that could be manipulated en masse by basic linear algebra affine transforms to rotate, scale, shear, and translate the entire screen quickly [Update: The original version of this story misstated the tileset and resolution for Mode 7 backgrounds. Ars regrets the error].
     Byuu, the lead coder on the bsnes project, says DerKoun's HD Mode 7 mod will be integrated into the next major release of the emulator. Then the project will officially join the growing list of other emulation efforts that actually improve on the performance of the original hardware, including WideNES, RetroArch's LAGFIX latency mitigation and 4K upscaling for PS3 and Wii U games, to name just a few.