[This is specifically a release of bsnes, not the whole higan suite, even though
it contains all the higan source. -Ed.]
byuu says:
Today I am posting the first release of the new bsnes emulator.
bsnes is designed to be a revival of the classic bsnes design, focusing
specifically on performance and ease of use for SNES emulation.
In addition to all of the features of higan, bsnes supports the following
features:
- 300% faster (than higan) scanline-based, multi-threaded graphics renderer
- option to disable sprite limits in games
- option to enable hires mode 7 graphics
- option to enable more accurate pixel-based graphics renderer
- option to overclock SuperFX games by up to 800%
- periodic auto-saving of game save RAM
- save state manager with state screenshots
- several new save state hotkeys such as increment/decrement slot#
- option to auto-save states when unloading a game or closing the emulator
- option to auto-load aforementioned states when loading games
- save state undo and redo support (with associated hotkeys)
- speed override modes (50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%)
- recent games list
- frame advance mode
- screenshot hotkey
- path selection for games, patches, saves, cheats, states, and screenshots
- dynamic video, audio, input driver changes
- direct loading and playing of games without the use of the higan library
- ZIP archive and multiple file extension support for games
- firmware folder for unappended coprocessor firmware (see documentation for
more)
- compatibility with sd2snes and Snes9X MSU1 game file naming
- compatibility with higan gamepaks (game folders)
- soft-patching support for both BPS and IPS patches
- menubar that does not pause emulation when entered
- video pixel shaders (requires OpenGL 3.2)
- built-in game database with over 1,200 games to ensure perfect memory
mapping
- (Linux, BSD only:) audio dynamic rate control to eliminate stuttering
- and much more!
The one feature I regret not being able to support in this release is Windows
dynamic rate control. I put in my best attempt, but XAudio2's API is simply not
fine-grained enough, and the WASAPI driver is not mature enough. I hope that DRC
support can be added to the Windows port in the near future, and I would like to
offer a large cash bounty to anyone who can help me make this happen.
byuu says:
The main thing I worked on today was emulating the MBC7 EEPROM.
And... I have many things to say about that, but not here, and not now...
The missing EEPROM support is why the accelerometer was broken. Although
it's not evidently clear that I'm emulating the actual values
incorrectly. I'll think about it and get it fixed, though.
bsnes went from ~308fps to ~328fps, and I don't even know why. Probably
something somewhere in the 140KB of changes to other things made in this
WIP.
byuu says:
This release fixes the XAudio 2.1 and WASAPI drivers on Windows, and
extends XAudio to support device selection (eg headphones, speakers,
monitor, etc.) It also adds DRC to XAudio, however it's not currently
working.
The code is courtesy of Talarubi, I just botched it somewhere upon
porting it to the newer version of ruby.
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:
I fixed all outstanding bugs that I'm aware of, including all of the
errata I listed yesterday.
And now it's time for lots of regression testing.
After that, I need to add Talarubi's XAudio2 DRC code, and then get a
new public bsnes WIP out for final testing.
New errata: when setting an icon (nall::image) larger than a Canvas on
Windows, it's not centering the image, so you end up seeing the overscan
area in the state manager previews, and the bottom of the image gets cut
off. I also need to forcefully disable the Xlib screensaver disable
support. I think I'll remove the GUI option to bypass it as well, and
just force screensaver disable always on with Windows. I'll improve it
in the future to toggle the effect between emulator pauses.
byuu says:
Everything *should* be working again, but of course that won't
actually be the case. Here's where things stand:
- bsnes, higan, icarus, and genius compile and run fine on FreeBSD
with GTK
- ruby video and audio drivers are untested on Windows, macOS, and
Linux
- hiro is untested on macOS
- bsnes' status bar is not showing up properly with hiro/qt
- bsnes and higan's about screen is not showing up properly with
hiro/qt (1x1 window size)
- bsnes on Windows crashes often when saving states, and I'm not sure
why ... it happens inside Encode::RLE
- bsnes on Windows crashes with ruby.input.windows (unsure why)
- bsnes on Windows fails to show the verified emblem on the status bar
properly
- hiro on Windows flickers when changing tabs
To build the Windows bsnes and higan ports, use
ruby="video.gdi audio.directsound"
Compilation error logs for Linux will help me fix the inevitable list of
typos there. I can fix the typos on other platforms, I just haven't
gotten to it yet.
byuu wrote:
Sigh ...
asio.hpp needs #include <nall/windows/registry.hpp>
[Since the last WIP, byuu also posted the following message. -Ed.]
ruby drivers have all been updated (but not tested outside of BSD), and
I redesigned the settings window. The driver functionality all exists on
a new "Drivers" panel, the emulator/hack settings go to a
"Configuration" panel, and the video/audio panels lose driver settings.
As does the settings menu and its synchronize options.
I want to start pushing toward a v107 release. Critically, I will need
DirectSound and ALSA to support dynamic rate control. I'd also like to
eliminate the other system manifest.bml files. I need to update the
cheat code database format, and bundle at least a few quark shaders --
although I still need to default to Direct3D on Windows.
Turbo keys would be nice, if it's not too much effort. Aside from
netplay, it's the last significant feature I'm missing.
I think for v107, higan is going to be a bit rough around the edges
compared to bsnes. And I don't think it's practical to finish the bsnes
localization support.
I'm thinking we probably want another WIP to iron out any critical
issues, but this time there should be a feature freeze with the next
WIP.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- nall/GNUmakefile: fixed findstring parameter arguments [Screwtape]
- nall/Windows: always include -mthreads -lpthread for all
applications
- nall/memory: code restructuring
I really wanted to work on the new PPU today, but I thought I'd spend a
few minutes making some minor improvements to nall::memory, that was
five and a half hours ago. Now I have a 67KiB diff of changes. Sigh.
byuu says:
This release provides several major improvements to Mega Drive emulation
which enhances compatibility a good deal. It also includes important
Super Famicom mosaic emulation improvements, plus a much-needed SuperFX
save state issue fix.
Changelog (since v104):
- higan: many improvements to Emulator::Interface to support
forks/frontends
- higan: refreshed program icon
- icarus: new program icon
- Game Boy Advance: slight emulation speedup over v104
- Game Boy Advance: synchronize APU FIFO updates better
- Mega Drive: added automatic region detection [hex_usr]
- Mega Drive: support 8-bit SRAM
- Game Boy Advance: fixed bug when changing to THUMB mode via MSR
[MerryMage]
- Master System: fix bug in backdrop color and background 0 priority
[hex_usr]
- Mega Drive: backgrounds always update output priority bit [Cydrak]
- Mega Drive: emulated interlaced video output
- Mega Drive: emulated shadow/highlight mode [Cydrak]
- Super Famicom: auto joypad polling clears the shift register when
starting
- Super Famicom: added new low-entropy RAM initialization mode to more
closely match hardware
- Game Boy Advance: rumble will now time out after being left on for
500ms
- ruby: improved rumble support in udev input driver [ma_rysia]
- M68K: `move.b (a7)[+/-]` adjust a7 by two
- M68K: illegal/lineA/lineF opcodes do not modify the stack register
- Mega Drive: emulate VIP status bit
- uPD7725: improved emulation of OV1/S1 flags [byuu, AWJ, Lord
Nightmare]
- uPD7725: improved handling of DP, RP updates [Jonas Quinn]
- Super Famicom: improved emulation of mosaic effects in hires,
interlace, and offset-per-tile modes [byuu, Cydrak]
- ruby: improved Direct3D exclusive mode monitor selection [Cydrak]
- Super Famicom: fixed save state bug affecting SuperFX games
[Cydrak]
- Mega Drive: added workaround for Clang compiler bug; allowing this
core to work on macOS [Cydrak, Sintendo]
- higan: hotkeys now also trigger when the main window lacks focus yet
higan is set to allow input on focus loss
- higan: fixed an edge case where `int16_t` ↔ `double` audio
conversion could possibly result in overflows
- higan: fixed a crash on macOS when choosing quit from the
application menu [ncbncb]
Changelog (since the previous WIP):
- higan: restored `make console=true`
- tomoko: if you allow input when main window focus is lost, hotkeys
can now be triggered without focus as well
- hiro/cocoa: fix crash on exit from menu [ncbncb]
- ruby: smarter `double` → `int16_t` conversion to prevent
underflow/overflow
byuu says:
Changelog:
- gba,ws: removed Thread::step() override¹
- processor/m68k: move.b (a7)+ and move.b (a7)- adjust a7 by two, not
by one²
- tomoko: created new initialize(Video,Audio,Input)Driver() functions³
- ruby/audio: split Audio::information into
Audio::available(Devices,Frequencies,Latencies,Channels)³
- ws: added Model::(WonderSwan,WonderSwanColor,SwanCrystal)()
functions for consistency with other cores
¹: this should hopefully fix GBA Pokemon Pinball. Thanks to
SuperMikeMan for pointing out the underlying cause.
²: this fixes A Ressaha de Ikou, Mega Bomberman, and probably more
games.
³: this is the big change: so there was a problem with WASAPI where
you might change your device under the audio settings panel. And your
new device may not support the frequency that your old device used. This
would end up not updating the frequency, and the pitch would be
distorted.
The old Audio::information() couldn't tell you what frequencies,
latencies, or channels were available for all devices simultaneously, so
I had to split them up. The new initializeAudioDriver() function
validates you have a correct driver, or it defaults to none. Then it
validates a correct device name, or it defaults to the first entry in
the list. Then it validates a correct frequency, or defaults to the
first in the list. Then finally it validates a correct latency, or
defaults to the first in the list.
In this way ... we have a clear path now with no API changes required to
select default devices, frequencies, latencies, channel counts: they
need to be the first items in their respective lists.
So, what we need to do now is go through and for every audio driver that
enumerates devices, we need to make sure the default device gets added
to the top of the list. I'm ... not really sure how to do this with most
drivers, so this is definitely going to take some time.
Also, when you change a device, initializeAudioDriver() is called again,
so if it's a bad device, it will disable the audio driver instead of
continuing to send samples at it and hoping that the driver blocked
those API calls when it failed to initialize properly.
Now then ... since it was a decently-sized API change, it's possible
I've broken compilation of the Linux drivers, so please report any
compilation errors so that I can fix them.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- ruby/audio/xaudio2: ported to new ruby API
- ruby/video/cgl: ported to new ruby API (untested, won't compile)
- ruby/video/directdraw: ported to new ruby API
- ruby/video/gdi: ported to new ruby API
- ruby/video/glx: ported to new ruby API
- ruby/video/wgl: ported to new ruby API
- ruby/video/opengl: code cleanups
The macOS CGL driver is sure to have compilation errors. If someone will
post the compilation error log, I can hopefully fix it in one or two
iterations of WIPs.
I am unable to test the Xorg GLX driver, because my FreeBSD desktop
video card drivers do not support OpenGL 3.2. If the driver doesn't
work, I'm going to need help tracking down what broke from the older
releases.
The real fun is still yet to come ... all the Linux-only drivers, where
I don't have a single Linux machine to test with.
Todo:
- libco/fiber
- libco/ucontext (I should really just delete this)
- tomoko: hide main UI window when in exclusive fullscreen mode
byuu says:
Changelog:
- fixed nall/path.hpp compilation issue
- fixed ruby/audio/xaudio header declaration compilation issue (again)
- cleaned up xaudio2.hpp file to match my coding syntax (12.5% of the
file was whitespace overkill)
- added null terminator entry to nall/windows/utf8.hpp argc[] array
- nall/windows/guid.hpp uses the Windows API for generating the GUID
- this should stop all the bug reports where two nall users were
generating GUIDs at the exact same second
- fixed hiro/cocoa compilation issue with uint# types
- fixed major higan/sfc Super Game Boy audio latency issue
- fixed higan/sfc CPU core bug with pei, [dp], [dp]+y instructions
- major cleanups to higan/processor/r65816 core
- merged emulation/native-mode opcodes
- use camel-case naming on memory.hpp functions
- simplify address masking code for memory.hpp functions
- simplify a few opcodes themselves (avoid redundant copies, etc)
- rename regs.* to r.* to match modern convention of other CPU cores
- removed device.order<> concept from Emulator::Interface
- cores will now do the translation to make the job of the UI easier
- fixed plurality naming of arrays in Emulator::Interface
- example: emulator.ports[p].devices[d].inputs[i]
- example: vector<Medium> media
- probably more surprises
Major show-stoppers to the next official release:
- we need to work on GB core improvements: LY=153/0 case, multiple STAT
IRQs case, GBC audio output regs, etc.
- we need to re-add software cursors for light guns (Super Scope,
Justifier)
- after the above, we need to fix the turbo button for the Super Scope
I really have no idea how I want to implement the light guns. Ideally,
we'd want it in higan/video, so we can support the NES Zapper with the
same code. But this isn't going to be easy, because only the SNES knows
when its output is interlaced, and its resolutions can vary as
{256,512}x{224,240,448,480} which requires pixel doubling that was
hard-coded to the SNES-specific behavior, but isn't appropriate to be
exposed in higan/video.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- GB: support modeSelect and RAM for MBC1M (Momotarou Collection)
- audio: implemented native resampling support into Emulator::Stream
- audio: removed nall::DSP completely
Unfortunately, the new resampler didn't turn out quite as fast as I had
hoped. The final hermite resampling added some overhead; and I had to
bump up the kernel count to 500 from 400 to get the buzzing to go away
on my main PC. I think that's due to it running at 48000hz output
instead of 44100hz output, maybe?
Compared to Ryphecha's:
(NES) Mega Man 2: 167fps -> 166fps
(GB) Mega Man II: 224fps -> 200fps
(WSC) Riviera: 143fps -> 151fps
Odd that the WS/WSC ends up faster while the DMG/CGB ends up slower.
But this knocks 922 lines down to 146 lines. The only files left in all
of higan not written (or rewritten) by me are ruby/xaudio2.h and
libco/ppc.c
byuu says:
Changelog:
- WS/WSC: re-added support for screen rotation (code is inside WS core)
- ruby: changed sample(uint16_t left, uint16_t right) to sample(int16_t
left, int16_t right);
- requires casting to uint prior to shifting in each driver, but
I felt it was misleading to use uint16_t just to avoid that
- ruby: WASAPI is now built in by default; has wareya's improvements,
and now supports latency adjust
- tomoko: audio settings panel has new "Exclusive Mode" checkbox for
WASAPI driver only
- note: although the setting *does* take effect in real-time, I'd
suggest restarting the emulator after changing it
- tomoko: audio latency can now be set to 0ms (which in reality means
"the minimum supported by the driver")
- all: increased cothread size from 512KiB to 2MiB to see if it fixes
bullshit AMD driver crashes
- this appears to cause a slight speed penalty due to cache locality
going down between threads, though
byuu says:
Changelog:
- SFC: balanced profile removed
- SFC: performance profile removed
- SFC: code for handling non-threaded CPU, SMP, DSP, PPU removed
- SFC: Coprocessor, Controller (and expansion port) shared Thread code
merged to SFC::Cothread
- Cothread here just means "Thread with CPU affinity" (couldn't think
of a better name, sorry)
- SFC: CPU now has vector<Thread*> coprocessors, peripherals;
- this is the beginning of work to allow expansion port devices to be
dynamically changed at run-time
- ruby: all audio drivers default to 48000hz instead of 22050hz now if
no frequency is assigned
- note: the WASAPI driver can default to whatever the native frequency
is; doesn't have to be 48000hz
- tomoko: removed the ability to change the frequency from the UI (but
it will display the frequency used)
- tomoko: removed the timing settings panel
- the goal is to work toward smooth video via adaptive sync
- the model is broken by not being in control of the audio frequency
anyway
- it's further broken by PAL running at 50hz and WSC running at 75hz
- it was always broken anyway by SNES interlace timing varying from
progressive timing
- higan: audio/ stub created (for now, it's just nall/dsp/ moved here
and included as a header)
- higan: video/ stub created
- higan/GNUmakefile: now includes build rules for essential components
(libco, emulator, audio, video)
The audio changes are in preparation to merge wareya's awesome WASAPI
work without the need for the nall/dsp resampler.
byuu says:
Note: balanced/performance profiles still broken, sorry.
Changelog:
- added nall/GNUmakefile unique() function; used on linking phase of
higan
- added nall/unique_pointer
- target-tomoko and {System}::Video updated to use
unique_pointer<ClassName> instead of ClassName* [1]
- locate() updated to search multiple paths [2]
- GB: pass gekkio's if_ie_registers and boot_hwio-G test ROMs
- FC, GB, GBA: merge video/ into the PPU cores
- ruby: fixed ~AudioXAudio2() typo
[1] I expected this to cause new crashes on exit due to changing the
order of destruction of objects (and deleting things that weren't
deleted before), but ... so far, so good. I guess we'll see what crops
up, especially on OS X (which is already crashing for unknown reasons on
exit.)
[2] right now, the search paths are: programpath(), {configpath(),
"higan/"}, {localpath(), "higan/"}; but we can add as many more as we
want, and we can also add platform-specific versions.
byuu says:
This WIP substantially restructures the ruby API for the first time
since that project started.
It is my hope that with this restructuring, destruction of the ruby
objects should now be deterministic, which should fix the crashing on
closing the emulator on Linux. We'll see I guess ... either way, it
removed two layers of wrappers from ruby, so it's a pretty nice code
cleanup.
It won't compile on Windows due to a few issues I didn't see until
uploading the WIP, too lazy to upload another. But I fixed all the
compilation issues locally, so it'll work on Windows again with the next
WIP (unless I break something else.)
(Kind of annoying that Linux defines glActiveTexture but Windows
doesn't.)
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:
Changelog:
- port: various compilation fixes for OS X [kode54]
- nall: added programpath() function to return path to process binary
[todo: need to have ethos use this function]
- ruby: XAudio2 will select default game sound device instead of first
sound device
- ruby: DirectInput device IDs are no longer ambiguous when VID+PID are
identical
- ruby: OpenGL won't try and terminate if it hasn't been initialized
- gb: D-pad up+down/left+right not masked in SGB mode
- sfc: rewrote ICD2 video rendering to output in real-time, work with
cycle-based Game Boy renderer
- sfc: rewrote Bus::reduce(), reduces game loading time by about 500ms
- ethos: store save states in {game}/higan/* instead of {game}/bsnes/*
- loki: added target-loki/ (blank stub for now)
- Makefile: purge out/* on make clean
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 describes the changes since v067:
This release officially introduces the accuracy and performance cores,
alongside the previously-existing compatibility core. The accuracy core
allows the most accurate SNES emulation ever seen, with every last
processor running at the lowest possible clock synchronization level.
The performance core allows slower computers the chance to finally use
bsnes. It is capable of attaining 60fps in standard games even on an
entry-level Intel Atom processor, commonly found in netbooks.
The accuracy core is absolutely not meant for casual gaming at all. It
is meant solely for getting as close to 100% perfection as possible, no
matter the cost to speed. It should only be used for testing,
development or debugging.
The compatibility core is identical to bsnes v067 and earlier, but is
now roughly 10% faster. This is the default and recommended core for
casual gaming.
The performance core contains an entirely new S-CPU core, with
range-tested IRQs; and uses blargg's heavily-optimized S-DSP core
directly. Although there are very minor accuracy tradeoffs to increase
speed, I am confident that the performance core is still more accurate
and compatible than any other SNES emulator. The S-CPU, S-SMP, S-DSP,
SuperFX and SA-1 processors are all clock-based, just as in the accuracy
and compatibility cores; and as always, there are zero game-specific
hacks. Its compatibility is still well above 99%, running even the most
challenging games flawlessly.
If you have held off from using bsnes in the past due to its system
requirements, please give the performance core a try. I think you will
be impressed. I'm also not finished: I believe performance can be
increased even further.
I would also strongly suggest Windows Vista and Windows 7 users to take
advantage of the new XAudio2 driver by OV2. Not only does it give you
a performance boost, it also lowers latency and provides better sound by
way of skipping an API emulation layer.
Changelog:
- Split core into three profiles: accuracy, compatibility and
performance
- Accuracy core now takes advantage of variable-bitlength integers (eg
uint24_t)
- Performance core uses a new S-CPU core, written from scratch for speed
- Performance core uses blargg's snes_dsp library for S-DSP emulation
- Binaries are now compiled using GCC 4.5
- Added a workaround in the SA-1 core for a bug in GCC 4.5+
- The clock-based S-PPU renderer has greatly improved OAM emulation;
fixing Winter Gold and Megalomania rendering issues
- Corrected pseudo-hires color math in the clock-based S-PPU renderer;
fixing Super Buster Bros backgrounds
- Fixed a clamping bug in the Cx4 16-bit triangle operation [Jonas
Quinn]; fixing Mega Man X2 "gained weapon" star background effect
- Updated video renderer to properly handle mixed-resolution screens
with interlace enabled; fixing Air Strike Patrol level briefing screen
- Added mightymo's 2010-08-19 cheat code pack
- Windows port: added XAudio2 output support [OV2]
- Source: major code restructuring; virtual base classes for processor
- cores removed, build system heavily modified, etc.
byuu says:
Added OV2's XAudio2 driver (it's better and faster than the DirectSound
one)
Fixed DirectInput keypad number codes
Added launcher to make the profiles work
Profiles now called: Accuracy, Compatibility, Performance (not debating
names anymore)
The launcher isn't going to work on OS X because of the .app folder
bullshit (yes, yes, .sfc folders.)
It also crashes on Windows XP for god only knows what reason. Works fine
on Windows 7 and Linux. So XP users, rename the .dll files to .exe to
test this release. I'll fix it on Monday.
The color highlighting fucks up the radio boxes on the Windows classic
theme, because Nokia can't afford a god damn QA team.
Lastly, I forgot to add launcher to the make archive-all command, so the
source for it will be in the next WIP.
Tim Allen