byuu says:
Time for a new release. There are a few important emulation improvements
and a few new features; but for the most part, this release focuses on
major code refactoring, the details of which I will mostly spare you.
The major change is that, as of v099, the SNES balanced and performance
cores have been removed from higan. Basically, in addition to my five
other emulation cores, these were too much of a burden to maintain. And
they've come along as far as I was able to develop them. If you need to
use these cores, please use these two from the v098 release.
I'm very well aware that ~80% of the people using higan for SNES
emulation were using the two removed profiles. But they simply had
to go. Hopefully in the future, we can compensate for their loss by
increasing the performance of the accuracy core.
Changelog (since v098):
SFC: balanced profile removed
SFC: performance profile removed
SFC: expansion port devices can now be changed during gameplay (atlhough
you shouldn't)
SFC: fixed bug in SharpRTC leap year calculations
SFC: emulated new research findings for the S-DD1 coprocessor
SFC: fixed CPU emulation-mode wrapping bug with pei, [dp], [dp]+y
instructions [AWJ]
SFC: fixed Super Game Boy bug that caused the bottom tile-row to flicker
in games
GB: added MBC1M (multi-cart) mapper; icarus can't detect these so manual
manifests are needed for now
GB: corrected return value when HuC3 unmapped RAM is read; fixes Robopon
[endrift]
GB: improved STAT IRQ emulation; fixes Altered Space, etc [endrift,
gekkio]
GB: partial emulation of DMG STAT write IRQ bug; fixes Legend of Zerd,
Road Rash, etc
nall: execute() fix, for some Linux platforms that had trouble detecting
icarus
nall: new BitField class; which allows for simplifying flag/register
emulation in various cores
ruby: added Windows WASAPI audio driver (experimental)
ruby: remove attempts to call glSwapIntervalEXT (fixes crashing on some
Linux systems)
ui: timing settings panel removed
video: restored saturation, gamma, luminance settings
video: added new post-emulation sprite system; light gun cursors are
now higher-resolution
audio: new resampler (6th-order Butterworth biquad IIR); quite a bit
faster than the old one
audio: added optional basic reverb filter (for fun)
higan: refresh video outside cooperative threads (workaround for shoddy
code in AMD graphics drivers)
higan: individual emulation cores no longer have unique names
higan: really substantial code refactoring; 43% reduction in binary size
Off the bat, here are the known bugs:
hiro/Windows: focus stealing bug on startup. Needs to be fixed in hiro,
not with a cheap hack to tomoko.
higan/SFC: some of the coprocessors are saving some volatile memory to
disk. Completely harmless, but still needs to be fixed.
ruby/WASAPI: some sound cards have a lot of issues with the current driver
(eg FitzRoy's). We need to find a clean way to fix this before it
can be made the default driver. Which would be a huge win because
the latency improvements are substantial, and in exclusive mode,
WASAPI allows G-sync to work very well.
[From the v099 WIP thread, here's the changelog since v098r19:
- GB: don't force mode 1 during force-blank; fixes v098r16 regression
with many Game Boy games
- GB: only perform the STAT write IRQ bug during vblank, not hblank
(still not hardware accurate, though)
-Ed.]
byuu says:
Changelog:
- hiro: fixed the BrowserDialog column resizing when navigating to new
folders (prevents clipping of filenames)
- note: this is kind of a quick-fix; but I have a good idea how to do
the proper fix now
- nall: added BitField<T, Lo, Hi> class
- note: not yet working on the SFC CPU class; need to go at it with
a debugger to find out what's happening
- GB: emulated DMG/SGB STAT IRQ bug; fixes Zerd no Densetsu and Road Rash
(won't fix anything else; don't get hopes up)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- GNUmakefile: reverted $(call unique,) to $(strip)
- processor/r6502: removed templates; reduces object size from 146.5kb
to 107.6kb
- processor/lr35902: removed templates; reduces object size from 386.2kb
to 197.4kb
- processor/spc700: merged op macros for switch table declarations
- sfc/coprocessor/sa1: partial cleanups; flattened directory structure
- sfc/coprocessor/superfx: partial cleanups; flattened directory structure
- sfc/coprocessor/icd2: flattened directory structure
- gb/ppu: changed behavior of STAT IRQs
Major caveat! The GB/GBC STAT IRQ changes has a major bug in it somewhere
that's seriously breaking most games. I'm pushing the WIP anyway, because
I believe the changes to be mostly correct. I'd like to get more people
looking at these changes, and also try more heavy-handed hacking and
diff comparison logging between the previous WIP and this one.
byuu says:
I refactored my schedulers. Added about ten lines to each scheduler, and
removed about 100 lines of calling into internal state in the scheduler
for the FC,SFC cores and about 30-40 lines for the other cores. All of
its state is now private.
Also reworked all of the entry points to static auto Enter() and auto
main(). Where Enter() handles all the synchronization stuff, and main()
doesn't need the while(true); loop forcing another layer of indentation
everywhere.
Took a few hours to do, but totally worth it. I'm surprised I didn't do
this sooner.
Also updated icarus gmake install rule to copy over the database.
byuu says:
This release features improvements to all emulation cores, but most
substantially for the Game Boy core. All of blargg's test ROMs that pass
in gambatte now either pass in higan, or are off by 1-2 clocks (the
actual behaviors are fully emulated.) I consider the Game Boy core to
now be fairly accurate, but there's still more improvements to be had.
Also, what's sure to be a major feature for some: higan now has full
support for loading and playing ordinary ROM files, whether they have
copier headers, weird extensions, or are inside compressed archives. You
can load these games from the command-line, from the main Library menu
(via Load ROM Image), or via drag-and-drop on the main higan window. Of
course, fans of game folders and the library need not worry: that's
still there as well.
Also new, you can drop the (uncompressed) Game Boy Advance BIOS onto the
higan main window to install it into the correct location with the
correct file name.
Lastly, this release technically restores Mac OS X support. However,
it's still not very stable, so I have decided against releasing binaries
at this time. I'd rather not rush this and leave a bad first impression
for OS X users.
Changelog (since v096):
- higan: project source code hierarchy restructured; icarus directly
integrated
- higan: added software emulation of color-bleed, LCD-refresh,
scanlines, interlacing
- icarus: you can now load and import ROM files/archives from the main
higan menu
- NES: fixed manifest parsing for board mirroring and VRC pinouts
- SNES: fixed manifest for Star Ocean
- SNES: fixed manifest for Rockman X2,X3
- GB: enabling LCD restarts frame
- GB: emulated extra OAM STAT IRQ quirk required for GBVideoPlayer
(Shonumi)
- GB: VBK, BGPI, OBPI are readable
- GB: OAM DMA happens inside PPU core instead of CPU core
- GB: fixed APU length and sweep operations
- GB: emulated wave RAM quirks when accessing while channel is enabled
- GB: improved timings of several CPU opcodes (gekkio)
- GB: improved timings of OAM DMA refresh (gekkio)
- GB: CPU uses open collector logic; return 0xFF for unmapped memory
(gekkio)
- GBA: fixed sequencer enable flags; fixes audio in Zelda - Minish Cap
(Jonas Quinn)
- GBA: fixed disassembler masking error (Lioncash)
- hiro: Cocoa support added; higan can now be compiled on Mac OS X 10.7+
- nall: improved program path detection on Windows
- higan/Windows: moved configuration data from %appdata% to
%localappdata%
- higan/Linux,BSD: moved configuration data from ~/.config/higan to
~/.local/higan
byuu says:
Changelog:
- GB: re-enabling the LCD resets the display to LY=0,LX=0 [1]
- GB: emulated new findings (as of today!) for a DMG quirk that triggers
an extra OAM STAT IRQ when Vblank STAT IRQs are off
- GB: made VBK, BGPI, OBPI readable
- GB: fixed APU length operations
- GB: fixed APU sweep operations
- NES: fixed cartridge/ -> board/ manifest lookups for mirroring/pinous
- hiro/Cocoa: added endrift's plist keys
Fixed:
- Astro Rabby is fully playable, even the title screen works correctly
- Bomb Jack is fully playable
- Kirby's Dream Land 2 intro scrolling first scanline of Rick is now fixed
- GBVideoPlayer functions correctly [2]
- Shin Megami Tensei: Devichil series regression fixed
[1] doesn't pass oam_bug-2/1-lcd_sync; because it seems to want
LY=0,LX>0, and I can't step the PPU in a register write as it's not
a state machine; the effect is emulated, it just starts the frame a tiny
bit sooner. blargg's testing is brutal, you can't be even one cycle off
or the test will fail.
[2] note that you will need the GBC Display Emulation shader from
hunterk's repository, or it will look like absolute shit. The
inter-frame blending is absolutely critical here.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- fixed icarus to save settings properly
- fixed higan's full screen toggle on OS X
- increased "Add Codes" button width to avoid text clipping
- implemented cocoa/canvas.cpp
- added 1s delay after mapping inputs before re-enabling the window
(wasn't actually necessary, but already added it)
- fixed setEnabled(false) on Cocoa's ListView and TextEdit widgets
- updated nall::programpath() to use GetModuleFileName on Windows
- GB: system uses open collector logic, so unmapped reads return 0xFF,
not 0x00 (passes blargg's cpu_instrs again) [gekkio]
byuu says:
Changelog:
- restructured the project and removed a whole bunch of old/dead
directives from higan/GNUmakefile
- huge amounts of work on hiro/cocoa (compiles but ~70% of the
functionality is commented out)
- fixed a masking error in my ARM CPU disassembler [Lioncash]
- SFC: decided to change board cic=(411,413) back to board
region=(ntsc,pal) ... the former was too obtuse
If you rename Boolean (it's a problem with an include from ruby, not
from hiro) and disable all the ruby drivers, you can compile an
OS X binary, but obviously it's not going to do anything.
It's a boring WIP, I just wanted to push out the project structure
change now at the start of this WIP cycle.
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:
Basically just a project rename, with s/bsnes/higan and the new icon
from lowkee added in.
It won't compile on Windows because I forgot to update the resource.rc
file, and a path transform command isn't working on Windows.
It was really just meant as a starting point, so that v091 WIPs can flow
starting from .00 with the new name (it overshadows bsnes v091, so
publicly speaking this "shouldn't exist" and will probably be deleted
from Google Code when v092 is ready.)
Tim Allen