Update to v100r02 release.
byuu says:
Sigh ... I'm really not a good person. I'm inherently selfish.
My responsibility and obligation right now is to work on loki, and
then on the Tengai Makyou Zero translation, and then on improving the
Famicom emulation.
And yet ... it's not what I really want to do. That shouldn't matter;
I should work on my responsibilities first.
Instead, I'm going to be a greedy, self-centered asshole, and work on
what I really want to instead.
I'm really sorry, guys. I'm sure this will make a few people happy,
and probably upset even more people.
I'm also making zero guarantees that this ever gets finished. As always,
I wish I could keep these things secret, so if I fail / give up, I could
just drop it with no shame. But I would have to cut everyone out of the
WIP process completely to make it happen. So, here goes ...
This WIP adds the initial skeleton for Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
emulation. God help us.
(minor note: apparently the new extension for Mega Drive games is .md,
neat. That's what I chose for the folders too. I thought it was .smd,
so that'll be fixed in icarus for the next WIP.)
(aside: this is why I wanted to get v100 out. I didn't want this code in
a skeleton state in v100's source. Nor did I want really broken emulation,
which the first release is sure to be, tarring said release.)
...
So, basically, I've been ruminating on the legacy I want to leave behind
with higan. 3D systems are just plain out. I'm never going to support
them. They're too complex for my abilities, and they would run too slowly
with my design style. I'm not willing to compromise my design ideals. And
I would never want to play a 3D game system at native 240p/480i resolution
... but 1080p+ upscaling is not accurate, so that's a conflict I want
to avoid entirely. It's also never going to emulate computer systems
(X68K, PC-98, FM-Towns, etc) because holy shit that would completely
destroy me. It's also never going emulate arcade machines.
So I think of higan as a collection of 2D emulators for consoles
and handhelds. I've gone over every major 2D gaming system there is,
looking for ones with games I actually care about and enjoy. And I
basically have five of those systems supported already. Looking at the
remaining list, I see only three systems left that I have any interest
in whatsoever: PC-Engine, Master System, Mega Drive. Again, I'm not in
any way committing to emulating any of these, but ... if I had all of
those in higan, I think I'd be content to really, truly, finally stop
writing more emulators for the rest of my life.
And so I decided to tackle the most difficult system first. If I'm
successful, the Z80 core should cover a lot of the work on the SMS. And
the HuC6280 should land somewhere between the NES and SNES in terms of
difficulty ... closer to the NES.
The systems that just don't appeal to me at all, which I will never touch,
include, but are not limited to:
* Atari 2600/5200/7800
* Lynx
* Jaguar
* Vectrex
* Colecovision
* Commodore 64
* Neo-Geo
* Neo-Geo Pocket / Color
* Virtual Boy
* Super A'can
* 32X
* CD-i
* etc, etc, etc.
And really, even if something were mildly interesting in there ... we
have to stop. I can't scale infinitely. I'm already way past my limit,
but I'm doing this anyway. Too many cores bloats everything and kills
quality on everything. I don't want higan to become MESS v2.
I don't know what I'll do about the Famicom Disk System, PC-Engine CD,
and Mega CD. I don't think I'll be able to achieve 60fps emulating the
Mega CD, even if I tried to.
I don't know what's going to happen here with even the Mega Drive. Maybe
I'll get driven crazy with the documentation and quit. Maybe it'll end
up being too complicated and I'll quit. Maybe the emulation will end up
way too slow and I'll give up. Maybe it'll take me seven years to get
any games playable at all. Maybe Steve Snake, AamirM and Mike Pavone
will pool money to hire a hitman to come after me. Who knows.
But this is what I want to do, so ... here goes nothing.
2016-07-09 04:21:37 +00:00
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#include <md/md.hpp>
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namespace MegaDrive {
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YM2612 ym2612;
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Update to v102r08 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- PCE: restructured VCE, VDCs to run one scanline at a time
- PCE: bound VDCs to 1365x262 timing (in order to decouple the VDCs
from the VCE)
- PCE: the two changes above allow save states to function; also
grants a minor speed boost
- PCE: added cheat code support (uses 21-bit bus addressing; compare
byte will be useful here)
- 68K: fixed `mov *,ccr` to read two bytes instead of one [Cydrak]
- Z80: emulated /BUSREQ, /BUSACK; allows 68K to suspend the Z80
[Cydrak]
- MD: emulated the Z80 executing instructions [Cydrak]
- MD: emulated Z80 interrupts (triggered during each Vblank period)
[Cydrak]
- MD: emulated Z80 memory map [Cydrak]
- MD: added stubs for PSG, YM2612 accesses [Cydrak]
- MD: improved bus emulation [Cydrak]
The PCE core is pretty much ready to go. The only major feature missing
is FM modulation.
The Mega Drive improvements let us start to see the splash screens for
Langrisser II, Shining Force, Shining in the Darkness. I was hoping I
could get them in-game, but no such luck. My Z80 implementation is
probably flawed in some way ... now that I think about it, I believe I
missed the BusAPU::reset() check for having been granted access to the
Z80 first. But I doubt that's the problem.
Next step is to implement Cydrak's PSG core into the Master System
emulator. Once that's in, I'm going to add save states and cheat code
support to the Master System core.
Next, I'll add the PSG core into the Mega Drive. Then I'll add the
'easy' PCM part of the YM2612. Then the rest of the beastly YM2612 core.
Then finally, cap things off with save state and cheat code support.
Should be nearing a new release at that point.
2017-02-20 08:13:10 +00:00
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#include "io.cpp"
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Update to v102r12 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- MD/PSG: fixed 68K bus Z80 status read address location
- MS, GG, MD/PSG: channels post-decrement their counters, not
pre-decrement [Cydrak]¹
- MD/VDP: cache screen width registers once per scanline; screen
height registers once per frame
- MD/VDP: support 256-width display mode (used in Shining Force, etc)
- MD/YM2612: implemented timers²
- MD/YM2612: implemented 8-bit PCM DAC²
- 68000: TRAP instruction should index the vector location by 32 (eg
by 128 bytes), fixes Shining Force
- nall: updated hex(), octal(), binary() functions to take uintmax
instead of template<typename T> parameter³
¹: this one makes an incredible difference. Sie noticed that lots of
games set a period of 0, which would end up being a really long period
with pre-decrement. By fixing this, noise shows up in many more games,
and sounds way better in games even where it did before. You can hear
extra sound on Lunar - Sanposuru Gakuen's title screen, the noise in
Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive) sounds better, etc.
²: this also really helps sound. The timers allow PSG music to play
back at the correct speed instead of playing back way too quickly. And
the PCM DAC lets you hear a lot of drum effects, as well as the
"Sega!!" sound at the start of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the infamous,
"Rise from your grave!" line from Altered Beast.
Still, most music on the Mega Drive comes from the FM channels, so
there's still not a whole lot to listen to.
I didn't implement Cydrak's $02c test register just yet. Sie wasn't 100%
certain on how the extended DAC bit worked, so I'd like to play it a
little conservative and get sound working, then I'll go back and add a
toggle or something to enable undocumented registers, that way we can
use that to detect any potential problems they might be causing.
³: unfortunately we lose support for using hex() on nall/arithmetic
types. If I have a const Pair& version of the function, then the
compiler gets confused on whether Natural<32> should use uintmax or
const Pair&, because compilers are stupid, and you can't have explicit
arguments in overloaded functions. So even though either function would
work, it just decides to error out instead >_>
This is actually really annoying, because I want hex() to be useful for
printing out nall/crypto keys and hashes directly.
But ... this change had to be made. Negative signed integers would crash
programs, and that was taking out my 68000 disassembler.
2017-02-27 08:45:51 +00:00
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#include "timer.cpp"
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Update to v100r02 release.
byuu says:
Sigh ... I'm really not a good person. I'm inherently selfish.
My responsibility and obligation right now is to work on loki, and
then on the Tengai Makyou Zero translation, and then on improving the
Famicom emulation.
And yet ... it's not what I really want to do. That shouldn't matter;
I should work on my responsibilities first.
Instead, I'm going to be a greedy, self-centered asshole, and work on
what I really want to instead.
I'm really sorry, guys. I'm sure this will make a few people happy,
and probably upset even more people.
I'm also making zero guarantees that this ever gets finished. As always,
I wish I could keep these things secret, so if I fail / give up, I could
just drop it with no shame. But I would have to cut everyone out of the
WIP process completely to make it happen. So, here goes ...
This WIP adds the initial skeleton for Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
emulation. God help us.
(minor note: apparently the new extension for Mega Drive games is .md,
neat. That's what I chose for the folders too. I thought it was .smd,
so that'll be fixed in icarus for the next WIP.)
(aside: this is why I wanted to get v100 out. I didn't want this code in
a skeleton state in v100's source. Nor did I want really broken emulation,
which the first release is sure to be, tarring said release.)
...
So, basically, I've been ruminating on the legacy I want to leave behind
with higan. 3D systems are just plain out. I'm never going to support
them. They're too complex for my abilities, and they would run too slowly
with my design style. I'm not willing to compromise my design ideals. And
I would never want to play a 3D game system at native 240p/480i resolution
... but 1080p+ upscaling is not accurate, so that's a conflict I want
to avoid entirely. It's also never going to emulate computer systems
(X68K, PC-98, FM-Towns, etc) because holy shit that would completely
destroy me. It's also never going emulate arcade machines.
So I think of higan as a collection of 2D emulators for consoles
and handhelds. I've gone over every major 2D gaming system there is,
looking for ones with games I actually care about and enjoy. And I
basically have five of those systems supported already. Looking at the
remaining list, I see only three systems left that I have any interest
in whatsoever: PC-Engine, Master System, Mega Drive. Again, I'm not in
any way committing to emulating any of these, but ... if I had all of
those in higan, I think I'd be content to really, truly, finally stop
writing more emulators for the rest of my life.
And so I decided to tackle the most difficult system first. If I'm
successful, the Z80 core should cover a lot of the work on the SMS. And
the HuC6280 should land somewhere between the NES and SNES in terms of
difficulty ... closer to the NES.
The systems that just don't appeal to me at all, which I will never touch,
include, but are not limited to:
* Atari 2600/5200/7800
* Lynx
* Jaguar
* Vectrex
* Colecovision
* Commodore 64
* Neo-Geo
* Neo-Geo Pocket / Color
* Virtual Boy
* Super A'can
* 32X
* CD-i
* etc, etc, etc.
And really, even if something were mildly interesting in there ... we
have to stop. I can't scale infinitely. I'm already way past my limit,
but I'm doing this anyway. Too many cores bloats everything and kills
quality on everything. I don't want higan to become MESS v2.
I don't know what I'll do about the Famicom Disk System, PC-Engine CD,
and Mega CD. I don't think I'll be able to achieve 60fps emulating the
Mega CD, even if I tried to.
I don't know what's going to happen here with even the Mega Drive. Maybe
I'll get driven crazy with the documentation and quit. Maybe it'll end
up being too complicated and I'll quit. Maybe the emulation will end up
way too slow and I'll give up. Maybe it'll take me seven years to get
any games playable at all. Maybe Steve Snake, AamirM and Mike Pavone
will pool money to hire a hitman to come after me. Who knows.
But this is what I want to do, so ... here goes nothing.
2016-07-09 04:21:37 +00:00
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2016-07-10 05:28:26 +00:00
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auto YM2612::Enter() -> void {
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while(true) scheduler.synchronize(), ym2612.main();
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}
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auto YM2612::main() -> void {
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Update to v102r12 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- MD/PSG: fixed 68K bus Z80 status read address location
- MS, GG, MD/PSG: channels post-decrement their counters, not
pre-decrement [Cydrak]¹
- MD/VDP: cache screen width registers once per scanline; screen
height registers once per frame
- MD/VDP: support 256-width display mode (used in Shining Force, etc)
- MD/YM2612: implemented timers²
- MD/YM2612: implemented 8-bit PCM DAC²
- 68000: TRAP instruction should index the vector location by 32 (eg
by 128 bytes), fixes Shining Force
- nall: updated hex(), octal(), binary() functions to take uintmax
instead of template<typename T> parameter³
¹: this one makes an incredible difference. Sie noticed that lots of
games set a period of 0, which would end up being a really long period
with pre-decrement. By fixing this, noise shows up in many more games,
and sounds way better in games even where it did before. You can hear
extra sound on Lunar - Sanposuru Gakuen's title screen, the noise in
Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive) sounds better, etc.
²: this also really helps sound. The timers allow PSG music to play
back at the correct speed instead of playing back way too quickly. And
the PCM DAC lets you hear a lot of drum effects, as well as the
"Sega!!" sound at the start of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the infamous,
"Rise from your grave!" line from Altered Beast.
Still, most music on the Mega Drive comes from the FM channels, so
there's still not a whole lot to listen to.
I didn't implement Cydrak's $02c test register just yet. Sie wasn't 100%
certain on how the extended DAC bit worked, so I'd like to play it a
little conservative and get sound working, then I'll go back and add a
toggle or something to enable undocumented registers, that way we can
use that to detect any potential problems they might be causing.
³: unfortunately we lose support for using hex() on nall/arithmetic
types. If I have a const Pair& version of the function, then the
compiler gets confused on whether Natural<32> should use uintmax or
const Pair&, because compilers are stupid, and you can't have explicit
arguments in overloaded functions. So even though either function would
work, it just decides to error out instead >_>
This is actually really annoying, because I want hex() to be useful for
printing out nall/crypto keys and hashes directly.
But ... this change had to be made. Negative signed integers would crash
programs, and that was taking out my 68000 disassembler.
2017-02-27 08:45:51 +00:00
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timerA.run();
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timerB.run();
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int output = 0;
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if(dac.enable) output += dac.sample;
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output <<= 5;
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stream->sample(output / 32768.0, output / 32768.0);
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Update to v102r10 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- removed Emulator::Interface::Capabilities¹
- MS: improved the PSG emulation a bit
- MS: added cheat code support
- MS: added save state support²
- MD: emulated the PSG³
¹: there's really no point to it anymore. I intend to add cheat codes
to the GBA core, as well as both cheat codes and save states to the Mega
Drive core. I no longer intend to emulate any new systems, so these
values will always be true. Further, the GUI doesn't respond to these
values to disable those features anymore ever since the hiro rewrite, so
they're double useless.
²: right now, the Z80 core is using a pointer for HL-\>(IX,IY)
overrides. But I can't reliably serialize pointers, so I need to convert
the Z80 core to use an integer here. The save states still appear to
work fine, but there's the potential for an instruction to execute
incorrectly if you're incredibly unlucky, so this needs to be fixed as
soon as possible. Further, I still need a way to serialize
array<T, Size> objects, and I should also add nall::Boolean
serialization support.
³: I don't have a system in place to share identical sound chips. But
this chip is so incredibly simple that it's not really much trouble to
duplicate it. Further, I can strip out the stereo sound support code
from the Game Gear portion, so it's even tinier.
Note that the Mega Drive only just barely uses the PSG. Not at all in
Altered Beast, and only for a tiny part of the BGM music on Sonic 1,
plus his jump sound effect.
2017-02-22 21:25:01 +00:00
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step(1);
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2016-07-10 05:28:26 +00:00
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}
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auto YM2612::step(uint clocks) -> void {
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Update to v101r04 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- pulled the (u)intN type aliases into higan instead of leaving them
in nall
- added 68K LINEA, LINEF hooks for illegal instructions
- filled the rest of the 68K lambda table with generic instance of
ILLEGAL
- completed the 68K disassembler effective addressing modes
- still unsure whether I should use An to decode absolute
addresses or not
- pro: way easier to read where accesses are taking place
- con: requires An to be valid; so as a disassembler it does a
poor job
- making it optional: too much work; ick
- added I/O decoding for the VDP command-port registers
- added skeleton timing to all five processor cores
- output at 1280x480 (needed for mixed 256/320 widths; and to handle
interlace modes)
The VDP, PSG, Z80, YM2612 are all stepping one clock at a time and
syncing; which is the pathological worst case for libco. But they also
have no logic inside of them. With all the above, I'm averaging around
250fps with just the 68K core actually functional, and the VDP doing a
dumb "draw white pixels" loop. Still way too early to tell how this
emulator is going to perform.
Also, the 320x240 mode of the Genesis means that we don't need an aspect
correction ratio. But we do need to ensure the output window is a
multiple 320x240 so that the scale values work correctly. I was
hard-coding aspect correction to stretch the window an additional \*8/7.
But that won't work anymore so ... the main higan window is now 640x480,
960x720, or 1280x960. Toggling aspect correction only changes the video
width inside the window.
It's a bit jarring ... the window is a lot wider, more black space now
for most modes. But for now, it is what it is.
2016-08-12 01:07:04 +00:00
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Thread::step(clocks);
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synchronize(cpu);
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Update to v102r12 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- MD/PSG: fixed 68K bus Z80 status read address location
- MS, GG, MD/PSG: channels post-decrement their counters, not
pre-decrement [Cydrak]¹
- MD/VDP: cache screen width registers once per scanline; screen
height registers once per frame
- MD/VDP: support 256-width display mode (used in Shining Force, etc)
- MD/YM2612: implemented timers²
- MD/YM2612: implemented 8-bit PCM DAC²
- 68000: TRAP instruction should index the vector location by 32 (eg
by 128 bytes), fixes Shining Force
- nall: updated hex(), octal(), binary() functions to take uintmax
instead of template<typename T> parameter³
¹: this one makes an incredible difference. Sie noticed that lots of
games set a period of 0, which would end up being a really long period
with pre-decrement. By fixing this, noise shows up in many more games,
and sounds way better in games even where it did before. You can hear
extra sound on Lunar - Sanposuru Gakuen's title screen, the noise in
Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive) sounds better, etc.
²: this also really helps sound. The timers allow PSG music to play
back at the correct speed instead of playing back way too quickly. And
the PCM DAC lets you hear a lot of drum effects, as well as the
"Sega!!" sound at the start of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the infamous,
"Rise from your grave!" line from Altered Beast.
Still, most music on the Mega Drive comes from the FM channels, so
there's still not a whole lot to listen to.
I didn't implement Cydrak's $02c test register just yet. Sie wasn't 100%
certain on how the extended DAC bit worked, so I'd like to play it a
little conservative and get sound working, then I'll go back and add a
toggle or something to enable undocumented registers, that way we can
use that to detect any potential problems they might be causing.
³: unfortunately we lose support for using hex() on nall/arithmetic
types. If I have a const Pair& version of the function, then the
compiler gets confused on whether Natural<32> should use uintmax or
const Pair&, because compilers are stupid, and you can't have explicit
arguments in overloaded functions. So even though either function would
work, it just decides to error out instead >_>
This is actually really annoying, because I want hex() to be useful for
printing out nall/crypto keys and hashes directly.
But ... this change had to be made. Negative signed integers would crash
programs, and that was taking out my 68000 disassembler.
2017-02-27 08:45:51 +00:00
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synchronize(apu);
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2016-07-10 05:28:26 +00:00
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}
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auto YM2612::power() -> void {
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Update to v102r10 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- removed Emulator::Interface::Capabilities¹
- MS: improved the PSG emulation a bit
- MS: added cheat code support
- MS: added save state support²
- MD: emulated the PSG³
¹: there's really no point to it anymore. I intend to add cheat codes
to the GBA core, as well as both cheat codes and save states to the Mega
Drive core. I no longer intend to emulate any new systems, so these
values will always be true. Further, the GUI doesn't respond to these
values to disable those features anymore ever since the hiro rewrite, so
they're double useless.
²: right now, the Z80 core is using a pointer for HL-\>(IX,IY)
overrides. But I can't reliably serialize pointers, so I need to convert
the Z80 core to use an integer here. The save states still appear to
work fine, but there's the potential for an instruction to execute
incorrectly if you're incredibly unlucky, so this needs to be fixed as
soon as possible. Further, I still need a way to serialize
array<T, Size> objects, and I should also add nall::Boolean
serialization support.
³: I don't have a system in place to share identical sound chips. But
this chip is so incredibly simple that it's not really much trouble to
duplicate it. Further, I can strip out the stereo sound support code
from the Game Gear portion, so it's even tinier.
Note that the Mega Drive only just barely uses the PSG. Not at all in
Altered Beast, and only for a tiny part of the BGM music on Sonic 1,
plus his jump sound effect.
2017-02-22 21:25:01 +00:00
|
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create(YM2612::Enter, system.colorburst() * 15.0 / 7.0 / 144.0);
|
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stream = Emulator::audio.createStream(2, frequency());
|
Update to v102r12 release.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- MD/PSG: fixed 68K bus Z80 status read address location
- MS, GG, MD/PSG: channels post-decrement their counters, not
pre-decrement [Cydrak]¹
- MD/VDP: cache screen width registers once per scanline; screen
height registers once per frame
- MD/VDP: support 256-width display mode (used in Shining Force, etc)
- MD/YM2612: implemented timers²
- MD/YM2612: implemented 8-bit PCM DAC²
- 68000: TRAP instruction should index the vector location by 32 (eg
by 128 bytes), fixes Shining Force
- nall: updated hex(), octal(), binary() functions to take uintmax
instead of template<typename T> parameter³
¹: this one makes an incredible difference. Sie noticed that lots of
games set a period of 0, which would end up being a really long period
with pre-decrement. By fixing this, noise shows up in many more games,
and sounds way better in games even where it did before. You can hear
extra sound on Lunar - Sanposuru Gakuen's title screen, the noise in
Sonic The Hedgehog (Mega Drive) sounds better, etc.
²: this also really helps sound. The timers allow PSG music to play
back at the correct speed instead of playing back way too quickly. And
the PCM DAC lets you hear a lot of drum effects, as well as the
"Sega!!" sound at the start of Sonic the Hedgehog, and the infamous,
"Rise from your grave!" line from Altered Beast.
Still, most music on the Mega Drive comes from the FM channels, so
there's still not a whole lot to listen to.
I didn't implement Cydrak's $02c test register just yet. Sie wasn't 100%
certain on how the extended DAC bit worked, so I'd like to play it a
little conservative and get sound working, then I'll go back and add a
toggle or something to enable undocumented registers, that way we can
use that to detect any potential problems they might be causing.
³: unfortunately we lose support for using hex() on nall/arithmetic
types. If I have a const Pair& version of the function, then the
compiler gets confused on whether Natural<32> should use uintmax or
const Pair&, because compilers are stupid, and you can't have explicit
arguments in overloaded functions. So even though either function would
work, it just decides to error out instead >_>
This is actually really annoying, because I want hex() to be useful for
printing out nall/crypto keys and hashes directly.
But ... this change had to be made. Negative signed integers would crash
programs, and that was taking out my 68000 disassembler.
2017-02-27 08:45:51 +00:00
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
memory::fill(&io, sizeof(IO));
|
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|
|
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|
|
timerA.power();
|
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timerB.power();
|
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|
dac.enable = 0;
|
|
|
|
dac.sample = 0;
|
2016-07-10 05:28:26 +00:00
|
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
|
Update to v100r02 release.
byuu says:
Sigh ... I'm really not a good person. I'm inherently selfish.
My responsibility and obligation right now is to work on loki, and
then on the Tengai Makyou Zero translation, and then on improving the
Famicom emulation.
And yet ... it's not what I really want to do. That shouldn't matter;
I should work on my responsibilities first.
Instead, I'm going to be a greedy, self-centered asshole, and work on
what I really want to instead.
I'm really sorry, guys. I'm sure this will make a few people happy,
and probably upset even more people.
I'm also making zero guarantees that this ever gets finished. As always,
I wish I could keep these things secret, so if I fail / give up, I could
just drop it with no shame. But I would have to cut everyone out of the
WIP process completely to make it happen. So, here goes ...
This WIP adds the initial skeleton for Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
emulation. God help us.
(minor note: apparently the new extension for Mega Drive games is .md,
neat. That's what I chose for the folders too. I thought it was .smd,
so that'll be fixed in icarus for the next WIP.)
(aside: this is why I wanted to get v100 out. I didn't want this code in
a skeleton state in v100's source. Nor did I want really broken emulation,
which the first release is sure to be, tarring said release.)
...
So, basically, I've been ruminating on the legacy I want to leave behind
with higan. 3D systems are just plain out. I'm never going to support
them. They're too complex for my abilities, and they would run too slowly
with my design style. I'm not willing to compromise my design ideals. And
I would never want to play a 3D game system at native 240p/480i resolution
... but 1080p+ upscaling is not accurate, so that's a conflict I want
to avoid entirely. It's also never going to emulate computer systems
(X68K, PC-98, FM-Towns, etc) because holy shit that would completely
destroy me. It's also never going emulate arcade machines.
So I think of higan as a collection of 2D emulators for consoles
and handhelds. I've gone over every major 2D gaming system there is,
looking for ones with games I actually care about and enjoy. And I
basically have five of those systems supported already. Looking at the
remaining list, I see only three systems left that I have any interest
in whatsoever: PC-Engine, Master System, Mega Drive. Again, I'm not in
any way committing to emulating any of these, but ... if I had all of
those in higan, I think I'd be content to really, truly, finally stop
writing more emulators for the rest of my life.
And so I decided to tackle the most difficult system first. If I'm
successful, the Z80 core should cover a lot of the work on the SMS. And
the HuC6280 should land somewhere between the NES and SNES in terms of
difficulty ... closer to the NES.
The systems that just don't appeal to me at all, which I will never touch,
include, but are not limited to:
* Atari 2600/5200/7800
* Lynx
* Jaguar
* Vectrex
* Colecovision
* Commodore 64
* Neo-Geo
* Neo-Geo Pocket / Color
* Virtual Boy
* Super A'can
* 32X
* CD-i
* etc, etc, etc.
And really, even if something were mildly interesting in there ... we
have to stop. I can't scale infinitely. I'm already way past my limit,
but I'm doing this anyway. Too many cores bloats everything and kills
quality on everything. I don't want higan to become MESS v2.
I don't know what I'll do about the Famicom Disk System, PC-Engine CD,
and Mega CD. I don't think I'll be able to achieve 60fps emulating the
Mega CD, even if I tried to.
I don't know what's going to happen here with even the Mega Drive. Maybe
I'll get driven crazy with the documentation and quit. Maybe it'll end
up being too complicated and I'll quit. Maybe the emulation will end up
way too slow and I'll give up. Maybe it'll take me seven years to get
any games playable at all. Maybe Steve Snake, AamirM and Mike Pavone
will pool money to hire a hitman to come after me. Who knows.
But this is what I want to do, so ... here goes nothing.
2016-07-09 04:21:37 +00:00
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