* improved appended firmware detection [devinacker]
* added dynamic rate control support to ALSA and PulseAudio drivers [RedDwarf]
* added option to use native file dialogs
byuu says:
Don't let the point release fool you, there are many significant changes in this
release. I will be keeping bsnes releases using a point system until the new
higan release is ready.
Changelog:
- GUI: added high DPI support
- GUI: fixed the state manager image preview
- Windows: added a new waveOut driver with support for dynamic rate control
- Windows: corrected the XAudio 2.1 dynamic rate control support [BearOso]
- Windows: corrected the Direct3D 9.0 fullscreen exclusive window centering
- Windows: fixed XInput controller support on Windows 10
- SFC: added high-level emulation for the DSP1, DSP2, DSP4, ST010, and Cx4
coprocessors
- SFC: fixed a slight rendering glitch in the intro to Megalomania
If the coprocessor firmware is missing, bsnes will fallback on HLE where it is
supported, which is everything other than SD Gundam GX and the two Hayazashi
Nidan Morita Shougi games.
The Windows dynamic rate control works best with Direct3D in fullscreen
exclusive mode. I recommend the waveOut driver over the XAudio 2.1 driver, as it
is not possible to target a single XAudio2 version on all Windows OS releases.
The waveOut driver should work everywhere out of the box.
Note that with DRC, the synchronization source is your monitor, so you will
want to be running at 60hz (NTSC) or 50hz (PAL). If you have an adaptive sync
monitor, you should instead use the WASAPI (exclusive) or ASIO audio driver.
byuu says:
The biggest change was improving WonderSwan emulation. With help from
trap15, I tracked down a bug where I was checking the wrong bit for
reverse DMA transfers. Then I also emulated VTOTAL to support variable
refresh rate. Then I improved HyperVoice emulation which should be
unsigned samples in three of four modes. That got Fire Lancer running
great. I also rewrote the disassembler. The old one disassembled many
instructions completely wrong, and deviated too much from any known x86
syntax. I also emulated some of the quirks of the V30 (two-byte POP into
registers fails, SALC is just XLAT mirrored, etc) which probably don't
matter unless someone tries to run code to verify it's a NEC CPU and not
an Intel CPU, but hey, why not?
I also put more work into the MSX skeleton, but it's still just a
skeleton with no real emulation yet.
byuu says:
I've added tool tips to hiro for Windows, GTK, and Qt. I'm unsure how to
add them for Cocoa. I wasted am embarrassing ~14 hours implementing tool
tips from scratch on Windows, because the `TOOLTIPS_CLASS` widget just
absolutely refused to show up, no matter what I tried. As such, they're
not quite 100% native, but I would really appreciate any patch
submissions to help improve my implementation.
I added tool tips to all of the confusing settings in bsnes. And of
course, for those of you who don't like them, there's a configuration
file setting to turn them off globally.
I also improved Mega Drive handling of the Game Genie a bit, and
restructured the way the Settings class works in bsnes.
Starting now, I'm feature-freezing bsnes and higan. From this point
forward:
- polishing up and fixing bugs caused by the ruby/hiro changes
- adding DRC to XAudio2, and maybe exclusive mode to WGL
- correcting FEoEZ (English) to load and work again out of the box
Once that's done, a final beta of bsnes will go out, I'll fix any
reported bugs that I'm able to, and then v107 should be ready. This time
with higan being functional, but marked as v107 beta. v108 will restore
higan to production status again, alongside bsnes.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- hiro/Windows: use `WS_CLIPSIBLINGS` on Label to prevent resize
drawing issues
- bsnes: correct viewport resizing
- bsnes: speed up window resizing a little bit
- bsnes: fix the cheat editor list enable checkbox
- bsnes: fix the state manager filename display in game ROM mode
- bsnes: fix the state manager save/rename/remove functionality in
game ROM mode
- bsnes: correct path searching for IPS and BPS patches in game ROM
mode
- bsnes: patch BS-X town cartridge to disable play limits
- bsnes: do not load (program,data,expansion).(rom,flash) from disk in
game pak mode
- this is required to support soft-patching and ROM hacks
- bsnes: added speed mode selection (50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%);
maintains proper pitch
- bsnes: added icons to the menubar
- this is particularly useful to tell game ROMs from game paks in
the load recent game menu
- bsnes: added emblem at bottom left of status bar to indicate if a
game is verified or not
- verified means it is in the icarus verified game dump database
- the verified diamond is orange; the unverified diamond is blue
- bsnes: added an option (which defaults to off) to warn when loading
unverified games
- working around a bug in GTK, I have to use the uglier
MessageWindow instead of MessageDialog
- bsnes: added (non-functional) link to <https://doc.byuu.org/bsnes/>
to the help menu
- bsnes: added GUI setting to toggle memory auto-save feature
- bsnes: added GUI setting to toggle capturing a backup save state
when closing the emulator
- bsnes: made auto-saving states on exit an option
- bsnes: added an option to auto-load the auto-saved state on load
- basically, the two combined implements auto-resume
- bsnes: when firmware is missing, offer to take the user to the
online help documentation
- bsnes: added fast PPU option to disable the sprite limit
- increase from 32 items/line + 34 tiles/line to 128 items/line +
128 tiles/line
- technically, 1024 tiles/line are possible with 128 sprites at
64-width
- but this is just a waste of cache locality and worst-case
performance; it'll never happen
Errata:
- hiro/Windows: fallthrough on Canvas `WM_ERASEBKGND` to prevent
startup flicker
byuu says:
Changelog:
- emulator: added `Thread::setHandle(cothread_t)`
- icarus: added special heuristics support for the Tengai Maykou Zero
fan translation
- board identifier is: EXSPC7110-RAM-EPSONRTC (match on SPC7110 +
ROM size=56mbit)
- board ROM contents are: 8mbit program, 40mbit data, 8mbit
expansion (sizes are fixed)
- bsnes: show messages on game load, unload, and reset
- bsnes: added support for BS Memory and Sufami Turbo games
- bsnes: added support for region selection (Auto [default], NTSC,
PAL)
- bsnes: correct presentation window size from 223/239 to 224/240
- bsnes: add SA-1 internal RAM on cartridges with BS Memory slot
- bsnes: fixed recovery state to store inside .bsz archive
- bsnes: added support for custom manifests in both game pak and game
ROM modes
- bsnes: added icarus game database support (manifest → database →
heuristics)
- bsnes: added flexible SuperFX overclocking
- bsnes: added IPS and BPS soft-patching support to all ROM types
(sfc,smc,gb,gbc,bs,st)
- can load patches inside of ZIP archives (matches first “.ips” or
“.bps” file)
- bsnes/ppu: cache interlace/overscan/vdisp (277 → 291fps with fast
PPU)
- hiro/Windows: faster painting of Label widget on expose
- hiro/Windows: immediately apply LineEdit::setBackgroundColor changes
- hiro/Qt: inherit Window backgroundColor when one is not assigned to
Label
Errata:
- sfc/ppu-fast: remove `renderMode7Hires()` function (the body isn't in
the codebase)
- bsnes: advanced note label should probably use a lighter text color
and/or smaller font size instead of italics
I didn't test the soft-patching at all, as I don't have any patches on
my dev box. If anyone wants to test, that'd be great. The Tengai Makyou
Zero fan translation would be a great test case.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- hiro: added Label::set(Background,Foreground)Color (not implemented
on Cocoa backend)
- hiro: added (Horizontal,Vertical)Layout::setPadding()
- setMargin(m) is now an alias to setPadding({m, m, m, m})
- hiro/Windows: update Label rendering to draw to an offscreen canvas
to prevent flickering
- sfc: reverted back to 224/240-line height (from 223/239-line height
in earlier v106 WIPs)
- bsnes: new multi-segment status bar added
- bsnes: exiting fullscreen mode will resize and recenter window
- this is required; the window geometry gets all scrambled when
toggling fullscreen mode
- bsnes: updated to a new logo [Ange Albertini]
Errata:
- hiro/Windows: try to paint Label backgroundColor quicker to avoid
startup flicker
- `WM_ERASEBKGND` fallthrough to `WM_PAINT` seems to work
- hiro/Qt: use Window backgroundColor for Label when no Label
backgroundColor set
- bsnes: update size multipliers in presentation.cpp to 224/240 (main
window size is off in this WIP)
byuu says (in the public announcement):
Not a large changelog this time, sorry. This release is mostly to fix
the SA-1 issue, and to get some real-world testing of the new scheduler
model. Most of the work in the past month has gone into writing a 68000
CPU core; yet it's still only about half-way finished.
Changelog (since the previous release):
- fixed SNES SA-1 IRQ regression (fixes Super Mario RPG level-up
screen)
- new scheduler for all emulator cores (precision of 2^-127)
- icarus database adds nine new SNES games
- added Input/Frequency to settings file (allows simulation of
latency)
byuu says (in the WIP forum):
Changelog:
- in 32-bit mode, Thread uses uint64\_t with 2^-63 time units (10^-7
precision in the worst case)
- nearly ten times the precision of an attosecond
- in 64-bit mode, Thread uses uint128\_t with 2^-127 time units
(10^-26 precision in the worst case)
- far more accurate than yoctoseconds; almost closing in on planck
time
Note: a quartz crystal is accurate to 10^-4 or 10^-5. A cesium fountain
atomic clock is accurate to 10^-15. So ... yeah. 2^-63 was perfectly
fine; but there was no speed penalty whatsoever for using uint128\_t in
64-bit mode, so why not?
byuu says:
higan has finally reached v100!
I feel it's important to stress right away that this is not "version
1.00", nor is it a major milestone release. Rather than arbitrary version
numbers, all of my software simply bumps version numbers by one for each
official release. As such, higan v100 is simply higan's 100th release.
That said, the primary focus of this release has been code
clean-ups. These are always somewhat dangerous in that regressions are
possible. We've tested through sixteen WIP revisions, one of which was
open to the public, to try and minimize any regressions. But all the same,
please report any regressions if you discover any.
Changelog (since v099):
FC: render during pixels 1-256 instead of 0-255 [hex_usr]
FC: rewrote controller emulation code
SFC: 8% speedup over the previous release thanks to PPU optimizations
SFC: fixed nasty DB address wrapping regression from v099
SFC: USART developer controller removed; superseded by 21fx
SFC: Super Multitap option removed from controller port 1; ports
renamed 2-5
SFC: hidden option to experiment with 128KB VRAM (strictly for novelty)
higan: audio volume no longer divided by number of audio streams
higan: updated controller polling code to fix possible future mapping
issues
higan: replaced nall/stream with nall/vfs for file-loading subsystem
tomoko: can now load multi-slotted games via command-line
tomoko: synchronize video removed from UI; still available in the
settings file
tomoko, icarus: can navigate to root drive selection on Windows
all: major code cleanups and refactoring (~1MB diff against v099)
Note 1: the audio volume change means that SGB and MSU1 games won't
lose half the volume on the SNES sounds anymore. However, if one goes
overboard and drives the sound all the way to max volume with the MSU1,
clamping may occur. The obvious solution is not to drive volume that high
(it will vastly overpower the SNES audio, which usually never exceeds
25% volume.) Another option is to lower the volume in the audio settings
panel to 50%. In general, neither is likely to ever be necessary.
Note 2: the synchronize video option was hidden from the UI because it
is no longer useful. With the advent of compositors, the loss of the
complicated timing settings panel, support for the WonderSwan and its
75hz display, the need to emulate variable refresh rate behaviors in the
Game Boy, the unfortunate latency spike and audio distortion caused by
long Vsync pauses, and the arrival of adaptive sync technology ... it
no longer makes sense to present this option. However, as stated, you
can edit settings.bml to enable this option anyway if you insist and
understand the aforementioned risks.
Changelog (since v099r16 open beta):
- fixed MSU1 audio sign extension
- fixed compilation with SGB support disabled
- icarus can now navigate to root directory
- fixed compilation issues with OS X port
- (hopefully) fixed label height issue with hiro that affected icarus
import dialog
- (mostly) fixed BS Memory, Sufami Turbo slot loading
Errata:
- forgot to remove the " - Slot A", " - Slot B" suffixes for Sufami
Turbo slot loading
- this means you have to navigate up one folder and then into Sufami
Turbo/ to load games for this system
- moving WonderSwan orientation controls to the device slot is causing
some nastiness
- can now select orientation from the main menu, but it doesn't rotate
the display
byuu says:
Changelog:
- updated to newest hiro API
- SFC performance profile builds once again
- hiro: Qt port completed
Errata 1: the hiro/Qt target won't run tomoko just yet. Starts by
crashing inside InputSettings because hiro/Qt isn't forcefully selecting
the first item added to a ComboButton just yet. Even with a monkey patch
to get around that, the UI is incredibly unstable. Lots of geometry
calculation bugs, and a crash when you try and access certain folders in
the browser dialog. Lots of work left to be done there, sadly.
Errata 2: the hiro/Windows port has black backgrounds on all ListView
items. It's because I need to test for unassigned colors and grab the
default Windows brush colors in those cases.
Note: alternating row colors on multi-column ListView widgets is gone
now. Not a bug. May add it back later, but I'm not sure. It doesn't
interact nicely with per-cell background colors.
Things left to do:
First, I have to fix the Windows and Qt target bugs.
Next, I need to go through and revise the hiro API even more (nothing
too major.)
Next, I need to update icarus to use the new hiro API, and add support
for the SFC games database.
Next, I have to rewrite my TSV->BML cheat code tool.
Next, I need to post a final WIP of higan+icarus publicly and wait a few
days.
Next, I need to fix any bugs reported from the final WIP that I can.
Finally, I should be able to release v095.
byuu says:
Finally!! Compilation works once again on Windows.
However, it's pretty buggy. Modality isn't really working right, you can
still poke at other windows, but when you select ListView items, they
redraw as empty boxes (need to process WM_DRAWITEM before checking
modality.)
The program crashes when you close it (probably a ruby driver's term()
function, that's what it usually is.)
The Layout::setEnabled(false) call isn't working right, so you get that
annoying chiming sound and cursor movement when mapping keyboard keys to
game inputs.
The column sizing seems off a bit on first display for the Hotkeys tab.
And probably lots more.
byuu says:
This will easily be the biggest diff in the history of higan. And not in
a good way.
* target-higan and target-loki have been blown away completely
* nall and ruby massively updated
* phoenix replaced with hiro (pretty near a total rewrite)
* target-higan restarted using hiro (just a window for now)
* all emulation cores updated to compile again
* installation changed to not require root privileges (installs locally)
For the foreseeable future (maybe even permanently?), the new higan UI
will only build under Linux/BSD with GTK+ 2.20+. Probably the most
likely route for Windows/OS X will be to try and figure out how to build
hiro/GTK on those platforms, as awful as that would be. The other
alternative would be to produce new UIs for those platforms ... which
would actually be a good opportunity to make something much more user
friendly.
Being that I just started on this a few hours ago, that means that for
at least a few weeks, don't expect to be able to actually play any
games. Right now, you can pretty much just compile the binary and that's
it. It's quite possible that some nall changes didn't produce
compilation errors, but will produce runtime errors. So until the UI can
actually load games, we won't know if anything is broken. But we should
mostly be okay. It was mostly just trim<1> -> trim changes, moving to
Hash::SHA256 (much cleaner), and patching some reckless memory copy
functions enough to compile.
Progress isn't going to be like it was before: I'm now dividing my time
much thinner between studying and other hobbies.
My aim this time is not to produce a binary for everyone to play games
on. Rather, it's to keep the emulator alive. I want to be able to apply
critical patches again. And I would also like the base of the emulator
to live on, for use in other emulator frontends that utilize higan.
byuu