byuu says:
Fixed NSS XML crashing issue.
Improved folder-loading support.
NES can now load game.fc/game.fc, or game.fc/game.prg+game.chr.
Both types should have no iNES header at all.
And both types require an XML file (until we have a built-in database.)
byuu says:
Okay, everything can now load XML again, including board layouts for all
three systems. New is the ability to load external Game Boy layouts (not
really that useful, but it's there.)
I'd like to aim for a v085 release soon. I've included a binary, so I'd
appreciate testing. I had to redo all of the XML mappings for every
system (I like consistency), so basically the following things need to
be tested:
* load one of every type of game for every system (every NES board type,
* every Game Boy MBC type, every SNES chip and layout type.)
* test cheat codes and the cheat database
* test pixel shaders for OpenGL and Direct3D (sepia for the win)
* test anything else for v085 release
byuu says:
Changelog:
- NES: added VRC1, VRC2, VRC3, MMC6 emulation
- shrink window doesn't do anything when no cartridge is loaded
- phoenix Horizontal,VerticalLayout use const Size& instead of unsigned
width,height [for consistency]
So, all official NES ASICs are supported now. Just need sound output for
MMC5+VRC7 to complete them; and then some board re-arrangement stuff for
VRC2+MMC3.
Note that MMC6 uses the same mapper ID as MMC3, and VRC2 uses the same
ID as VRC4, so you have to make a BML board mapping or toggle which type
is chosen in the source file to use these two chips.
Side note: NES overscan clamping is obviously still assuming 16-bit, as
only half the lines are erased. Need to fix that.
byuu says:
Added MMC2, MMC4, VRC4, VRC7 (no audio.)
Split NES audio code up into individual modules.
Fixed libsnes to compile: Themaister, can you please test to make sure
it works? I don't have a libsnes client on my work PC to test it.
Added about / license information to bottom of advanced settings screen
for now (better than nothing, I guess.)
Blocked PPU reads/writes while rendering for now, easier than coming up
with a bus address locking thing :/
I can't seem to fix MMC5 graphics during the intro to Uchuu Keibitai.
Without that, trying to implement vertical-split screen mode doesn't
make sense.
So as far as special audio chips go ...
* VRC6 is completed
* Sunsoft 5B has everything the only game to use it uses, but there are
more unused channels I'd like to support anyway (they aren't
documented, though.)
* MMC5 audio unsupported for now
* VRC7 audio unsupported, probably for a long time (hardest audio driver
of all. More complex than core NES APU.)
* audio PCM games (Moero Pro Yakyuu!) I probably won't ever support
(they require external WAV packs.)
byuu says:
Enable Overscan->Mask Overscan [best I'm doing]
Video settings -> Overscan mask: (horizontal, vertical: 0-16 on each
side) [only works on NES+SNES]
BPS patching works for NES+SNES+GB; note that long-term I want BPS to
only patch headerless PRG+CHR files, but we'll need a database
/ completed board mapping system first.
MMC1 splits the board/chip markups a bit better. My attempts to emulate
the extra CHR bits per hardware fail repeatedly. Docs do not explain how
it works at all.
Emulated enough of the MMC5 to play Castlevania 3.
The MMC5 is easily the most complicated mapper the NES has to offer, and
of course, has the most pitifully vague and difficult documentation of
any mapper around.
It seems the only way anyone is able to emulate this chip is
empirically.
Everyone else apparently hooks the MMC5 right into the PPU core, which
I of course cannot do. So I had to come up with my own (probably wrong)
way to synchronize the PPU simply by observing CHR bus accesses.
I must say, I over-estimated how well fleshed out the NES hardware
documentation was. Shit hits the fan right after MMC3.
It's miles beyond the GB scene, but I find myself wanting for someone
with the technical writing ability of anomie.
I can't find anything at all on how we're supposed to support the $2007
port reads/writes without it extra-clocking the PPU's bus, which could
throw off mapper timing.
Absolutely nothing at all on the subject anywhere, something everybody
is required to do for all cycle-based emulators and ... nada.
Anyway, I'd like to refine the MMC5 a bit, getting Just Breed playable
even without sound would be really nice (it's a fun game.)
Then we need to get libsnes building again (ugh, getting worn out in
backporting changes to it.)
Once v083 is public, we can start discussing a new API for multiple
emulators.
byuu says:
cheats.xml -> cheats.bml, includes NES+SNES+GB codes now. Absolutely
awesome, thanks to mightymo and tukuyomi.
I also added Sunsoft-FME7/5B (with sound) emulation. Really only useful
for playing the Japanese release of Gimmick!
Fun game, but balls to the wall hard.
byuu says:
I doubt anyone is going to like these changes, but oh well.
The base height output for NES+SNES is now always 256x240. The Enable
Overscan option blanks out borders around the screen. This eliminates
the need for an overscan software filter. For NES, it's 16px from the
top and bottom, and 8px from the left and right. Anything less and you
get scrolling artifacts in countless games. For the SNES, it's only 16px
from the top and bottom. Main point is that most NTSC SNES games are
224-height games, so you'll have black borders. Oh well, hack the source
if you want. Game Boy overscan option does nothing.
Everything except for the cheats.xml file now uses BML markup. I need to
write a converter for cheats.xml still. Cut the SNES board parsing code
in half, 30KB->16KB. Much cleaner now.
Took the opportunity to fix a mistake I made back with the XML spec: all
numbers are integers, but can be prefixed with 0x to become hexadecimal.
Before, offset/size values defaulted to hex-mode even without a prefix,
unlike frequency/etc values.
The XML shaders have gone in their own direction anyway, with most being
multi-pass and incompatible with bsnes. So that said, please don't
extend the BML functionality from your end. But f eel free to add to the
XML spec, since other emulators now use that as well. And don't
misunderstand, I love the work that's being done there. It's pretty
awesome to see multi-pass shader capabilities, and the RAM watching
stuff is just amazing.
If there are any really awesome single-pass shaders that people would
like, I can convert it from XML and include it with future releases.
On that topic, I removed the watercolor/hdr-tv ones from the binary
packages (still in the source archive) ... they are neat, but not very
useful for actual gaming.
If we had more than one, I'd remove the Direct3D sepia one. Not going to
use shaders from a certain bipolar manic, because I'd never hear the end
of it if I did :/
Oh, one change I think people will like: MSU1 no longer requires
a memory map specification, so MSU1 authors won't have to keep updating
to my newer revisions of board markups. Basically, if there's not
a board with an msu1 section, it'll check if "gamename.msu" exists. If
it does, MSU1 gets mapped to 00-3f,80-bf:2000-2007. If all you want is
music, make a blank, zero-byte gamename.msu file.
byuu says:
Was mostly working on BML. Still working on the spec.
Added NES-BNROM, NES-GNROM/NES-MHROM boards. I don't even know why. The
latter games do not work very well without Zapper support.
byuu says:
Finished porting over all mappers to board/chip disambiguations. Had to
nearly rewrite the MMC1 code to do it, but all variants should be
supported.
iNES1 is too stupid to express them all, so you'll need a board markup
if you want to play the >8KB PRG RAM games.
For whatever reason, they call VRC6's memory WRAM, and MMC1's PRG RAM.
I am calling them all PRG RAM, since it's the same damn thing.
Board spec is not going to be stable until I have a hell of a lot more
mappers implemented, so be wary of that.
Anyway, at this time, all games can be loaded sans iNES header, if you
have the board markup. I'd also like to have a board database for all
commercial titles.
I'm treating *.fc as PRG-ROM(+CHR-ROM). Will work on loading the split
files later possibly.
byuu says:
.cht files now use BML-formatted data. I'm still going to request the
cheats.xml file as-is, and will write my own converter for embedding
during releases.
This is where parsing 2MB markup files in 10ms is really going to be
nice. Had to use an evil hack before for actually searching for games.
This has the start of the board/chip separation from mappers for NES,
and it has a barebones iNES->board markup converter.
You can specify your own board markup and bypass the need for an iNES
header, so in other words it will load No-Intro style games with
a proper board file.
Long-term, we'll have an internal database for commercial boards, and
probably folder.fc/prg.rom{,chr.rom} loading support.
Since they can't co-exist, the mappers are currently disabled, and I've
only ported the easy ones. So no MMC1/MMC3/VRC6 in this release. I need
to make them into chips first.
byuu says:
Ryphecha fixed Gun Nac, it was some sort of problem with blank sprite
address fetching messing with the MMC3
I've started on an XML parser for iNES-free loading, but it's pretty
barebones right now. Only NROM-256 loads, and you have to make it
a compile-time thing (so other games work for now.)
Updated nall with nullptr stuff.
nall/detect is now nall/intrinsic and has both #defines + static
constants that can be used to detect the platform (allows for run-time
platform checks where practical.)
ruby has a Makefile now, that makes using it in other projects a lot
easier
Tim Allen