byuu says:
This release adds support for game libraries, and substantially improves
Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulation with cycle-based renderers. Many
other changes are also present.
It's very important to note that this release now defaults to optimal
drivers rather than safe drivers. This is particularly important if you
do not have strong OpenGL 3.2 drivers. If performance is bad, go to
Settings -> Configuration -> Advanced, change the video driver, and
restart higan. In the rare case that you have trouble opening higan, you
can edit settings.bml directly and change the setting there. The Windows
safe driver is Direct3D, and the Linux safe driver is XShm.
Also note that although display emulation shaders are now supported,
they have not been included in this release as they are not ready yet.
The support has been built-in anyway, so that they can be tested by
everyone. Once refined, future releases of higan will come with built-in
shaders for each emulated system that simulates the unique display
characteristics of each.
Changelog (since v093):
- sfc: added SA-1 MDR support (fixes SD Gundam G-Next bug)
- sfc: remove random/ and config/, merge to system/ with better
randomization
- gb: improved color emulation palette contrast
- gbc: do not sort sprites by X-priority
- gbc: allow transparency on BG priority pixels
- gbc: VRAM DMA timing and register fixes
- gbc: block invalid VRAM DMA transfer source and target addresses
- gba: added LCD color emulation (without it, colors are grossly
over-saturated)
- gba: removed internal frame blending (use shaders to simulate motion
blur if desired)
- gba: added Game Boy Player support (adds joypad rumble support to
supported games)
- gba: SOUND_CTL_H is readable
- gb/gbc: PPU renderer is now cycle-based (major accuracy improvement)
- gb/gbc: OAM DMA runs in parallel with the CPU
- gb/gbc: only HRAM can be accessed during OAM DMA
- gb/gbc: fixed serialization of games with SRAM
- gb/gbc: disallow up+down or left+right at the same time
- gb/gbc: added weak hipass filter to remove DC bias
- gb/gbc: STAT OAM+Hblank IRQs only trigger during active display
- gb/gbc: fixed underflow in window clamping
- gb/gbc/gba: audio mixes internally at 2MHz now instead of 4MHz (does
not affect accuracy)
- gb/gbc/gba: audio volume reduced for consistency with other systems
- fc/sfc/gb/gbc/gba: cheat codes are now stored in universal, decrypted
format
- ethos: replaced file loader with a proper game library
- ethos: added display emulation shader support
- ethos: added color emulation option to video settings
- ethos: program icon upgraded from 48x48 to 512x512
- ethos: settings and tools windows now use tab frames (less wasted
screen space)
- ethos: default to optimal (video, audio, input) drivers instead of
safest drivers
- ethos: input mapping system completely rewritten to support
hotplugging and unique device mappings
- ruby: added fixes for OpenGL 3.2 on AMD graphics cards
- ruby: quark shaders now support user settings inside of manifest
- ruby: quark shaders can use integral textures (allows display
emulation shaders to work with raw colors)
- ruby: add joypad rumble support
- ruby: XInput (Xbox 360) controllers now support hotplugging
- ruby: added Linux udev joypad driver with hotplug support
- phoenix: fixed a rare null pointer dereference issue on Windows
- port: target -std=c++11 instead of -std=gnu++11 (do not rely on GNU
C++ extensions)
- port: added out-of-the-box compilation support for BSD/Clang 3.3+
- port: applied a few Debian upstream patches
- cheats: updated to mightymo's 2014-01-02 release; decrypted all Game
Genie codes
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Windows port should compile out-of-the-box
- InputManager::scancode[] initialized at startup
- Library menu shows item for each bootable media type (notably Game Boy
Color)
- Display Emulation menu selection fix
- LibraryManager load button works now
- Added hotkey to show library manager (defaults to L)
- Added color emulation to video settings (missing on GBA for now)
- SFC loading SGB without GB cartridge no longer segfaults
- GB/GBC system.load() after cartridge.load()
- GB/GBC BG-over-OAM fix
- GB/GBC disallow up+down and left+right
byuu says:
Changelog:
- added Cocoa target: higan can now be compiled for OS X Lion
[Cydrak, byuu]
- SNES/accuracy profile hires color blending improvements - fixes
Marvelous text [AWJ]
- fixed a slight bug in SNES/SA-1 VBR support caused by a typo
- added support for multi-pass shaders that can load external textures
(requires OpenGL 3.2+)
- added game library path (used by ananke->Import Game) to
Settings->Advanced
- system profiles, shaders and cheats database can be stored in "all
users" shared folders now (eg /usr/share on Linux)
- all configuration files are in BML format now, instead of XML (much
easier to read and edit this way)
- main window supports drag-and-drop of game folders (but not game files
/ ZIP archives)
- audio buffer clears when entering a modal loop on Windows (prevents
audio repetition with DirectSound driver)
- a substantial amount of code clean-up (probably the biggest
refactoring to date)
One highly desired target for this release was to default to the optimal
drivers instead of the safest drivers, but because AMD drivers don't
seem to like my OpenGL 3.2 driver, I've decided to postpone that. AMD
has too big a market share. Hopefully with v093 officially released, we
can get some public input on what AMD doesn't like.
byuu says:
higan changelog:
- compiler is set to g++-4.7, subst(cc,++) rule is gone, C files compile
with $(compiler) -x c
- make throws an error when you specify an invalid profile or compile on
an unsupported platform (instead of hanging forever)
- added unverified.png to resources (causes too big of a speed hit to
actually check for folder/unverified file ... so disabled for now)
- fixed default browser paths for Game Boy, Sufami Turbo and BS-X
Satellaview (have to delete paths.cfg to see this)
- browser home button seeks to configpath()/higan/library.cfg
- settings->driver is now settings->advanced, and it adds game library
path setting and profile information
- emulation cores now load manifest files internally, manifest.bml is
not required for a game folder to be recognized by higan as such
- BS-X Satellaview and Sufami Turbo slot cartridge handling moved out of
sfc/chip and into sfc/slot
- Video::StartFullScreen only sets fullscreen when a game is specified
on the command-line
purify and ananke changelog:
- library output path shown in purify window
- added button to change library path
- squelch firmware warning windows to prevent multi-threading crash, but
only via purify (they show up in higan still)
byuu says:
This release has an updated version of ananke. If you replace the higan
v092 ananke.dll with this new one, it will fix the SGB+TG3000+ToP+DKJM2
loading issues.
This version fixes a problem where ananke would leave out the
'information' section (that is, the game name) when converting a game to
a game folder, resulting in a folder named " (!)".
It also includes the latest version of nall.
byuu says:
For higan:
- I fixed the data ROM/RAM initialization for the Cx4, which would
periodically cause a crash.
- I also moved the Satellaview MaskROM vs FlashROM detection into the
Satellaview manifests, so Same Game - Character Data works now.
- I also re-added the driver filter to the video shaders, so the D3D
driver won't show OGL shaders and vice versa.
For ananke:
- You can now generate the other SGB images by putting sgb.rom in the
same folder as the BIOS images.
- I fixed the markup in the database and via heuristics for 5MB+ games
(DKJM2, ToP)
- Sufami Turbo and BS-X Satellaview generate BML now instead of XML when
using heuristics.
In the release thread, byuu says:
The first official release of higan has been posted. higan is the
new name for bsnes, and it continues with the latter's version
numbering.
Note that as of now, bsnes still exists. It's a module distributed
inside of higan. bsnes is now specific to my SNES emulator.
Due to last minute changes to the emulator interface, and missing
support in ananke, I wasn't able to include Cydrak's Nintendo DS
emulator dasShiny in this build, but I hope to do so in the next
release.
http://code.google.com/p/higan/downloads/list
For both new and experienced users, please read the higan user guide
first:
http://byuu.org/higan/user-guide
In the v091 WIP thread, byuu says:
r15->r16:
- BS-X MaskROM handling (partial ... need to split bsx/flash away
from sfc/chip, restructure code - it requires tagging the base
cart markup for now, but it needs to parse the slotted cart
markup)
- phoenixflags / phoenixlink += -m32
- nall/sort stability
- if(input.poll(scancode[activeScancode]) == false) return;
- MSU1 / USART need to use interface->path(1)
- MSU1 needs to use Markup::Document, not XML::Document
- case-insensitive folder listings
- remove nall/emulation/system.hpp files (move to ananke)
- remove rom/ram id= checks with indexing
X have cores ask for manifest.bml (skipped for v092's release, too
big a change)
- rename compatibility profile to balanced (so people don't assume
it has better compatibility than accuracy)
byuu says:
higan changelog:
- generates title displayed in emulator window by asking the core
- core builds title solely from "information/title" ... if it's not
there, you don't get a title at all
- sub-system load menu is gone ... since there are multiple revisions of
the SGB, this never really worked well anyway
- to load an SGB, BS-X or ST cartridge, load the base cartridge first
- "File->Load Game" moved to "Load->Import Game" ... may cause a bit of
confusion to new users, but I don't like having a single-item menu,
we'll just have to explain it to new users
- browser window redone to look like ananke
- home button here goes to ~/Emulation rather than just ~ like ananke,
since this is the home of game folders
- game folder icon is now the executable icon for the Tango theme
(orange diamond), meant to represent a complete game rather than
a game file or archive
ananke changelog:
- outputs GBC games to "Game Boy Color/" instead of "Game Boy/"
- adds the file basename to "information/title"
Known issues:
- using ananke to load a GB game trips the Super Famicom SGB mode and
fails (need to make the full-path auto-detection ignore non-bootable
systems)
- need to dump and test some BS-X media before releasing
- ananke lacks BS-X Satellaview cartridge support
- v092 isn't going to let you retarget the ananke/higan game folder path
of ~/Emulation, you will have to wait for a future version if that
bothers you so greatly
[Later, after the v092 release, byuu posted this additional changelog:
- kill laevateinn
- add title()
- add bootable, remove load
- combine file, library
- combine [][][] paths
- fix SFC subtype handling XML->BML
- update file browser to use buttons
- update file browser keyboard handling
- update system XML->BML
- fix sufami turbo hashing
- remove Cartridge::manifest
]
byuu says:
This should be basically final now.
Works with all media types (nes, sfc, gb, gbc, gba, bs, st), strips
headers, can use internal or external firmware, imports saves on first
run.
Added a custom file dialog. It seems both GTK+ and Windows XP have
(un)intelligent file sorting, which puts eg "ActRaiser 2 (NA)" before
"ActRaiser (NA)". So, screw 'em.
byuu says (about higan):
- dropped release/ root node for individual games (still there in
ananke's database.)
- Memory export uses smarter names (vram.rwm -> video.ram, etc.)
- cheat database moved from XML to BML (3.1MB to 1.9MB file size.)
- cheat codes moved from XML to BML
- resource manifest moved from XML to BML
What can I say, I like consistency. But I'll leave the shaders alone
until I get around to shader folders.
byuu says (about ananke):
Works with higan v091r13. Only does SNES stuff so far.
byuu says:
This release refines HSU1 support as a bidirectional protocol, nests SFC
manifests as "release/cartridge" and "release/information" (but release/
is not guaranteed to be finalized just yet), removes the database
integration, and adds support for ananke.
ananke represents inevitability. It's a library that, when installed,
higan can use to load files from the command-line, and also from a new
File -> Load Game menu option.
I need to change the build rules a bit for it to work on Windows (need
to make phoenix a DLL, basically), but it works now on Linux.
Right now, it only takes *.sfc file names, looks them up in the included
database, converts them to game folders, and returns the game folder
path for higan to load.
The idea is to continue expanding it to support everything we can that
I don't want in the higan core:
- load *.sfc, *.smc, *.swc, *.fig files
- remove SNES copier headers
- split apart merged firmware files
- pull in external firmware files (eg dsp1b.rom - these are staying
merged, just as SPC7110 prg+dat are merged)
- load *.zip and *.7z archives
- prompt for selection on multi-file archives
- generate manifest files based on heuristics
- apply BPS patches
The "Load" menu option has been renamed to "Library", to represent games
in your library. I'm going to add some sort of suffix to indicate
unverified games, and use a different folder icon for those (eg
manifests built on heuristics rather than from the database.)
So basically, to future end users:
File -> Load Game will be how they play games.
Library -> (specific system) can be thought of as an infinitely-sized
recent games list.
purify will likely become a simple stub that invokes ananke's functions.
No reason to duplicate all that code.
Tim Allen