byuu says:
Once again, I wasn't able to complete a full WIP revision.
This WIP-WIP adds very sophisticated emulation of the Sega Genesis
Lock-On and Game Genie cartridges ... essentially, through recursion and
a linked list, higan supports an infinite nesting of cartridges.
Of course, on real hardware, after you stack more than three or four
cartridges, the power draw gets too high and things start glitching out
more and more as you keep stacking. I've heard that someone chained up
to ten Sonic & Knuckles cartridges before it finally became completely
unplayable.
And so of course, higan emulates this limitation as well ^-^. On the
fourth cartridge and beyond, it will become more and more likely that
address and/or data lines "glitch" out randomly, causing various
glitches. It's a completely silly easter egg that requires no speed
impact whatsoever beyond the impact of the new linked list cartridge
system.
I also designed the successor to Emulator::Interface::cap,get,set. Those
were holdovers from the older, since-removed ruby-style accessors.
In its place is the new Emulator::Interface::configuration,configure
API. There's the usual per-property access, and there's also access to
read and write all configurable options at once. In essence, this
enables introspection into core-specific features.
So far, you can control processor version#s, PPU VRAM size, video
settings, and hacks. As such, the .sys/manifest.bml files are no longer
necessary. Instead, it all goes into .sys/configuration.bml, which is
generated by the emulator if it's missing.
higan is going to take this even further and allow each option under
"Systems" to have its own editable configuration file. So if you wanted,
you could have a 1/1/1 SNES menu option, and a 2/1/3 SNES menu option.
Or a Model 1 Genesis option, and a Model 2 Genesis option. Or the
various Game Boy model revisions. Or an "SNES-Fast" and "SNES-Accurate"
option.
I've not fully settled on the syntax of the new configuration API. I
feel it might be useful to provide type information, but I really quite
passionately hate any<T> container objects. For now it's all
string-based, because strings can hold anything in nall.
I might also change the access rules. Right now it's like:
emulator→configure("video/blurEmulation", true); but it might be nicer
as "Video::Blur Emulation", or "Video.BlurEmulation", or something like
that.
byuu says:
I stand corrected, I managed to create and even larger diff than ever.
This one weighs in at 309KiB `>__>`
I'll have to create a changelog later, I'm too tired right now to go
through all of that.
byuu says:
I failed to complete a WIP, have five of eight cores updated with some
major changes to Emulator::Interface. I'll just post a quick temporary
WIP in the off chance someone wants to look over the new interface and
comment on it.
Also implemented screen saver suppression into hiro/GTK.
I should also add ... a plan of mine is to develop target-bsnes into a
more generic user interface, with the general idea being that
target-higan is for multiple Emulator::Interface cores at the same time,
and target-bsnes is for just one Emulator::Interface core.
The idea being that if one were to compile target-bsnes with the GBA
core, it'd become bgba, for instance.
I don't plan on releasing single-core emulators like this, but ... I don't see any downsides to being more flexible.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- added `Emulator::Interface::connected(uint port) -> uint device;`
- higan, bsnes: updated emulators to use the new
Emulator::Interface::connected() function
- hiro: fixed Object::cast<T> finally
So, Emulator::Interface::connected() solves two annoying problems at the
same time.
First, on first run of the emulator when the settings file is blank, it
will retrieve the default "sane" device ID, which is usually a gamepad
for a controller port, or nothing for an expansion/extension port.
Second, if you were to select a multi-port device, like the NES Four
Score, the core will set the other port to the Four Score device as
well, and the GUIs query connected() right after any call to connect(),
so it gets updated without needing a system for the emulation core to
send messages alerting the GUI of changes.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- emulator/video,audio: various cleanups
- emulator/audio: removed reverb effect (it breaks very badly on
high-frequency systems)
- emulator/audio: the Nyquist anti-aliasing lowpass filter is now
generated automatically instead of set per-core
- at 44.1KHz output, it's set to 22KHz; at 48KHz, it's set to
22KHz; at 96KHz, it's set to 25KHz
- this filter now takes the bsnes emulation speed setting into
account
- all system/video.cpp files removed; inlined in System::power() and
Interface::set() instead
- sfc/cpu: pre-compute `HTIME` as `HTIME+1<<2` for faster comparisons of
HIRQs
- sfc/cpu: re-add check to block IRQs on the last dot of each frame
(minor speed hit)
- hiro/gtk3: fixed headers for Linux compilation finally
- hiro/gtk,qt: fixed settings.cpp logic so initial values are used
when no settings.bml file exists
- hiro/gtk: started a minor experiment to specify theming information
in settings.bml files
- nall/dsp: allow the precision type (double) to be overridden (to
float)
- nall: add some helpers for generating pre-compiled headers
- it was a failure to try using them for higan, however ...
- nall: add some helpers for reading fallback values from empty
`Markup::Node[search]` statements
Todo:
- CRITICAL: a lot of my IRQ/NMI/HDMA timing tests are failing with the
fast PPU ... need to figure out why
- space between Emulator::video functions and Emulator::audio
functions in gb/system/system.cpp
- remove Audio/Reverb/Enable from settings.bml in target-bsnes
byuu says:
The problems with the Windows and Qt4 ports have all been resolved,
although there's a fairly gross hack on a few Qt widgets to not destruct
once Application::quit() is called to avoid a double free crash (I'm
unsure where Qt is destructing the widgets internally.) The Cocoa port
compiles again at least, though it's bound to have endless problems. I
improved the Label painting in the GTK ports, which fixes the background
color on labels inside TabFrame widgets.
I've optimized the Makefile system even further.
I added a "redo state" command to bsnes, which is created whenever you
load the undo state. There are also hotkeys for both now, although I
don't think they're really something you want to map hotkeys to.
I moved the nall::Locale object inside hiro::Application, so that it can
be used to translate the BrowserDialog and MessageDialog window strings.
I improved the Super Game Boy emulation of `MLT_REQ`, fixing Pokemon
Yellow's custom border and probably more stuff.
Lots of other small fixes and improvements. Things are finally stable
once again after the harrowing layout redesign catastrophe.
Errata:
- ICD::joypID should be set to 3 on reset(). joypWrite() may as well
take uint1 instead of bool.
- hiro/Qt: remove pWindow::setMaximumSize() comment; found a
workaround for it
- nall/GNUmakefile: don't set object.path if it's already set (allow
overrides before including the file)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- bsnes, higan: simplified make output; reordered rules
- hiro: added Window::set(Minimum,Maximum)Size() [only implemented in
GTK+ so far]
- bsnes: only allow the window to be shrunk to the 1x multiplier size
- bsnes: refactored Integral Scaling checkbox to {Center, Scale,
Stretch} radio selection
- nall: call fflush() after nall::print() to stdout or stderr [needed
for msys2/bash]
- bsnes, higan: program/interface.cpp renamed to program/platform.cpp
- bsnes: trim ".shader/" from names in Settings→Shader menu
- bsnes: Settings→Shader menu updated on video driver changes
- bsnes: remove missing games from recent files list each time it is
updated
- bsnes: video multiplier menu generated dynamically based on largest
monitor size at program startup
- bsnes: added shrink window and center window function to video
multiplier menu
- bsnes: de-minimize presentation window when exiting fullscreen mode
or changing video multiplier
- bsnes: center the load game dialog against the presentation window
(important for multi-monitor setups)
- bsnes: screenshots are not immediate instead of delayed one frame
- bsnes: added frame advance menu option and hotkey
- bsnes: added enable cheats checkbox and hotkey; can be used to
quickly enable/disable all active cheats
Errata:
- hiro/Windows: `SW_MINIMIZED`, `SW_MAXIMIZED `=> `SW_MINIMIZE`,
`SW_MAXIMIZE`
- hiro/Windows: add pMonitor::workspace()
- hiro/Windows: add setMaximized(), setMinimized() in
pWindow::construct()
- bsnes: call setCentered() after setMaximized(false)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- sfc/ppu-fast: added hires mode 7 option (doubles the sampling rate
of mode 7 pixels to reduce aliasing)
- sfc/ppu-fast: fixed mode 7 horizontal screen flip [hex_usr]
- bsnes: added capture screenshot function and path selection
- for now, it saves as BMP. I need a deflate implementation that
won't add an external dependency for PNG
- the output resolution is from the emulator: (256 or 512)x(240 or
480 minus overscan cropping if enabled)
- it captures the NEXT output frame, not the current one ... but
it may be wise to change this behavior
- it'd be a problem if the core were to exit and an image was
captured halfway through frame rendering
- bsnes: recovery state renamed to undo state
- bsnes: added manifest viewer tool
- bsnes: mention if game has been verified or not on the status bar
message at load time
- bsnes, nall: fixed a few missing function return values
[SuperMikeMan]
- bsnes: guard more strongly against failure to load games to avoid
crashes
- hiro, ruby: various fixes for macOS [Sintendo]
- hiro/Windows: paint on `WM_ERASEBKGND` to prevent status bar
flickering at startup
- icarus: SPC7110 heuristics fixes [hex_usr]
Errata:
- sfc/ppu-fast: remove debug hires mode7 force disable comment from
PPU::power()
[The `WM_ERASEBKGND` fix was already present in the 106r44 public
beta -Ed.]
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:
- bsnes: added video settings panel
- bsnes: added audio settings panel
- bsnes: disable assign/clear buttons at startup for hotkeys panel
- bsnes: program initialization restructured: drivers initialize last
- this lets me reinitialize the settings panel values on driver
changes
- so eg things like input/hotkey remappings should work after
input driver changes now
- ... but I had to disable the window icon for this ... it takes
too long to show up this way
- bsnes: added synchronize video/audio options to settings menu
- bsnes: added audio skew slider for video/audio synchronization
- bsnes: state manager edit/remove works on game ROM .bsz archives now
- bsnes: removed View→Color Emulation; default to 150% gamma instead
(it's a touch brighter but similar)
At this point, I'm pretty much ready to make an initial beta release for
wider testing.
Please use this WIP to indicate any must-fix issues before I do so.
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 BrowserDialog::openObject() [match file *or* folder
by filters]
- hiro: BrowserDialog accept button is now disabled when it would
otherwise do nothing
- eg openFile without a folder to enter or file to open selected
- eg saveFile without a file name or with a file name that matches
a folder name
- bsnes: added support for gamepaks (game folders)
- bsnes: store all save states inside per-game .bsz (ZIP) archives
instead of .bst/ folders
- this reduces the number of state files from 10+ to 1; without
having folders sort before files
- hiro: both gtk2 and gtk3 now use cairo to render Canvas; supports
sx,sy [BearOso]
- higan, bsnes: fast PPU/DSP are now run-time options instead of
compile-time options
- bsnes: disable fast PPU when loading Air Strike Patrol / Desert
Fighter
- bsnes: disable fast DSP when loading Koushien 2
- bsnes: added options to advanced panel to disable fast PPU and/or
fast DSP
byuu says:
Changelog:
- bsnes: cheat code “enabled” option changed to “enable”
- bsnes: connected “Cancel” action on add/edit cheat code window
- hiro: improved BrowserDialog::selectFolder() behavior
- can choose “Select” inside of a target folder when no items are
selected
- bsnes: implemented state manager
- bsnes: save a recovery state before loading a state, quitting, or
changing drivers
- bsnes: input settings, hotkey settings, cheat editor, state manager
entries are now batchable
- this allows bulk clearing/deleting of entries
- bsnes: cheat code list now auto-sorts alphabetically instead of
using up/down move arrows
I know most people will probably prefer to order cheat codes the way
they want, but the issue is that the state manager can't really work
this way. Each state is a file on disk. So yes, we could store a
states-manifest.bml to track the order of the states, or try to insert
numbers into the filenames and do bulk filesystem rename operations on
sorting, but then we would run into oddities when users delete state
files manually. And really, manual sorting is just clumsy. If you really
want a specific ordering, you can prefix cheats/states with numeric
indices instead.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- sfc/ppu-fast: fixed overscan crash
- sfc/ppu-fast: fixed direct color mode
- sfc: reconnected MSU1 support
- higan: game.sfc/msu1/data.rom, game.sfc/msu1/track-#.pcm
- bsnes: game.msu, game-#.pcm
- bsnes: added cheat code editor
- bsnes: added cheat code database support
- sfc/ppu-fast: clear overscan lines when overscan disabled
- sfc: output 223/239 lines instead of 224/240 lines
- bsnes: fix aspect correction calculation
- bsnes: crop line 224 when overscan masking is enabled
- bsnes: exposed Expansion Port menu; but hid “21fx” from the list of
devices
- bsnes: tools menu is hidden until a game is loaded
- ruby/input/keyboard/quartz: fixed compilation error
So only bsnes the automated overscan cropping option. In higan, you can
crop however many lines you like from the top or bottom of the image.
But for bsnes, it automatically eats sixteen lines. My view right now is
that if bsnes is meant to be the casual gaming emulator, that it should
eat line 224 in this mode. Most games show content here, but because of
the way the SNES PPU works, the very last line ends up on its very own
tile row (line 0 isn't rendered), if the scroll registers don't account
for it. There's a small number of games that will draw junk data to the
very last scanline of the frame as a result of this. So I chose, at
least for now, to hide it. Users can obviously disable overscan cropping
to see this scanline. I'm open to being convinced not to do this, if
someone has a compelling reason.
We're pretty much screwed one way or the other with no overscan masking.
If we output 239 lines, then most games will render 7 blank lines + 224
drawn lines + 8 blank lines, and the black top and bottom aren't
centered. But if we output 240 lines to get 8 + 224 + 8, then games that
do use overscan will have a blank line at the very bottom of the window.
I'm also trying out a modified cheat code file format. It's been forever
since I bothered to look at it, and the “cartridge” parent node doesn't
match what I'm doing with trying to rename “cartridge” to “game” in
manifests. And indeed, the idea of requiring a root node is rather
superfluous for a cheat code file. Current format looks like this:
cheat
description: foo
code: 7e2000=20+7e2001=30?40
enabled
cheat
description: bar
code: 7e4000=80
Open to discussing this, and I'd like to sync up with Snes9X before they
push out a new release, and I'll agree to finalize and never change this
format again.
I chose to use .cht for the extension when using game files (eg
gamename.cht)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- nall: added -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ to Windows/GCC link
flags
- bsnes, higan: added program icons to main window when game isn't
loaded
- bsnes: improved recent games menu sorting
- bsnes: fixed multi-game recent game loading on Windows
- bsnes: completed path override support
- bsnes, higan: added screensaver suppression on Windows
- icarus: add 32K volatile RAM to SuperFX boards that report no RAM
(fixes Starfox)
- bsnes, higan: added automatic dependency generation [Talarubi]
- hiro/GTK: appending actions to menus restores enabled() state
- higan: use board node inside manifest.bml if it exists
- bsnes: added blur emulation and color emulation options to view menu
- ruby: upgraded input.sdl to SDL 2.0 (though it makes no functional
difference sadly)
- ruby: removed video.sdl (due to deprecating SDL 1.2)
- nall, ruby: improvements to HID class (generic vendor and product
IDs)
Errata:
- bsnes, higan: on Windows, Application::Windows::onScreenSaver needs
`[&]` lambda capture, not `[]`
- find it in presentation/presentation.cpp
byuu says:
Changelog:
- bsnes:
- added full input mapping support (multi-mapping, digital+analog
inputs, rumble, hotkeys, etc)
- can now load multi-part games (eg Super Game Boy) from the
command-line
- added recent games menu with list clear function; supports
multi-part games (sorting logic incomplete)
- added automatic binding of gamepads on new configuration files
- added view scaling support with aspect correction, overscan
cropping, and integral scaling modes
- added video shader support
- added status bar (can be hidden)
- added save states (both menu and hotkeys)
- added fullscreen mode support
- added support for loading compressed (ZIP) archives for any
supported media type (SNES, GB, etc)
- added frame counter
- added auto-memory saving
- added pause / block-input modes when main window loses focus
- added --fullscreen command-line option to start bsnes in
fullscreen mode
- added input settings panel
- added hotkeys settings panel
- added path settings panel (paths aren't actually used set, but
can be assigned)
- higan: fixed macOS install rule [Sintendo]
- higan: minor UI code cleanups
- nall: renamed Processor to Architecture to fix macOS builds
[Sintendo]
Yeah, you read right: recent games menu, path settings. And dynamic rate
control + screensaver suppression is on the todo list. I'm not fucking
around this time. I really want to make something special here.
byuu says:
Changelog:
* yes.
But seriously, a list of changes on a pre-alpha GUI is going to get annoying.
Basically, work on embedding stuff in the binary, firmware loading (both
appended to the ROM and in a firmware/ subfolder) added, SGB games can be
loaded, config file holds more values for driver settings, added ruby drivers to
other platforms, etc.
Tim Allen