byuu says:
Changelog:
- added all pre-requisite to make install rule (note: only for higan,
icarus so far)
- added SG-1000 emulation
- added SC-3000 emulation (no keyboard support yet)
- added MS graphics mode 1 emulation (SC-1000)
- added MS graphics mode 2 emulation (F-16 Fighter)
- improve Audio::process() to prevent a possible hang
- higan: repeat monaural audio to both left+right speakers
- icarus: add heuristics for importing MSX games (not emulated in
higan yet in this WIP)
- added DC bias removal filter [jsd1982]
- improved Audio::Stream::reset() [jsd1982]
I was under the impression that the 20hz highpass filter would have
removed DC bias ... if not, then I don't know why I added that filter to
all of the emulation cores that have it. In any case, if anyone is up
for helping me out ... if we could analyze the output with and without
the DC bias filter to see if it's actually helping, then I'll enable it
if it is. To enable it, edit
higan/audio/stream.cpp::addDCRemovalFilter() and remove the return
statement at the top of the function.
byuu says:
This synchronizes bsnes/higan with many recent internal nall changes.
This will be the last WIP until I am situated in Japan. Apologies for the
bugfixes that didn't get applied yet, I ran out of time.
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:
Changelog:
- created new bsnes target (it currently does nothing)
- Super Famicom: fixed BS Memory pack support in the MCC emulation
- icarus: fixed manifest-free support for BS Memory flash-based
cartridges
- icarus: database improvements
byuu says:
Changelog:
- higan: target-tomoko has been renamed to target-higan
- Super Famicom: event has been renamed to
processor(architecture=uPD78214)
- Super Famicom: SNES-EVENT supported once more; under board IDs
EVENT-CC92 and EVENT-PF94
- Super Famicom: SNES-EVENT preliminarily set up to use DIP switch
settings ala the Nintendo Super System (incomplete)
- Super Famicom: MCC PSRAM moved inside the MCU, as it is remappable
- Super Famicom: MCC emulation rewritten from scratch; it is now
vastly more accurate than before
- Super Famicom: added BSC-1A5B9P-01 board definition to database;
corrected BS-MCC-RAM board definition
- Super Famicom: moved SHVC-LN3B-01 RAM outside of
processor(identifier=SDD1)
- higan: when selecting a default game to load for a new system entry,
it will change the system option to match the media type
- higan: the load text box on the system entry window is now editable;
can be used to erase entries
- icarus: fixed bug in Famicom importing
- icarus: importing unappended SNES coprocessor firmware will now
rename the firmware properly
- hiro/GTK,Qt: WM_CLASS is now set correctly in `argv[0]`, so
applications should show “higan”, “icarus” instead of “hiro” now
Note: if you wish to run the BS-X town cartridge, the database currently
lists the download RAM as type “PSRAM”. This needs to be changed to
“RAM” in order to load properly. Otherwise, the emulator will bomb
out on the load window, because BSC-1A5B9P-01 expects PSRAM to always be
present, but it won't find it with the wrong memory type. I'll correct
this in the database in a later release. For now, you can copy the game
portion of the manifest to a new manifest.bml file and drop it into the
gamepak folder until I fix the database.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: fixed loading of BS Memory and Sufami Turbo
cartridges
- Super Famicom: renamed NSS to DIP; as that's really all it is, it's
not true NSS emulation
- Super Famicom: slot loading now happens inside of board parsing
instead of generically in loadCartridge()
- Super Famicom: BS-X cartridges with flash memory now serialize their
data and write it out to disk¹
- icarus: fixed Famicom game importing (hopefully) and set file import
title to “Load ROM File”
¹: there's no emulation of write commands yet, so the data is never
going to change anyway. This is just in preparation for more advanced
emulation of BS Memory cartridges.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: everything outside of Nintendo Super System, Campus
Challenge '92 and Powerfest '94 should play
- Super Famicom: removed RAM from coprocessor/event (should use global
RAM)
- Super Famicom: removed RAM from SDD1 (should use global RAM)
- icarus: fixed Super Famicom game importing [hex_usr]
Also worth reminding that you'll need to disable database lookup in
order to run the BS-X Town cartridge right now. Plus, Star Ocean's
database entry still has the RAM in the wrong spot. The MSU1 code is not
looking at the right locations for data, so it's not going to work in
this release either.
I need to figure out what to call coprocessor/event and coprocessor/nss,
as neither are slots or processors like everything else.
Outside of those issues, all games for all systems should be playable,
at least to the extent they were in v106.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- major restructuring of board manifests
- cleanup of generic board names
- Super Famicom: updates to SA1, SuperFX, Cx4, SPC7110, EpsonRTC,
SharpRTC load/save code
- Super Famicom: added experimental SuperFX plot dithering fix
[qwertymodo]
- higan, icarus: rename shared folders to lowercase names; put .sys
folders into new subfolder
- Video Shaders/ → shaders/
- Database/ → database/
- Firmware/ → firmware/
- \*.sys/ → systems/\*.sys/
So right now, only standard SNES games, SA-1, SuperFX, and Cx4 games
load. I have not tested SPC7110 or RTC support, because icarus import
seems to be completely broken? It's creating blank folders when I try it
now. I'll have to fix that ...
Since we are now up to thirteen systems, I've put the .sys folders into
a subfolder. This should declutter the main higan-windows release folder
a good deal. Linux users will need to re-run make install, or manually
move things into a new systems/ subfolder.
Same goes for icarus: lowercase the database/ and firmware/ folders or
re-run make install.
I don't know if qwertymodo's SuperFX fix is exactly correct or not.
Hopefully it is, but I didn't write a test ROM or anything to be
certain. Since SuperFX games should run, if people could please play
through some of them and look for any regressions, that'd be very much
appreciated.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- tomoko: the library menu is now called the systems menu (even in
code)
- tomoko: added icons to menus (disambiguates systems menu entries)
- icarus: added missing .ws, .wsc extensions to scan dialog search
list
- higan: added Benesse - Pocket Challenge V2 emulation¹
¹: the Benesse - Pocket Challenge V2 is a WonderSwan (ASWAN) SoC
inside a custom designed shell. Games made for the WonderSwan (mostly)
run on the Pocket Challenge V2 and vice versa. The big difference is
that the Benesse has a different number of input buttons, that are also
named differently. Of course, right now, I don't know what the buttons
are named or where they're mapped on the 16-input keypad matrix I/O
port. It's also possible that the internal EEPROM doesn't exist, it
definitely has a unique (and also undumped) IPLROM, and other things.
The ROMs have their own .pc2 file extension. So it's getting its own
system entry.
What I'm going to do for v107 and above is utilize the new systems
configuration to mark the Benesse as hidden by default from the main
menu. I don't think anyone in the world will actually care or want to
play this, but there was really no reason not to add it.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- higan, icarus, genius: new manifest syntax (work in progress)
Pretty much only LoROM and HiROM SNES games will load right now, and RAM
will only work right if the save.ram file already exists to pull its
file size from (a temporary cheap hack was used.)
Basically, I'm just getting this out there for evaluation.
One minor errata is that I switched icarus to using “memory/battery” to
indicate battery-backed RAM, whereas genius still uses “memory/volatile”
to indicate non-battery-backed RAM.
I intend to make it “memory/battery” in genius, and have the field
auto-enable when RAM or RTC is selected for type (obviously allowing it
to be unchecked for volatile memory.)
I need to update all 64 production boards, and 25 of 29 generic boards,
to use the new slot syntax; and I also need to update every single core
in higan to use the new manifest game syntax. I want to build out a
generic manifest game parser that all emulation cores will use.
Once I finish this, I'll also need to write a database converter to
update all of my licensed game dumps to the new database syntax.
I also need to write up something for doc.byuu.org explaining the new
manifest game syntax. The manifest board syntax will still be “internal”
and subject to revisions, but once v107 is out, the gamepak manifest
format will be set in stone sans extensions.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Game Boy: for the 50th time, higan won't segfault if you
cancel the Game Boy cartridge load request
- icarus: moved to new manifest syntax for all remaining systems
- Game Boy: moved to new manifest syntax
Errata:
- Game Boy: save RAM does not appear to be working for some reason
- Famicom: higan won't even start to run this system; it just acts
like a cartridge was never loaded ...
- cores outside of the Super Famicom and Game Boy/Color will not run
due to icarus/higan manifest syntax differences
byuu says:
Changelog:
- icarus: new Firmware/ folder, which is used to import external
firmware when it's missing from the ROM image
- icarus: improved Super Famicom heuristics; including Shift-JIS to
UTF-8 encoding of game titles
Errata:
- if firmware isn't appended, it still cuts out the size from the
memory/program.rom file
- boards.bml is still missing the new Japanese production boards
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: added remaining generic board types
- icarus: improved Super Famicom heuristics
- icarus: reworked BS Memory heuristics
- icarus: reworked Sufami Turbo heuristics
Notes: this is really complicated, and is going to take a long time to
work 100% smoothly again.
Starting off, I am trying to get rid of the weird edge case zero-byte
SRAM mapping for the Cx4. It has the RAM region present, but returns
logic low (0x00) instead of open bus, when SRAM isn't present. I started
by making it `map=ram` instead of `ram/map`, which is gross, and then it ended
up detecing the map tag ending in RAM and pulling the Cx4 data RAM into that
slot. Ugh. The preservation board mapping is still as it was before and will
need to be updated once I get the syntax down.
The BS Memory and Sufami Turbo moving to the new `game/memory`
ending means I can't use the SuperFamicom::Cartridge::loadMemory
function that looks at the old-style rom/ram tags. Because I didn't
write more code, the result is those sub-carts won't load now.
The old heuristics were short-circuiting on SA1 before bothering with
BS-X slots, so that's why SD Gundam G-Next wasn't asking for a data
pack. The problem is, I don't know where the BS-X pack maps to on this
cartridge. It's at c0-ef on the other BS-X slotted cartridges, but
that's mapped to the SA1 on regular SA1 cartridges, so ... for now, it's
not actually mapped in.
I'm still struggling with naming conventions on all these boards. I'll
make a public post about that, though.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: update to newer board markup syntax
- Super Famicom: update all mapped ROMs to be write-protected
- errata: SPC7110 set ram.writeProtect(true), I'll fix it in the
next WIP
- icarus: rewrote the Super Famicom heuristics module from scratch
Instead of icarus heuristics generating higan-specific mappings, it now
generates generic board IDs that can be used by any emulator. I had
originally planned to print out real PCB ID codes here, but these board
mappings are meant to be more generic, and I don't want them to look
real. The pseudo-codes are easy to parse, for example: `DSP-LOROM-NVRAM`
for Super Mario Kart, `SUPERFX-RAM` for Doom.
I'm going to make a `Boards (Generic).bml` file that will contain mapping
definitions for every board. Until this is done, any games not in the SNES
preservation database will fail to play because the mapping information is
now missing.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: added support for loading manifests without embedded
mapping information¹
- genius: initial commit
- various Makefile cleanups
¹: so the idea here is to try and aim for a stable manifest format,
and to allow direct transposition of icarus/genius database entries into
manifest files. The exact mechanics of how this is going to work is
currently in flux, but we'll get there.
For right now, `Super Famicom.sys` gains `boards.bml`, which is the raw
database from my board-editor tool, and higan itself tries to load
`boards.bml`, match an entry to game/board from the game's `manifest.bml`
file, and then transform it into the format currently used by higan. It
does this only when the game's `manifest.bml` file lacks a board node.
When such a board node exists, it works as previous versions of higan
did.
The only incompatible change right now is information/title is now
located at game/label. I may transition window title display to just use
the filenames instead.
Longer term, some thought is going to need to go into the format of the
`boards.bml` database itself, and at which point in the process I should
be transforming things.
Give it time, we'll refine this into something nicer.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- processor/huc6280,mos6502,wdc65816: replaced abbreviated opcode
names with descriptive names
- nall: replaced `PLATFORM_MACOSX` define with `PLATFORM_MACOS`
- icarus: added `Icarus::missing() -> string_vector` to list missing
appended firmware files by name
- ruby, hiro: fix macosx→macos references
The processor instruction renaming was really about consistency with the
other processor cores. I may still need to do this for one or two more
processors.
The icarus change should allow a future release of the icarus
application to import games with external SNES coprocessor firmware once
again. It will also allow this to be possible when used in library mode.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Emulator::Interface::videoResolution() -\> VideoResolution renamed
to videoInformation() -\> VideoInformation
- added double VideoInformation::refreshRate
- higan: added `binary := (application|library)` — set this to
`library` to produce a dynamic link library
- higan: removed `-march=native` for macOS application builds; and for
all library builds
- higan: removed `console` build flag; uncomment `link += -mwindows`
instead
- nall/GNUmakefile: `macosx` platform renamed `macos`
- still need to do this for nall/intrinsics.hpp
- Game Gear: return region=NTSC as the only option, so that the system
frequency is always set correctly
- hiro/cocoa: fixed typo [Sintendo]
- hiro/Windows: removed GetDpiForMonitor, as it's Windows 8+ only; DPI
is no longer per-monitor aware
- icarus: core Icarus class now has virtual functions for
directory::create, <file::exists>, <file::copy>, <file::write>
- icarus: Sufami Turbo can import save RAM files now
- icarus: setting `ICARUS_LIBRARY` define will compile icarus without
main(), GUI components
- ruby/video/Direct3D: choose the current monitor instead of top-left
monitor for fullscreen exclusive [Cydrak]
- ruby/video/Direct3D: do not set `WS_EX_TOPMOST` on fullscreen
exclusive window [Cydrak]
- this isn't necessary for exclusive mode, and it just makes
getting out of the application more difficult
byuu says:
Changelog:
- md/vdp: added VIP bit to status register; fixes Cliffhanger
- processor/m68k/disassembler: added modes 7 and 8 to LEA address
disassembly
- processor/m68k/disassembler: enhanced ILLEGAL to display LINEA/LINEF
$xxx variants
- processor/m68k: ILLEGAL/LINEA/LINEF do not modify the stack
register; fixes Caeser no Yabou II
- icarus/sfc: request sgb1.boot.rom and sgb2.boot.rom separately; as
they are different
- icarus/sfc: removed support for external firmware when loading ROM
images
The hack to run Mega Drive Ballz 3D isn't in place, as I don't know if
it's correct, and the graphics were corrupted anyway.
The SGB boot ROM change is going to require updating the icarus database
as well. I will add that in when I start dumping more cartridges here
soon.
Finally ... I explained this already, but I'll do so here as well: I
removed icarus' support for loading SNES coprocessor firmware games with
external firmware files (eg dsp1.program.rom + dsp1.data.rom in the same
path as supermariokart.sfc, for example.)
I realize most are going to see this as an antagonizing/stubborn move
given the recent No-Intro discussion, and I won't deny that said thread
is why this came to the forefront of my mind. But on my word, I honestly
believe this was an ineffective solution for many reasons not related to
our disagreements:
1. No-Intro distributes SNES coprocessor firmware as a merged file, eg
"DSP1 (World).zip/DSP1 (World).bin" -- icarus can't possibly know
about every ROM distribution set's naming conventions for firmware.
(Right now, it appears GoodSNES and NSRT are mostly dead; but there
may be more DATs in the future -- including my own.)
2. Even if the user obtains the firmware and tries to rename it, it
won't work: icarus parses manifests generated by the heuristics
module and sees two ROM files: dsp1.program.rom and dsp1.data.rom.
icarus cannot identify a file named dsp1.rom as containing both
of these sub-files. Users are going to have to know how to split
files, which there is no way to do on stock Windows. Merging files,
however, can be done via `copy /b supermariokart.sfc+dsp1.rom
supermariokartdsp.sfc`; - and dsp1.rom can be named whatever now.
I am not saying this will be easy for the average user, but it's
easier than splitting files.
3. Separate firmware breaks icarus' database lookup. If you have
pilotwings.sfc but without firmware, icarus will not find a match
for it in the database lookup phase. It will then fall back on
heuristics. The heuristics will pick DSP1B for compatibility with
Ballz 3D which requires it. And so it will try to pull in the
wrong firmware, and the game's intro will not work correctly.
Furthermore, the database information will be unavailable, resulting
in inaccurate mirroring.
So for these reasons, I have removed said support. You must now load
SNES coprocessor games into higan in one of two ways: 1) game paks with
split files; or 2) SFC images with merged firmware.
If and when No-Intro deploys a method I can actually use, I give you all
my word I will give it a fair shot and if it's reasonable, I'll support
it in icarus.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- PCE: split VCE from VDC
- HuC6280: changed bus from (uint21 addr) to (uint8 bank, uint13 addr)
- added SuperGrafx emulation (adds secondary VDC, plus new VPC)
The VDC now has no concept of the actual display raster timing, and
instead is driven by Vpulse (start of frame) and Hpulse (start of
scanline) signals from the VCE. One still can't render the start of the
next scanline onto the current scanline through overly aggressive
timings, but it shouldn't be too much more difficult to allow that to
occur now. This process incurs quite a major speed hit, so low-end
systems with Atom CPUs can't run things at 60fps anymore.
The timing needs a lot of work. The pixels end up very jagged if the VCE
doesn't output batches of 2-4 pixels at a time. But this should not be a
requirement at all, so I'm not sure what's going wrong there.
Yo, Bro and the 512-width mode of TV Sports Basketball is now broken as
a result of these changes, and I'm not sure why.
To load SuperGrafx games, you're going to have to change the .pce
extensions to .sg or .sgx. Or you can manually move the games from the
PC Engine folder to the SuperGrafx folder and change the game folder
extensions. I have no way to tell the games apart. Mednafen uses CRC32
comparisons, and I may consider that since there's only five games, but
I'm not sure yet.
The only SuperGrafx game that's playable right now is Aldynes. And the
priorities are all screwed up. I don't understand how the windows or the
priorities work at all from sgxtech.txt, so ... yeah. It's pretty
broken, but it's a start.
I could really use some help with this, as I'm very lost right now with
rendering :/
-----
Note that the SuperGrafx is technically its own system, it's not an
add-on.
As such, I'm giving it a separate .sys folder, and a separate library.
There's debate over how to name this thing. "SuperGrafx" appears more
popular than "Super Grafx". And you might also call it the "PC Engine
SuperGrafx", but I decided to leave off the prefix so it appears more
distinct.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- SMS: added cartridge ROM/RAM mirroring (fixes Alex Kidd)
- SMS: fixed 8x16 sprite mode (fixes Wonder Boy, Ys graphics)
- Z80: emulated "ex (sp),hl" instruction
- Z80: fixed INx NF (should be set instead of cleared)
- Z80: fixed loop condition check for CPxR, INxR, LDxR, OTxR (fixes
walking in Wonder Boy)
- SFC: removed Debugger and sfc/debugger.hpp
- icarus: connected MS, GG, MD importing to the scan dialog
- PCE: added emulation skeleton to higan and icarus
At this point, Master System games are fairly highly compatible, sans
audio. Game Gear games are running, but I need to crop the resolution
and support the higher color palette that they can utilize. It's really
something else the way they handled the resolution shrink on that thing.
The last change is obviously going to be the biggest news.
I'm very well aware it's not an ideal time to start on a new emulation
core, with the MS and MD cores only just now coming to life with no
audio support.
But, for whatever reason, my heart's really set on working on the PC
Engine. I wanted to write the final higan skeleton core, and get things
ready so that whenever I'm in the mood to work on the PCE, I can do so.
The skeleton is far and away the most tedious and obnoxious part of the
emulator development, because it's basically all just lots of
boilerplate templated code, lots of new files to create, etc.
I really don't know how things are going to proceed ... but I can say
with 99.9% certainty that this will be the final brand new core ever
added to higan -- at least one written by me, that is. This was
basically the last system from my childhood that I ever cared about.
It's the last 2D system with games that I really enjoy playing. No other
system is worth dividing my efforts and reducing the quality and amount
of time to work on the systems I have.
In the future, there will be potential for FDS, Mega CD and PCE-CD
support. But those will all be add-ons, and they'll all be really
difficult and challenge the entire design of higan's UI (it's entirely
cartridge-driven at this time.) None of them will be entirely new cores
like this one.
byuu says:
Sorry, two WIPs in one day. Got excited and couldn't wait.
Changelog:
- ADDQ, SUBQ shouldn't update flags when targeting an address register
- ADDA should sign extend effective address reads
- JSR was pushing the PC too early
- some improvements to 8-bit register reads on the VDP (still needs
work)
- added H/V counter reads to the VDP IO port region
- icarus: added support for importing Master System and Game Gear ROMs
- tomoko: added library sub-menus for each manufacturer
- still need to sort Game Gear after Mega Drive somehow ...
The sub-menu system actually isn't all that bad. It is indeed a bit more
annoying, but not as annoying as I thought it was going to be. However,
it looks a hell of a lot nicer now.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- moved Thread, Scheduler, Cheat functionality into emulator/ for
all cores
- start of actual Mega Drive emulation (two 68K instructions)
I'm going to be rather terse on MD emulation, as it's too early for any
meaningful dialogue here.
byuu says:
Sigh ... I'm really not a good person. I'm inherently selfish.
My responsibility and obligation right now is to work on loki, and
then on the Tengai Makyou Zero translation, and then on improving the
Famicom emulation.
And yet ... it's not what I really want to do. That shouldn't matter;
I should work on my responsibilities first.
Instead, I'm going to be a greedy, self-centered asshole, and work on
what I really want to instead.
I'm really sorry, guys. I'm sure this will make a few people happy,
and probably upset even more people.
I'm also making zero guarantees that this ever gets finished. As always,
I wish I could keep these things secret, so if I fail / give up, I could
just drop it with no shame. But I would have to cut everyone out of the
WIP process completely to make it happen. So, here goes ...
This WIP adds the initial skeleton for Sega Mega Drive / Genesis
emulation. God help us.
(minor note: apparently the new extension for Mega Drive games is .md,
neat. That's what I chose for the folders too. I thought it was .smd,
so that'll be fixed in icarus for the next WIP.)
(aside: this is why I wanted to get v100 out. I didn't want this code in
a skeleton state in v100's source. Nor did I want really broken emulation,
which the first release is sure to be, tarring said release.)
...
So, basically, I've been ruminating on the legacy I want to leave behind
with higan. 3D systems are just plain out. I'm never going to support
them. They're too complex for my abilities, and they would run too slowly
with my design style. I'm not willing to compromise my design ideals. And
I would never want to play a 3D game system at native 240p/480i resolution
... but 1080p+ upscaling is not accurate, so that's a conflict I want
to avoid entirely. It's also never going to emulate computer systems
(X68K, PC-98, FM-Towns, etc) because holy shit that would completely
destroy me. It's also never going emulate arcade machines.
So I think of higan as a collection of 2D emulators for consoles
and handhelds. I've gone over every major 2D gaming system there is,
looking for ones with games I actually care about and enjoy. And I
basically have five of those systems supported already. Looking at the
remaining list, I see only three systems left that I have any interest
in whatsoever: PC-Engine, Master System, Mega Drive. Again, I'm not in
any way committing to emulating any of these, but ... if I had all of
those in higan, I think I'd be content to really, truly, finally stop
writing more emulators for the rest of my life.
And so I decided to tackle the most difficult system first. If I'm
successful, the Z80 core should cover a lot of the work on the SMS. And
the HuC6280 should land somewhere between the NES and SNES in terms of
difficulty ... closer to the NES.
The systems that just don't appeal to me at all, which I will never touch,
include, but are not limited to:
* Atari 2600/5200/7800
* Lynx
* Jaguar
* Vectrex
* Colecovision
* Commodore 64
* Neo-Geo
* Neo-Geo Pocket / Color
* Virtual Boy
* Super A'can
* 32X
* CD-i
* etc, etc, etc.
And really, even if something were mildly interesting in there ... we
have to stop. I can't scale infinitely. I'm already way past my limit,
but I'm doing this anyway. Too many cores bloats everything and kills
quality on everything. I don't want higan to become MESS v2.
I don't know what I'll do about the Famicom Disk System, PC-Engine CD,
and Mega CD. I don't think I'll be able to achieve 60fps emulating the
Mega CD, even if I tried to.
I don't know what's going to happen here with even the Mega Drive. Maybe
I'll get driven crazy with the documentation and quit. Maybe it'll end
up being too complicated and I'll quit. Maybe the emulation will end up
way too slow and I'll give up. Maybe it'll take me seven years to get
any games playable at all. Maybe Steve Snake, AamirM and Mike Pavone
will pool money to hire a hitman to come after me. Who knows.
But this is what I want to do, so ... here goes nothing.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- hiro: BrowserDialog can navigate up to drive selection on Windows
- nall: (file,path,dir,base,prefix,suffix)name =>
Location::(file,path,dir,base,prefix,suffix)
- higan/tomoko: rename audio filter label from "Sinc" to "IIR - Biquad"
- higan/tomoko: allow loading files via icarus on the command-line
once again
- higan/tomoko: (begrudging) quick hack to fix presentation window focus
on startup
- higan/audio: don't divide output audio volume by number of streams
- processor/r65816: fix a regression in (read,write)DB; fixes Taz-Mania
- fixed compilation regressions on Windows and Linux
I'm happy with where we are at with code cleanups and stability, so I'd
like to release v100. But even though I'm not assigning any special
significance to this version, we should probably test it more thoroughly
first.
byuu says:
Absolutely major improvements to the WS/C emulation today.
Changelog: (all WS/C related)
- fixed channel 3 sweep pitch adjustment
- fixed channel 3 sweep value sign extension
- removed errant channel 5 speed setting (not what's really going on)
- fixed sign extension on channel 5 samples
- improved DAC mixing of all five audio channels
- fixed r26 regression with PPU timing loop
- fixed sprite windowing behavior (sprite attribute flag is window mode;
not window enable)
- added per-scanline register latching to the PPU
- IRQs should terminate HLT even when the IRQ enable register bits are
clear
- fixed PALMONO reads
- added blur emulation
- added color emulation (based on GBA, so it heavily desaturates colors;
not entirely correct, but it helps a lot)
- no longer decimating audio to 24KHz; running at full 3.072MHz through
the windowed sinc filter [1]
- cleaned up PPU portRead / portWrite functions significantly
- emulated a weird quirk as mentioned by trap15 regarding timer
frequency writes enabling said timers [2]
- emulated LCD_CTRL sleep bit; screen can now be disabled (always draws
black in this case for now)
- improved OAM caching; but it's still disabled because it causes huge
amounts of sprite glitches (unsure why)
- fixed rendering of sprites that wrap around the screen edges back to
the top/left of the display
- emulated keypad interrupts
- icarus: detect orientation bit in game header
- higan: use orientation setting in manifest to set default screen
rotation
[1] the 24KHz -> 3.072MHz sound change is huge. Sound is substantially
improved over the previous WIPs. It does come at a pretty major speed
penalty, though. This is the highest frequency of any system in higan
running through an incredibly (amazing, yet) demanding sinc resampler.
Frame rate dropped from around 240fps to 150fps with the sinc filter on.
If you choose a different audio filter, you'll get most of that speed
back, but audio will sound worse again.
[2] we aren't sure if this is correct hardware behavior or not. It seems
to very slightly help Magical Drop, but not much.
The blur emulation is brutal. It's absolutely required for Riviera's
translucency simulation of selected menu items, but it causes serious
headaches due to the WS's ~75hz refresh rate running on ~60hz monitors
without vsync. It's probably best to leave it off and just deal with the
awful flickering on Riviera's menu options.
Overall, WS/C emulation is starting to get quite usable indeed. Couple
of major bugs that I'd really like to get fixed before releasing it,
though. But they're getting harder and harder to fix ...
Major Bugs:
- Final Fantasy battle background music is absent. Sound effects still
work. Very weird.
- Final Fantasy IV scrolling during airship flight opening sequence is
horribly broken. Scrolls one screen at a time.
- Magical Drop flickers like crazy in-game. Basically unplayable like
this.
- Star Hearts character names don't appear in the smaller dialog box
that pops up.
Minor Bugs:
- Occasional flickering during Riviera opening scenes.
- One-frame flicker of Leda's sprite at the start of the first stage.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- icarus: WS/C detects RAM type/size heuristically now
- icarus: WS/C uses ram type=$type instead of $type
- WS: use back color instead of white for backdrop
- WS: fixed sprite count limit; removes all the garbled sprites from
GunPey
- WS: hopefully fixed sprite priority with screen 2
- WS: implemented keypad polling; GunPey is now fully playable
- SNES: added Super Disc expansion port device (doesn't do anything,
just for testing)
Note: WS is hard-coded to vertical orientation right now. But there's
basic code in there for all the horizontal stuff.
byuu says:
This is a few days old, but oh well.
This WIP changes nall,hiro,ruby,icarus back to (u)int(8,16,32,64)_t.
I'm slowly pushing for (u)int(8,16,32,64) to use my custom
Integer<Size>/Natural<Size> classes instead. But it's going to be one
hell of a struggle to get that into higan.
byuu says:
More V30MZ implemented, a lot more to go.
icarus now supports importing WS and WSC games. It expects them to have
the correct file extension, same for GB and GBC.
> Ugh, apparently HiDPI icarus doesn't let you press the check boxes.
I set the flag value in the plist to false for now. Forgot to do it for
higan, but hopefully I won't forget before release.
byuu says:
A minor WIP to get us started.
Changelog:
- System::Video merged to PPU::Video
- System::Audio merged to DSP::Audio
- System::Configuration merged to Interface::Settings
- created emulator/emulator.cpp and accompanying object file for shared
code between all cores
Currently, emulator.cpp just holds a videoColor() function that takes
R16G16B16, performs gamma/saturation/luma adjust, and outputs
(currently) A8R8G8B8. It's basically an internal function call for cores
to use when generating palette entries. This code used to exist inside
ui-tomoko/program/interface.cpp, but we have to move it internal for
software display emulation. But in the future, we could add other useful
cross-core functionality here.
byuu says:
This WIP finally achieves the vision I've had for icarus.
I also fixed a mapping issue with Cx4 that, oddly enough, only caused
the "2" from the Mega Man X2 title screen to disappear.
[Editor's note - "the vision for icarus" was described in a separate,
public forum post: http://board.byuu.org/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?p=20584
Quoting for posterity:
icarus is now a full-fledged part of higan, and will be bundled with
each higan WIP as well. This will ensure that in the future, the
exact version of icarus you need to run higan will be included right
along with it. As of this WIP, physical manifest files are now truly
and entirely optional.
From now on, you can associate your ROM image files with higan's
main binary, or drop them directly on top of it, to load and play
your games.
Furthermore, there are two new menu options that appear under the
library menu when icarus is present:
- "Load ROM File ..." => gives you a single-file selection dialog to
import (and if possible) run the game
- "Import ROM Files ..." => gives you a multi-file import dialog
with checkboxes to pull in multiple games at once
Finally, as before, icarus can generate manifest.bml files for
folders that lack them.
For people who like the game folder and library system, nothing's
changed. Keep using higan as you have been.
For people who hate it, you can now use higan like your classic
emulators. Treat the "Library->{System Name}" entries as your
"favorites" list: the games you actually play. Treat the
"Library->Load ROM" as your standard open file dialog in other
emulators. And finally, treat "Advanced->Game Library" as your save
data path for cheat codes, save states, save RAM, etc.
]
byuu says:
higan supports Event mapping again.
Further, icarus can now detect Event ROMs and MSU1 games.
Event ROMs must be named "program.rom", "slot-(1,2,3).rom" MSU1 games
must contain "msu1.rom"; and tracks must be named "track-#.pcm"
When importing the CC'92, PF'94 ROMs, the program.rom and
slot-(1,2,3).rom files must be concatenated. The DSP firmware can
optionally be separate, but I'd recommend you go ahead and merge it all
to one file. Especially since that common "higan DSP pack" floating
around on the web left out the DSP1 ROMs (only has DSP1B) for god knows
what reason.
There is no support for loading "game.sfc+game.msu+game-*.pcm", because
I'm not going to support trying to pull in all of those files through
importing. Games will have to be distributed as game folders to use
MSU1. The MSU1 icarus support is simply so your game folders won't
require an unstable manifest.bml file to be played. So once they're in
there, they are good for life.
Note: the Event sizes in icarus' SFC heuristics are wrong for appended
firmware. Change from 0xXX8000 to 0xXX2000 and it works fine. Will be
fixed in r18.
Added Sintendo's flickering fixes. The window one's a big help for
regular controls, but the ListView double buffering does nothing for me
on Windows 7 :( Fairly sure I know why, but too lazy to try and fix that
now.
Also fixes the mMenu thing.
byuu says (in the WIP forum):
Changelog:
- satellaviewcartridge/SatellaviewCartridge is now bsmemory/BSMemory
- Emulation/BS-X Satellaview/ is now Emulation/BS Memory/
- masking is in for MCC's mcu (awful hack in the code, but that's
temporary)
- BS Memory types are now "flash" or "mrom"
- fixed loading Same Game - Tengai Hen
- icarus fixed up a lot; can load database entries for any supported
media type now (only the SFC DB exists currently)
mMenu::remove() fix will be in the next WIP.
byuu says (in the public beta thread):
Changelog:
- GBA emulation accuracy improved quite a bit
- video shaders are supported once again
- icarus shares settings.bml with higan; changing library path in
one now affects the other
- icarus manifest generation now uses my SNES game dumping database
for perfect mapping of US games
- major overhaul to manifest file format. As long as you have
v095-style folders without manifest.bml, you will be fine
- if not, go to higan->settings->configuration->advanced and check
"Ignore Manifests" before loading your first game
- new "Manifest Viewer" tool (not really meant for regular users;
more of a developer tool)
- experimental (but disabled in the binary) WASAPI driver. Help
stabilizing it would be *greatly* appreciated!
- lots of other stuff
r13 and r14 weren't posted as individual releases, but their changelogs
were posted.
byuu says about r13:
I'm not going to be posting WIPs for r13 and above for a while.
The reason is that I'm working on the major manifest overhaul I've
discussed previously on the icarus subforum.
I'm recreating my boards database from scratch using the map files
and the new map analyzer. The only games that will load are ones
I've created board definitions for, and updated
sfc/cartridge/markup.cpp to parse. Once I've finished all the
boards, then I'll update the heuristics.
Then finally, I'll sync the syntax changes over to the fc, gb, gba
cores.
Once that's done, I'll start posting WIPs again, along with a new
build of icarus.
But I'll still post changelogs as I work through things.
Changelog (r13):
- preservation: created new database-builder tool (merges
region-specific databases with boards)
- icarus: support new, external database format
(~/.config/icarus/Database/(Super Famicom.bml, ...)
- added 1A3B-(10,11,12); 1A3B-20
byuu says about r14:
r14 work:
I successfully created mappings for every board used in the US set.
I also updated icarus' heuristics to use the new mappings, and
created ones there for the boards that are only in the JP set.
Then I patched icarus to support pulling games out of the database
when it's used on a game folder to generate a manifest file.
Then I updated a lot of code in higan/sfc to support the new mapping
syntax. sfc/cartridge/markup.cpp is about half the size it used to
be with the new mappings, and I was able to kill off both map/id and
map/select entirely.
Then I updated all four emulated systems (and both subsystems) to
use "board" as the root node, and harmonized their syntax (made them
all more consistent with each other.)
Then I added a manifest viewer to the tools window+menu. It's kind
of an advanced user feature, but oh well. No reason to coddle people
when the feature is very useful for developers. The viewer will show
all manifests in order when you load multi-cart games as well.
Still not going to call any syntax 100% done right now, but
thankfully with the new manifest-free folders, nobody will have to
do anything to use the new format. Just download the new version and
go.
The Super Famicom Event stuff is currently broken (CC92/PF94
boards). That's gonna be fun to support.
byuu says about r15:
EDIT: small bug in icarus with heuristics. Edit
core/super-famicom.cpp line 27:
if(/*auto*/ markup = cartridge.markup) {
Gotta remove that "auto" so that it returns valid markup.
Resolved the final concerns I had with the new manifest format.
Right now there are two things that are definitely broken: MCC (BS-X
Town cart) and Event (CC '92 and PF'94).
And there are a few things that are untested: SPC7110, EpsonRTC,
SharpRTC, SDD1+RAM, SufamiTurbo, BS-X slotted carts.
byuu says:
This release adds a settings dialog that lets you control the library
path, optionally generate manifest.bml files, and optionally bypass the
internal games database (so far this is only the US SNES set.)
Also, the settings.bml file can exist in the same folder as the binary
now (portable mode). Plus it can share the same config file as
higan/tomoko itself does. This will allow you to change the library
location in either program and have it affect the other program as well.
It's a bit hackish, but it works >_>
Note: don't use this with higan v095.06 or earlier, or bad things will
happen.
byuu says:
- fixes checkboxes (-again- again [*again*])
- won't check folders with select all / unselect all
- won't crash anymore if the SNES ROM image is too small (Saturday Night
Slam Masters was crashing it before due to DB size error)
- corrected heuristics for Sufami Turbo base cart (mirrors the
absurdities of the real cart precisely, since it's one of a kind)
- corrected a few DB issues (BS-X name + PSRAM (again [*again*]), SNSM,
LAH) (_again_)
- these are temporary. Monkey patched in the generated .hpp source
rather than the actual DB
- not going to fix the SFT sizes because I want to verify what
happened there first
byuu says:
Changelog:
- return open bus instead of mirroring addresses on the bus (fixes
Mario&Luigi, Minish Cap, etc) [Jonas Quinn]
- add boolean flag to load requests for slotted game carts (fixes slot
load prompts)
- rename BS-X Town cart from psram to ram
- icarus: add support for game database
Note: I didn't rename "bsx" to "mcc" in the database for icarus before
uploading that. But I just fixed it locally, so it'll be in the next
WIP. For now, make it create the manifest for you and then rename it
yourself. I did fix the PSRAM size to 256kbit.
Tim Allen