byuu says:
It is done. bsnes can now emulate sending and receiving data via USART.
As such, the UART code has been removed.
The final UART code can be downloaded here: http://byuu.org/snes/uart/
I won't maintain it going forward, because nobody ever used it, and
USART is superior in every way.
I've also verified both sending and receiving on the real SNES now :D
It's so easy ... a caveman with electrical engineering and computer
programming experience can do it.
byuu says:
USART implements reading and writing, but I don't yet have code to test
SNES reading yet.
So ... obviously I need to do that next.
Went ahead and required nall::function, so the modules will have to be
C++11. I don't see anyone else making these, and it avoids the annoyance
of deducing the correct controller port based on dynamic casting the
active thread.
Apparently a library can have a main() function to no ill effect, so
there's no need for USART_HARDWARE. Same exact code with different flags
will make the binary and the library.
byuu says:
There will probably be a series of small WIPs as I experiment here.
snes/controller/serial is now snes/controller/uart. Asynchronous serial
communications, typically capped at 57,600 baud.
snes/controller/usart is new. It aims to emulate the SNES connected to
a Teensy++ board, and can easily handle 524,288 baud.
And much more importantly, it's synchronous, so there are no timing
issues anymore. Just bit-bang as fast as you can.
Right now, the USART code is just enough for SNES->PC to transfer data
to ... well, nothing yet.
Unless anyone is actually using the UART stuff, I'll be removing it once
the USART is totally up and running.
No sense maintaining code that is 10x slower, more error prone, and used
by nobody.
Note: this is all thanks to blargg being absolutely amazing.
byuu says:
Cart unload save path was using the new game rather than the old game.
Caused by trying to allow a failed cartridge load to not unload the
current game.
But that's so uncommon that it's not worth worrying about. It'll always
unload before trying to load a new game now.
Removed the TM/TS disable speedup, to fix Madara 2's text boxes.
This actually did cause a slight performance penalty on games that
disable layers via TM/TS. Zelda 3 inside Link's house is a good example.
It knocked the FPS from 98.5 to 94.5. So to counter that, I removed
conditionals from tiledata loading and decoding, and used fall through
switches.
This boosted us back to 97.0. The -march=native flag apparently works
better with SB now, so that was added, putting us up to 99.0fps.
So it should be the same speed in the worst case, and slightly faster in
the best case.
Bumped the pre-render time to 68 clocks from 60 clocks. Adjusted sprite
tile fetch time from 22 to 14 to compensate.
This should give us perfectly stable Dai Kaijuu Monogatari 2 battles.
byuu says:
Fixed Super Game Boy RAM saving and loading. It plainly wasn't hooked up
at all. Was apparently hard-coded before it became a multi-emulator.
I also fixed a crashing issue when loading Satellaview-slotted or
Satellaview games without specifying the sub-cart, wasn't setting
has_bsx_slot = true, so the raw memory wasn't being allocated internally
when it wasn't mapped in. Of course a better fix would be to just not
physically map the ranges if the things aren't present. Kind of a lazy
hack to map blank cartridges there, but oh well. Oh, fixed title
displays as well; and did the best I could for now with regards to
multi-file path saving.
byuu says:
The goals for v087 are to have a unified cartridge-folder concept, as
well as a more functional SNES debugger.
Starting with the cartridge folders. What I have so far:
Code:
NES:
- program.rom
- character.rom
- program.ram
- …
SNES:
- program.rom
- program.rtc
- data.rom (SPC7110)
- { dsp1.rom, dsp1b.rom, cx4.rom, … }
- msu1.rom
- track-#.pcm
Game Boy, Game Boy Color:
- program.rom
- program.ram
- program.rtc
Sub-cartridges (BS-X, Sufami Turbo, …) are stored as separate folders
Folder names must be UTF-8 based, with all-lowercase extensions
File names must be all-lowercase
SNES:
- "program.ram" (.srm, .sts)
- "msu1.rom" (name.msu)
- "track-#.pcm" (name-#.pcm)
- "upd96050.ram" -> "name.ram"
- "bsx.ram" (.bss)
- "bsx.psram" (.bsp)
- "serial.so" -> "libserial.so" (broken)
Need:
- Super Game Boy (not even sure how this loads and saves memory, it's
obviously broken)
And I need to think of some way of handling multi-cart loaded games.
Eg Satellaview-slotted and Sufami Turbo. It was { base + slot ( + slot
... } }, but this gets trickier with folders and fixed names.
Actual markup for the NES needs to change as well.
byuu says:
The main focus of this release is Laevateinn, which is the new bsnes
debugger. Unlike previous debuggers, Laevateinn is a standalone
application with its own GUI entirely focused on debugging.
Changelog:
- created ui-debugger target (Laevateinn)
- fixed multitap ports 2-4 [quequotion]
- fixed ui-libsnes target compilation
- fixed a crashing issue with NSS XML markup
- improved cartridge-folder loading support
- NES can now load .fc (headerless NES) or .prg+.chr (split NES) images
- fixed cursor being visible in fullscreen mode when using
Linux/Metacity window manager [ncbncb]
- show normal cursor when using Linux/SDL video driver [ncbncb]
- added menu accelerators
- fixed a bug in performance profile SMP incw/decw instructions
- SNES core can now optionally be built without Game Boy emulation core
- added 2012-02-04 cheats.xml database [mightymo]
byuu says:
Added VRAM viewer (mouse over to get tile# and VRAM address), CPU+SMP
register editors, settings.cfg to cache path+sync audio+mute audio
settings (Windows Vista+ ignore my request for the default folder
because they are fucking stupid, so they always default to your home
folder. I'm going to have to recommend using a batch file to start
laevateinn there. Sorry, blame Microsoft for being fuck-ups),
geometry.cfg to remember where you placed windows and what size you made
them (a bug in Qt prevents me from making some windows fixed-size for
now, but that'll change when I can work around the Qt issue), usage map
invalidation if the ROM was modified after the usage files, that empty
line insertion thing creaothceann wanted on emulation resume, all chips
now synchronize immediately rather than just-in-time, which is important
for a debugger.
Going to postpone the properties viewer until after v086.
So this is pretty much ready for release. Please bug-test. I don't care
so much about little frills like "oh the memory editor window should
default to a little bigger", you can work around that by resizing it.
I care about things like, "VRAM write breakpoints don't work at all."
If we miss any bugs and it gets released, not the end of the world, but
you'll be waiting a while for the next release to address any missed
bugs now.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- follow the Laevateinn topic to get most of it
- also added NMI, IRQ step buttons to CPU debugger
- also added trace masking + trace mask reset
- also added memory export
- cartridge loading is entirely folder-based now
FitzRoy, I'll go ahead and make a second compromise with you for v086:
I'll match the following:
/path/to/SNES.sfc/*.sfc
/path/to/NES.fc/*.prg, *.chr (split format)
/path/to/NES.fc/*.fc (merged format)
/path/to/GB.gb/*.gb
/path/to/GBC.gbc/*.gbc
Condition will be that there can only be one of each file. If there's
more than one, it'll abort. That lets me name my ROMs as
"Game.fc/Game.fc", and you can name yours as "Game.fc/cartridge.prg,
cartridge.chr". Or whatever you want.
We'll just go with that, see what fares out as the most popular, and
then restrict it back to that method.
The folder must have the .fc, etc extension though. That will be how we
avoid false-positive folder matches.
[Editor's note - the Laevateinn topic mentions these changes for
v085r08:
Added SMP/PPU breakpoints, SMP debugger, SMP stepping / tracing,
memory editing on APU-bus / VRAM / OAM / CGRAM, save state menu,
WRAM mirroring on breakpoints, protected MMIO memory regions
(otherwise, viewing $002100 could crash your game.)
Major missing components:
- trace mask
- trace mask clear / usage map clear
- window geometry caching / sizing improvements
- VRAM viewer
- properties viewer
- working memory export button
The rest will most likely appear after v086 is released.
]
byuu says:
Lots of debugger enhancements. Memory editor works for CPU-bus only,
breakpoint editor does nothing yet.
Tracing works, writes to 001-999 files sequentially. Stepping works,
too. But only on the CPU.
Added "privileged", which becomes "public" if DEBUGGER is defined,
"private" otherwise.
Meant so the debugger can stab deeply into the cores for state
manipulation. Interface is guaranteed to be unstable and dependent upon
the accuracy core.
The about screen logo adds 100KB onto the source download (won't affect
regular bsnes binaries), but too bad. I want some visual flair this
time.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- added base/ folder
- base/base.hpp defines the version number for all UI targets, all the
varint-types, and a hook() class for debugger functions (see below)
- fixed compatibility profile compilation
- removed within<> template from the SNES target
- the SNES core can be built without Game Boy support now, if you so
choose (my SNES debugger is not going to support debugging the GBZ80,
sorry.)
- added ui-debugger; not at all useful right now, will be a long while
to get something usable ready
So hook is a class wrapper around nall::function. It allows you to
invoke potentially empty functions (and as such, the return type must
have a trivial constructor.)
It also doesn't actually perform the test+invocation when DEBUGGER
(options=debugger) is not defined. So you should have no overhead in
regular builds.
The core classes now have a subclass with all the debugging hooks, so
you'll see eg:
void CPU::op_step() {
debugger.op_exec(regs.pc);
(this->*opcode_table[op_read()])();
}
Clear what it's doing, clear what it's for. A whole lot less work than
inheriting the whole CPU core and virtualizing the functions we want to
hook.
All the logic for what to do inside these callbacks will be handled by
individual debuggers, so they can have all the functionality they want.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- fixed cursor being visible under Metacity window manager (hopefully
doesn't cause regression with other WMs)
- show normal cursor when using SDL video driver
- added menu accelerators (meh, why not?)
- removed debugvirtual, ChipDebugger and chip/debugger functionality
entirely
- alt/smp disassembler moved up
- fixed alt/smp incw/decw instructions (unsigned->uint16 for internal
variables)
My plan going forward for a debugger is not to hardcode functionality
that causes the 10-15% slowdown right into the emulator itself.
Instead, I'm going to make a callback class, which will be a specialized
version of nall::function:
- can call function even if not assigned (results in no-op, return type
must have a trivial default constructor)
- if compiled without #define DEBUGGER, the entire thing turns into
a huge no-op; and will be eliminated entirely when compiled
- strategically place the functions: cb_step, cb_read, cb_write, etc.
From here, the ui-debugger GUI will bind the callbacks, implement
breakpoint checking, usage table generation, etc itself.
I'll probably have to add some breakout commands to exit the emulation
core prior to a frame event in some cases as well.
I didn't initially want any debugger-related stuff in the base cores,
but the #if debugger sCPUDebugger #else sCPU #endif stuff was already
more of a burden than this will be.
byuu says:
Fixed NSS XML crashing issue.
Improved folder-loading support.
NES can now load game.fc/game.fc, or game.fc/game.prg+game.chr.
Both types should have no iNES header at all.
And both types require an XML file (until we have a built-in database.)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- updated bsnes to use the newest versions of nall and phoenix
- fixed ui-libsnes compilation (testing would be a good idea, especially
the cheat codes. I just copy-pasted that from the regular UI.)
- fixed multitap controllers 2-4 [quequotion]
byuu says:
A new release for the new year.
Changelog:
fixed auto joypad polling edge case; fixes Ys 5 controls
fixed Justifier polling code; Lethal Enforcers should be fully
responsive once again
rewrote SNES S-SMP processor core (~20% code reduction)
fixed Game Boy 8x16 sprite mode; fixed some sprites in Zelda: Link's
Awakening
treat Game Boy HuC1 RAM enable flag as writable flag instead; fixes
Pokemon Card GB
created far faster XML parser; bsnes can now load XML files once again
updated to mightymo's most recent cheat code database
internal color calculations now performed at 30-bits per pixel
gamma slider now acts as fine-tuned gamma ramp option
Linux OpenGL driver will output at 30bpp on capable displays
Linux port defaults to GTK+ now instead of Qt (both are still available)
byuu says:
Okay, everything can now load XML again, including board layouts for all
three systems. New is the ability to load external Game Boy layouts (not
really that useful, but it's there.)
I'd like to aim for a v085 release soon. I've included a binary, so I'd
appreciate testing. I had to redo all of the XML mappings for every
system (I like consistency), so basically the following things need to
be tested:
* load one of every type of game for every system (every NES board type,
* every Game Boy MBC type, every SNES chip and layout type.)
* test cheat codes and the cheat database
* test pixel shaders for OpenGL and Direct3D (sepia for the win)
* test anything else for v085 release
byuu says:
Added the new super-fast XML parser. So far, the shaders, cheat files,
and cheat database have been updated to allow XML mode once again. Which
is sure to please Screwtape =)
So it's down to just the cartridge mapping files now, which are always
a major pain.
I still think BML is better for parsing simplicity, memory usage, disk
size, lack of red tape and speed (but horrendously bad for ease of
creating files manually), but since the base API is identical, there's
no reason not to support both. Especially since the pixel shaders have
kind of taken on a life of their own.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- fixed sprite tile masking for 8x16 mode (fixes Zelda: DX sprites)
- HuC1 flag sets RAM writable, not RAM enable (fixes Pokemon Card)
- removed within<> template, didn't turn out to be all that useful
I would be almost certain no games would break by allowing reads when it
is disabled, no game would rely on that behavior.
I prefer to be overly restrictive. Better to not allow valid behavior
than to allow invalid behavior. The latter is what gives us a dozen
broken SNES translations.
(note: before the post announcing this release, there had been
a discussion of a performance optimisation that made the Super Scope
emulation a lot faster, but caused problems for the Justifier perpheral)
byuu says:
Spent a good two hours trying things to no avail.
I was trying to allow the CPU to run ahead, and sync on accesses to
$4016/4017/4201/4213, but that doesn't work because the controllers have
access to strobe IObit at will.
The codebase is really starting to get difficult to work with. I am
guessing because the days of massive development are long over, and the
code is starting to age.
Jonas' fix works 98% of the time, but there's still a few missed shots
here and there. So that's not going to work either.
So ... I give up. I've disabled the speed hack, so that it works 100% of
the time.
Did the same for the Super Scope: it may not have the same problem, but
I like consistency and don't feel like taking the chance.
This doesn't affect the mouse, since the mouse does not latch the
counters to indicate its X/Y position.
Speed hit is 92->82fps (accuracy profile), but only for Super Scope and
Justifier games.
But ... at least it works now. Slow and working is better than fast and
broken.
I appreciate the help in researching the issue, Jonas and krom.
Also pulled in phoenix/Makefile, which simplifies ui/Makefile.
Linux port defaults to GTK+ now. I can't get QGtkStyle to look good on
Debian.
byuu says:
Fixed the Ys 5 input bug in the auto joypad polling code. Can't
guarantee it's hardware-accurate (I have no way to extensively test it),
but I can guarantee it is closer to being correct now.
Also uses updated version of phoenix.
The justifier input is indeed all fucked up now. Seems like it stops
updating input after firing for a few frames.
I really don't want to debug that code anymore ... anyone want to make
$10 by fixing it? :P
(r02 was not posted to the WIP thread)
byuu says:
Internally, all color is processed with 30-bit precision. The filters
also operate at 30-bit depth.
There's a new config file setting, video.depth, which defaults to 24.
This causes the final output to downsample to 24-bit, as most will
require.
If you set it to 30-bit, the downsampling will not occur, and bsnes will
ask ruby for a 30-bit surface. If you don't have one available, you're
going to get bad colors. Or maybe even a crash with OpenGL.
I don't yet have detection code to make sure you have an appropriate
visual in place.
30-bit mode will really only work if you are running Linux, running Xorg
at Depth 30, use the OpenGL or XShm driver, have an nVidia Quadro or AMD
FireGL card with the official drivers, and have a 30-bit capable
monitor.
Lots of planning and work for very little gain here, but it's nice that
it's finally finished.
Oh, I had to change the contrast/brightness formulas a tiny bit, but
they still work and look nice.
I rewrote the S-SMP processor core (implementation of the 256 opcodes),
utilizing my new 6502-like syntax. It matches what bass v05r01 uses.
Took 10 hours.
Due to being able to group the "mov reg,mem" opcodes together with
"adc/sbc/ora/and/eor/cmp" sets, the total code size was reduced from
55.7KB to 42.5KB for identical accuracy and speed.
I also dropped the trick I was using to pass register variables as
template arguments, and instead just use a switch table to pass them as
function arguments. Makes the table a lot easier to read.
Passes all of my S-SMP tests, and all of blargg's
arithmetic/cycle-timing S-SMP tests. Runs Zelda 3 great as well. Didn't
test further.
This does have the potential to cause some regressions if I've messed
anything up, and none of the above tests caught it, so as always,
testing would be appreciated.
Anyway, yeah. By writing the actual processor with this new mnemonic
set, it confirms the parallels I've made.
My guess is that Sony really did clone the 6502, but was worried about
legal implications or something and changed the mnemonics last-minute.
(Note to self: need to re-enable snes.random before v085 official.)
EDIT: oh yeah, I also commented out the ALSA snd_pcm_drain() inside
term(). Without it, there is a tiny pop when the driver is
re-initialized. But with it, the entire emulator would lock up for five
whole seconds waiting on that call to complete. I'll take the pop any
day over that.
byuu says:
Hiding the viewport is necessary on Windows to prevent it from
overlapping the status bar. I've changed it to set the size to 1,1 when
nothing is loaded.
That still puts a 1x1 pixel over the status bar when you resize the
window to 1xHeight, but ... you know, don't do that.
Also corrected the mask overscan option for NES/SNES.
Silently updated the bsnes_v084-source.tar.bz2 archive with those fixes,
there were only 48 downloads.
byuu says:
This release adds preliminary Game Boy Color emulation. Due to lack of
technical information, this is undoubtedly the least stable module
I provide at this time; but improvements should continue as it is
developed.
This release also polishes the NES emulation and user interface code.
Changelog (since v083):
- added preliminary Game Boy Color emulation
- NES: added MMC6, VRC1, VRC2, VRC3 emulation
- NES: fixed MMC5 banking and added split-screen support [Cydrak]
- NES: pass all of blargg's ppu_vbl_nmi tests, pass more sprite tests
- NES: palette is now generated algorithmically [Bisqwit]
- SNES: fixed SA-1 IRQ regression caused by code refactoring
- Game Boy: rewrote audio channel mixing code; sound output is greatly
improved as a result
- Game Boy: uses DMG boot ROM instead of SGB boot ROM
- Game Boy: fixed potential bug when loading save states
- phoenix: fixed ListView focus issue [X-Fi6]
- phoenix: fixed dialog message parsing [X-Fi6]
- ui: video output is truly 24-bit now; SNES luma=0 edge case emulated
- ui: audio frequency, latency, resampler are now user configurable
- ui: gamma ramp is dynamically adjustable
- ui: all filters ported to 24-bit mode (speed hit to HQ2x)
- ui: added turbo button mappings for all generic controllers
- ui: fixed audio volume on unmute via menu [Ver Greeneyes]
- ui: shrink window option does nothing when no cartridge is loaded
- ui: re-added compositor disable, driver verification from v082
byuu says:
Changelog:
- NES: added VRC1, VRC2, VRC3, MMC6 emulation
- shrink window doesn't do anything when no cartridge is loaded
- phoenix Horizontal,VerticalLayout use const Size& instead of unsigned
width,height [for consistency]
So, all official NES ASICs are supported now. Just need sound output for
MMC5+VRC7 to complete them; and then some board re-arrangement stuff for
VRC2+MMC3.
Note that MMC6 uses the same mapper ID as MMC3, and VRC2 uses the same
ID as VRC4, so you have to make a BML board mapping or toggle which type
is chosen in the source file to use these two chips.
Side note: NES overscan clamping is obviously still assuming 16-bit, as
only half the lines are erased. Need to fix that.
byuu says:
Added frequency, latency, resampler selection to the audio settings
panel (I really only wanted it there for resampler selection ... having
three options matches the driver selection style though, so whatever.)
The linear/hermite sampler will double the framerate when running Game
Boy games, and sounds the same. Same framerate and sound quality on
SNES. But it will cause buzzing in many NES titles.
Also re-added the composition { never, fullscreen, always } modes.
I think that option is clutter, but it's just impossible to get good
audio+video on Windows 7 without it ...
Lastly, HQ2x was ported over, but not very well. I just convert source
pixels from RGB888 to RGB555, and output pixels in the opposite
direction.
Need someone good to port the diff() and blend functions over to RGB888
in a way that's not terribly slow.
byuu says:
Fixed SA-1 IRQ regression for Super Mario RPG
Added turbo B,A to NES+GB; B,A,X,Y to SNES (please don't ask for turbo
L,R; you never use those keys rapidly.)
Re-added video color adjustments, which are now done in full 8-bit
colorspace for more precision
Gamma ramp option is gone. It's now the gamma option, which now only
affects the lower-half of the colors.
A value of 1.0 gives you the original, washed out colors. 1.75 is what
the gamma ramp checkbox used to do (roughly).
The new default is 1.5, which still prevents color washout, but isn't as
overly dark as before.
I wanted to make the core/interface stuff abstract the complexity of
setting up a new C++ class, but it really didn't make anything easier.
It was all one-line stubs to internal functions, and there was just too
many platform-specific things that needed to be captured, so I did away
with that. Made a base class for the ui/interface stuff to get rid of
a lot of switch(mode()) stuff, still a work in progress.
byuu says:
Game Boy: audio should sound a lot better, eg Zelda: DX first opening
scene
Game Boy Color: now uses cothread Processor::frequency to dynamically
clock GB-CPU to 8MHz. Proper OAM DMA and timer speed. Fixes SMT: DC - WB
audio.
Added the break; statements to phoenix/windows/platform message loop
Added audio latency/frequency to config file only
byuu says:
All cores: Video classes have internal->{RGB30,24,16,15} palette
generation support
All cores: video output is now RGB24, all filters except HQ2x were
updated to reflect this (HQ2x will be very hard)
NES: MMC5 CHR mapping fixes (Bandit Kings, RTK2, Uchuu Keibitai SDF)
[Cydrak]
NES: MMC5 vertical split screen support (Uchuu Keibitai SDF) [Cydrak]
Game Boy + Game Boy Color: fixed a potential freezing bug when loading
save states (re-create cothreads on state load; was implied when using
SGB mode.)
Game Boy Color: fixed freezing bug with Zelda: LA opening (SVBK is
readable.)
Game Boy Color: more accurate colors (better than GiiBii, probably worse
than KiGB)
SNES: luminance of zero is no longer pure black, as on real hardware.
This is possible thanks to using RGB888 output now.
The current major problems I'd like to solve:
- Zelda: Link's Awakening music when Link first wakes up in the house is
atrociously bad
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children - White Book (Shiro no Sho) plays
music at 50% speed; yet Black Book (Kuro no Sho) does not ... one of
my favorite games, so it'd be great to fix it
(r04 was not posted to the WIP thread)
byuu says:
NES: passes ppu_sprite_overflow tests 01, 02, 05.
Game Boy: uses DMG BIOS (the one with the slow title scroll) or SGB
BIOS, based upon how you load the game.
Game Boy Color: Everything except the IR port is emulated. I don't have
any plans to allow linking two instances of bsnes. And that's frankly
never going to happen over netplay anyway, due to latency requirements
of the serial/IR ports.
The new DMA stuff is possibly incorrect, my test games don't seem to use
it.
Zelda: DX usually resets or crashes on the intro right before the beach
scene. I'm not sure why. Skip the intro and the game plays fine.
This is the best I can do when the most up-to-date GB/C reference
document is over ten years old and half-assed (pandocs.)
I could really use some help from anyone who understands the system.
Probably the worst part of my emulation at the moment is the interrupt
system.
Lots of things real hardware doesn't allow (DMA outside HRAM, CGB DMA to
invalid addresses, etc) isn't blocked yet.
LCD renderer is still scanline-based, which is just terrible. Doesn't
seem to be any good docs on cycle-level operation. I only know that it's
incredibly pathological and variable.
byuu says:
Lots of phoenix issues fixed, especially for Windows and GTK+.
NES emulation passes all ten ppu_vbl_nmi tests from blargg.
Sprite timing is nowhere near accurate yet (always consumes four clocks
per sprite), but oh well.
byuu says:
This adds Bisqwit's NES palette generation code:
http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?p=85060#85060
I set the saturation to 2.0 to closer match the existing "bright"
palette, although it still has a greater contrast range (some colors are
darker.) The gamma ramp option works now. Like SNES, best to also set
gamma to 0.8 afterward. Once I think of a good way to expose the
saturation/hue settings, I'll do so.
I've also merged in the updated nall. Adds Cygwin uname check, and
replaces linear_vector with vector in lstring and the GUI.
byuu says:
This release adds preliminary Nintendo / Famicom emulation. It's only
a week or two old, so a lot of work still needs to be done before it can
compete with the most popular NES emulators.
It's important to clarify: bsnes is primarily an SNES emulator. That
will always be its forte and my core focus. I have added Game Boy
support previously for Super Game Boy emulation, and I've added NES
support mostly for something fun to work on to break up the monotony of
working on one system for seven years now. Obviously, I'd like the
emulation to be accurate and highly compatible, but I simply cannot
afford to invest the same amount of time and money into any other
systems.
Still, either way the NES and GB emulation serve as fun side-diversions,
and allow for a unified emulator interface with all of bsnes' unique
features applied to all systems. My personal favorite feature is
mightymo's extended built-in cheat code database that now also includes
NES and Game Boy codes. And it even works in Super Game Boy mode now,
too!
I'm also not worried about speed at all: so long as NES/GB are faster
than SNES/compatibility, it's fine by me. Note that due to the NES audio
running at 1.78MHz, and Game Boy audio at 4MHz stereo, a more
sophisticated audio resampler was needed: Ryphecha (Mednafen author) has
graciously written a first-rate resampler: it is a band-limited
Kaiser-windowed polyphase sinc resampler. It is combined with two
highpass filters to remove DC bias. The filter itself is SSE optimized,
but even still, approximately 50% of CPU usage for NES/GB emulation goes
to the audio filtering alone. However, you now have the best sound
possible for NES and Game Boy emulation as a result.
The GUI has also been heavily re-structured to accommodate multiple
emulators from the same interface. As such, it's quite likely a few bugs
are still lurking here and there. Please report them and I'll iron them
out for the next release.
Changelog:
- license is now GPLv3
- re-structured GUI as a multi-system emulator
- added NES emulation [byuu, Ryphecha]
- added NES ICs: MMC1, MMC2, MMC3, MMC4, MMC5, VRC4, VRC6+audio, VRC7,
Sunsoft-5B+audio, Bandai-LZ93D50
- added NES boards: AxROM, BNROM, CNROM, ExROM, FxROM, GxROM, NROM,
PxROM, SxROM, TxROM, UxROM
- Game Boy emulation improvements [Jonas Quinn]
- SNES core outputs full 19-bit color (4-bit luma included) for more
accurate color reproduction (~5% speed hit)
- audio resampler is now a band-limited polyphase resampler [Ryphecha]
- cheat database includes NES+GB codes as well [mightymo, tukuyomi]
- lots of other changes
byuu says:
Added MMC2, MMC4, VRC4, VRC7 (no audio.)
Split NES audio code up into individual modules.
Fixed libsnes to compile: Themaister, can you please test to make sure
it works? I don't have a libsnes client on my work PC to test it.
Added about / license information to bottom of advanced settings screen
for now (better than nothing, I guess.)
Blocked PPU reads/writes while rendering for now, easier than coming up
with a bus address locking thing :/
I can't seem to fix MMC5 graphics during the intro to Uchuu Keibitai.
Without that, trying to implement vertical-split screen mode doesn't
make sense.
So as far as special audio chips go ...
* VRC6 is completed
* Sunsoft 5B has everything the only game to use it uses, but there are
more unused channels I'd like to support anyway (they aren't
documented, though.)
* MMC5 audio unsupported for now
* VRC7 audio unsupported, probably for a long time (hardest audio driver
of all. More complex than core NES APU.)
* audio PCM games (Moero Pro Yakyuu!) I probably won't ever support
(they require external WAV packs.)
byuu says:
Added delay to MMC1 register writes, to fix Bill & Ted's Godawful
Adventure.
Fixed up MMC5 RAM+fill mode, and added EXRAM mode support (8x8
tiles/attributes.)
Just Breed is fully playable now.
MMC5 is a total pain in the ass, the documentation on it is just
terrible. I basically just tried seven hundred variations until
something worked.
I still need to add MMC5 vertical split screen (for one single game's
attract screen, ugh), and the extra sound channels.
Would like to rework the NES APU first. Since the pulse channels are
identical sans sweep, it'd be nice to just inherit those and mask out
the sweep register bit writes.
So that probably won't make it into the first release, at least.
Still, overall I think it'll be an impressive showing of complex mappers
for a first release: MMC3, MMC5, VRC6 and 5B. The latter two with full
audio. The only other really, really hard bit is the VRC7 audio,
supposedly.
byuu says:
Enable Overscan->Mask Overscan [best I'm doing]
Video settings -> Overscan mask: (horizontal, vertical: 0-16 on each
side) [only works on NES+SNES]
BPS patching works for NES+SNES+GB; note that long-term I want BPS to
only patch headerless PRG+CHR files, but we'll need a database
/ completed board mapping system first.
MMC1 splits the board/chip markups a bit better. My attempts to emulate
the extra CHR bits per hardware fail repeatedly. Docs do not explain how
it works at all.
Emulated enough of the MMC5 to play Castlevania 3.
The MMC5 is easily the most complicated mapper the NES has to offer, and
of course, has the most pitifully vague and difficult documentation of
any mapper around.
It seems the only way anyone is able to emulate this chip is
empirically.
Everyone else apparently hooks the MMC5 right into the PPU core, which
I of course cannot do. So I had to come up with my own (probably wrong)
way to synchronize the PPU simply by observing CHR bus accesses.
I must say, I over-estimated how well fleshed out the NES hardware
documentation was. Shit hits the fan right after MMC3.
It's miles beyond the GB scene, but I find myself wanting for someone
with the technical writing ability of anomie.
I can't find anything at all on how we're supposed to support the $2007
port reads/writes without it extra-clocking the PPU's bus, which could
throw off mapper timing.
Absolutely nothing at all on the subject anywhere, something everybody
is required to do for all cycle-based emulators and ... nada.
Anyway, I'd like to refine the MMC5 a bit, getting Just Breed playable
even without sound would be really nice (it's a fun game.)
Then we need to get libsnes building again (ugh, getting worn out in
backporting changes to it.)
Once v083 is public, we can start discussing a new API for multiple
emulators.
byuu says:
cheats.xml -> cheats.bml, includes NES+SNES+GB codes now. Absolutely
awesome, thanks to mightymo and tukuyomi.
I also added Sunsoft-FME7/5B (with sound) emulation. Really only useful
for playing the Japanese release of Gimmick!
Fun game, but balls to the wall hard.
byuu says:
I doubt anyone is going to like these changes, but oh well.
The base height output for NES+SNES is now always 256x240. The Enable
Overscan option blanks out borders around the screen. This eliminates
the need for an overscan software filter. For NES, it's 16px from the
top and bottom, and 8px from the left and right. Anything less and you
get scrolling artifacts in countless games. For the SNES, it's only 16px
from the top and bottom. Main point is that most NTSC SNES games are
224-height games, so you'll have black borders. Oh well, hack the source
if you want. Game Boy overscan option does nothing.
Everything except for the cheats.xml file now uses BML markup. I need to
write a converter for cheats.xml still. Cut the SNES board parsing code
in half, 30KB->16KB. Much cleaner now.
Took the opportunity to fix a mistake I made back with the XML spec: all
numbers are integers, but can be prefixed with 0x to become hexadecimal.
Before, offset/size values defaulted to hex-mode even without a prefix,
unlike frequency/etc values.
The XML shaders have gone in their own direction anyway, with most being
multi-pass and incompatible with bsnes. So that said, please don't
extend the BML functionality from your end. But f eel free to add to the
XML spec, since other emulators now use that as well. And don't
misunderstand, I love the work that's being done there. It's pretty
awesome to see multi-pass shader capabilities, and the RAM watching
stuff is just amazing.
If there are any really awesome single-pass shaders that people would
like, I can convert it from XML and include it with future releases.
On that topic, I removed the watercolor/hdr-tv ones from the binary
packages (still in the source archive) ... they are neat, but not very
useful for actual gaming.
If we had more than one, I'd remove the Direct3D sepia one. Not going to
use shaders from a certain bipolar manic, because I'd never hear the end
of it if I did :/
Oh, one change I think people will like: MSU1 no longer requires
a memory map specification, so MSU1 authors won't have to keep updating
to my newer revisions of board markups. Basically, if there's not
a board with an msu1 section, it'll check if "gamename.msu" exists. If
it does, MSU1 gets mapped to 00-3f,80-bf:2000-2007. If all you want is
music, make a blank, zero-byte gamename.msu file.
byuu says:
Was mostly working on BML. Still working on the spec.
Added NES-BNROM, NES-GNROM/NES-MHROM boards. I don't even know why. The
latter games do not work very well without Zapper support.
byuu says:
Finished porting over all mappers to board/chip disambiguations. Had to
nearly rewrite the MMC1 code to do it, but all variants should be
supported.
iNES1 is too stupid to express them all, so you'll need a board markup
if you want to play the >8KB PRG RAM games.
For whatever reason, they call VRC6's memory WRAM, and MMC1's PRG RAM.
I am calling them all PRG RAM, since it's the same damn thing.
Board spec is not going to be stable until I have a hell of a lot more
mappers implemented, so be wary of that.
Anyway, at this time, all games can be loaded sans iNES header, if you
have the board markup. I'd also like to have a board database for all
commercial titles.
I'm treating *.fc as PRG-ROM(+CHR-ROM). Will work on loading the split
files later possibly.
byuu says:
.cht files now use BML-formatted data. I'm still going to request the
cheats.xml file as-is, and will write my own converter for embedding
during releases.
This is where parsing 2MB markup files in 10ms is really going to be
nice. Had to use an evil hack before for actually searching for games.
This has the start of the board/chip separation from mappers for NES,
and it has a barebones iNES->board markup converter.
You can specify your own board markup and bypass the need for an iNES
header, so in other words it will load No-Intro style games with
a proper board file.
Long-term, we'll have an internal database for commercial boards, and
probably folder.fc/prg.rom{,chr.rom} loading support.
Since they can't co-exist, the mappers are currently disabled, and I've
only ported the easy ones. So no MMC1/MMC3/VRC6 in this release. I need
to make them into chips first.
byuu says:
Ryphecha fixed Gun Nac, it was some sort of problem with blank sprite
address fetching messing with the MMC3
I've started on an XML parser for iNES-free loading, but it's pretty
barebones right now. Only NROM-256 loads, and you have to make it
a compile-time thing (so other games work for now.)
Updated nall with nullptr stuff.
nall/detect is now nall/intrinsic and has both #defines + static
constants that can be used to detect the platform (allows for run-time
platform checks where practical.)
ruby has a Makefile now, that makes using it in other projects a lot
easier
byuu says:
Upgraded to GCC 4.6.1.
Removed nall/foreach and nall/concept, upgraded iterator support on all
of my containers, and replaced everything with range-for.
Fixed up Qt geometry a good bit, should at least create windows now without bouncing around.
Added some initial nullptr / constexpr changes.
Some other minor cleanups ... removing foreach() took about 6-8 hours
alone.
byuu says:
Ryphecha fixed the FF1 glitch, added two highpass filters to NES audio
output (still working on a lowpass), and fixed VRC6 audio issues.
I reduced the complexity of all eight supported mapping modes, and
standardized them; and added in an overscan filter (not in archive) for
chopping off all the NES edge garbage (8 pixels on the left and right,
16 on the top and bottom.)
It's extreme, but anything less shows junk. I may make this part of the
menu option, just clip off more on NES mode than SNES mode.
byuu says:
Mappers are now optionally threaded.
Fixed up MMC3 emulation, SMB3 and MM3-6 are all fully playable. However,
many unusual variants of this chip are not supported still.
Added UNROM+UOROM for Contra and MM1, allowing all six MM games to play
now.
Added VRC6 with sound emulation, because I wanted to get audio mixing in
place.
Chose VRC6 because it has Esper Dream 2, which is an absolutely amazing
game that everyone should play :D
The game didn't use sawtooth, and I didn't test any other VRC6 games, so
hopefully that is emulated passably well enough.
byuu says:
2-6% speed hit in SNES core for outputting 19-bit (rounded to 32-bit ...
sigh) video, so that luma non-linearity can eventually be emulated
properly.
Now using sinc audio resampler, massive speed hit of course to NES+GB
only, but it's required to get rid of aliasing (buzzing) present in
many, many games otherwise.
Fixed fast forward and none/blur select.
Finally fixed texture clearing for changing pixel shaders and video
filters.
Some realllly basic NES MMC3, extremely broken so don't bug me about it.
Other stuff, probably.
byuu says:
NES now has save state support.
NES A/B buttons were indeed swapped, so that's fixed now.
nall/dsp now puts resamplers into separate classes, so that each can
have their own state information.
opengl.hpp uses GL_RGBA internal format and doesn't regenerate textures
on resize. No speedup, no fix to junk on resize, so I will be very
unhappy if this breaks things for anyone.
GLSL shaders use <fragment filter="nearest/point"> as you guys wanted.
ui-snes was removed.
This was released beside bsnes v082r19. byuu didn't mention it in the
v082r19 release notes, but in a previous post mentioned that a number of
filters stopped working when bsnes switched to using RGB555 for all its
internal data.
Tim Allen