From e0c021660ae8b7f3bff8388d00757c9dec98c516 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Tim Allen Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2017 17:15:55 +1000 Subject: [PATCH] Document the configuration dialog. --- README.md | 223 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++- 1 file changed, 219 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index 098b7149..5477b3f7 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -609,7 +609,7 @@ that aren't specific to any particular console. - **Video Scale** determines the size and shape of the emulated console's video output in windowed mode - (as opposed to full-screen) + (as opposed to fullscreen) - Small, Medium and Large control the size of the video output (and resize the window to match) @@ -694,7 +694,7 @@ contains features for manipulating the emulated console. - **Save State** stores the current state of the emulated console - into one of the listed slots. + into one of the listed menu state slots. See [Save States](#save-states) for more information. - **Load State** restores the emulated console to @@ -725,7 +725,7 @@ The status bar The status bar appears at the bottom of the main higan window, -while "Show Status Bar" is ticked in the Settings menu. +while "Show Status Bar" is ticked in [the Settings menu](#the-settings-menu). Before any game is loaded, the status bar displays "No cartridge loaded". @@ -756,7 +756,222 @@ and/or press the "pause" hotkey. The Configuration dialog ----------------------- -TODO +The Configuration dialog +contains less-frequently-modified configuration options. +Most of these can be safely ignored, +or set once and never changed again. + +The dialog has a tab for each main category of options: + + - **Video**: This tab contains options that affect + how higan displays + the emulated console's video output. + - "Saturation" adjusts the vibrancy of colours displayed, + where 0% makes things pure grey, + 100% is normal, + and 200% is garishly brightly coloured. + - "Gamma" adjusts how bright mid-range colours are + compared to the brightest colours, + where 100% is normal, + and 200% makes mid-range colours much darker. + - "Luminance" adjusts the overall brightness, + where 100% is normal, + and 0% is totally black. + - "Overscan Mask" controls the size of + the border drawn by the [Settings](#the-settings-menu) + → Video Emulation + → Mask Overscan option. + - **Audio**: This tab contains options that affect + how higan reproduces + the emulated console's audio output. + - "Latency" controls how much audio output higan calculates in advance. + Higher values reduce the chance of + "popping" or "glitching" noises, + but increase the delay between an action occurring on-screen + and the corresponding sound-effect being played. + - "Frequency" controls the sample-rate that higan will use + when generating audio. + If your PC's audio hardware has a "native" sample-rate + and you know what it is, + pick that. + Otherwise, + 44.1kHz or 48kHz should be fine. + - "Resampler" selects the algorithm higan uses + to convert the console's native audio sample-rate + to the value selected for "Frequency" above. + - "Exclusive Mode" appears + if the current audio driver + allows higan to take exclusive control of your PC's audio output, + so no other applications can play sounds. + This can improve audio quality, + and lower the effective audio latency. + - "Volume" controls the overall loudness of + the emulated console's audio, + where 100% is normal volume, + and 0% is complete silence. + - "Balance" controls the relative loudness of + the left and right speakers, + where 0% means only the left speaker produces sound, + 50% means both speakers produce sound equally, + and 100% means only the right speaker produces sound. + - "Reverb" adds a slight reverberation effect + to the emulated console's audio output, + as though the console were in a tunnel or small room. + - **Input**: This tab controls which PC inputs + are used for which emulated controllers. + The exact PC inputs that can be mapped + depend on [the input driver](#drivers). + - "Pause Emulation" automatically pauses emulation + when the main higan window + is not the current foreground window. + - "Allow Input" can be ticked + when "Pause Emulation" is *not* ticked, + and allows configured inputs to keep affecting higan + even when higan is running in the background. + This is particularly relevant if + you configure your PC keyboard to control higan: + if you tick this box, + and switch to a different application + leaving higan running in the background, + typing in that other application may affect + the emulated game running in higan + even though you can't see it! + - The console selector chooses which console's inputs + to display in the mapping list below. + - The port selector chooses which port of the selected console + to display in the mapping list below. + - The controller selector chooses which controller + associated with the given console and port + to display in the mapping list below. + - The mapping list includes + every button and axis on the selected controller, + and the PC inputs that are mapped to it + when it is connected to the selected port of the selected console. + - To map + a keyboard or gamepad button on your PC to + a controller button, + double-click the controller button in the list, + or select it and press Enter. + The window will grey out, + and a message will appear in the bottom left: + "Press a key or button to map [the button]". + Press the key or button you want to map, + and it should appear in the list + next to the controller button it is mapped to. + - To map + a mouse button on your PC to + a controller button, + select the controller button in the list, + then click one of the "Mouse Left", + "Mouse Middle", + or "Mouse Right" buttons in the bottom-left of the window. + - To map + a joystick axis on your PC to + a controller axis, + double-click the axis in the list, + or select it and press Enter. + The window will grey out, + and a message will appear in the bottom left: + "Press a key or button to map [the axis]". + Press the joystick in the direction you want to map, + and it should appear in the list + next to the controller button it is mapped to. + - To map + a mouse axis on your PC to + a controller axis, + select the axis in the list, + then click one of the + "Mouse X-axis", + or "Mouse Y-axis" + buttons in the bottom-left of the window. + - The "Rumble" setting + for the Game Boy Advance is treated like a button, + and can be mapped to a PC gamepad. + When the emulated Game Boy Advance + tries to use the rumble feature + of the Game Boy Player, + higan will turn on the force-feedback + of whatever gamepad the mapped button is part of. + - If you start mapping a button or axis, + but decide you don't want to, + you can press Escape + to exit the "Press a key or button to map..." mode + without actually mapping anything. + - "Erase" removes the mapping + for the selected button or axis. + - "Reset" removes all the mappings currently in the list. + - **Hotkeys**: This tab is like "Inputs" above, + except it contains controls for higan itself, + instead of for the emulated console. + - "Toggle Fullscreen" puts higan into fullscreen mode, + where the menu and status bar are hidden, + and the emulated console's video output + is enlarged to cover the entire screen. + Toggling fullscreen also automatically captures the mouse. + - "Toggle Mouse Capture" hides the usual mouse-cursor, + and captures the mouse so it cannot leave the higan window. + This is useful when the mouse is being used to emulate + a light-gun controller like the Super Scope. + - "Save State" saves the current state of the emulated console + to the "hotkey state" slot. + - "Load State" restores the emulated console + to the state saved in the "hotkey state" slot. + - "Pause Emulation" pauses the emulated console + until the Pause Emulation hotkey is pressed a second time. + - "Fast Forward" disables audio and video synchronisation + for as long as it's held down, + so emulation proceeds as quickly as possible. + If your PC struggles to hit "real time" + (60fps for most emulated consoles), + this likely won't have any effect. + - "Power Cycle" turns the emulated console off and back on, + (a "hard reset"), + just like the "Power Cycle" menu item + in [the console menu](#the-console-menu). + - "Rotate Display" will toggle the display + of the Game Boy Advance + and WonderSwan (Color) + between the usual landscape orientation + and a portrait orientation (90° counter-clockwise). + These consoles have games + that expect the player to hold the console + in a different way. + - **Advanced**: This tab contains all the settings + that didn't fit into one of the other categories. + Note that when changing a driver, + you must restart higan for the change to take effect. + - "Video" controls how higan will draw + the emulated console's video output + to the PC screen. + The best option is "OpenGL" + (since it allows you to use + [custom shaders](#installing-custom-shaders)), + and the safest is "Direct Draw" (for Windows) + or SDL (for Linux). + "None" means no video will be drawn. + - "Audio" controls how higan will present + the emulated console's audio output. + On Linux, + "PulseAudioSimple" is the most likely to work. + - "Input" controls how higan checks for input + from the PC's input devices. + On Linux, + "udev" is the most flexble, + but requires a modern Linux system, + while "Xlib" should work on other Unix-like OSs + but only supports a mouse and keyboard. + - "Location" selects where the [Game Library](#the-game-library) + looks for games to load. + This should be set to match icarus' library location. + - "Ignore Manifests" makes higan ignore the manifest file + in the a loaded game's [game folder](#why-game-folders) + in favour of asking icarus + to guess a manifest on the fly. + This means that incompatible or incorrect manifests + generated by old versions of icarus + won't cause problems, + but means you can't fix incorrect manifests + generated by the current version of icarus. The Cheat Editor ----------------