Commit Graph

7 Commits

Author SHA1 Message Date
Tim Allen 04072b278b Update to v102r16 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - Emulator::Stream now allows adding low-pass and high-pass filters
    dynamically
      - also accepts a pass# count; each pass is a second-order biquad
        butterworth IIR filter
  - Emulator::Stream no longer automatically filters out >20KHz
    frequencies for all streams
  - FC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - GB: removed simple 'magic constant' high-pass filter of unknown
    cutoff frequency (missed this one in the last WIP)
  - GB,SGB,GBC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - MS,GG,MD/PSG: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - MD: added save state support (but it's completely broken for now;
    sorry)
  - MD/YM2612: fixed Voice#3 per-operator pitch support (fixes sound
    effects in Streets of Rage, etc)
  - PCE: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter
  - WS,WSC: added 20Hz high-pass filter; 20KHz low-pass filter

So, the point of the low-pass filters is to remove frequencies above
human hearing. If we don't do this, then resampling will introduce
aliasing that results in sounds that are audible to the human ear. Which
basically an annoying buzzing sound. You'll definitely hear the
improvement from these in games like Mega Man 2 on the NES. Of course,
these already existed before, so this WIP won't sound better than
previous WIPs.

The high-pass filters are a little more complicated. Their main role is
to remove DC bias and help to center the audio stream. I don't
understand how they do this at all, but ... that's what everyone who
knows what they're talking about says, thus ... so be it.

I have set all of the high-pass filters to 20Hz, which is below the
limit of human hearing. Now this is where it gets really interesting ...
technically, some of these systems actually cut off a lot of range. For
instance, the GBA should technically use an 800Hz high-pass filter when
output is done through the system's speakers. But of course, if you plug
in headphones, you can hear the lower frequencies.

Now 800Hz ... you definitely can hear. At that level, nearly all of the
bass is stripped out and the audio is very tinny. Just like the real
system. But for now, I don't want to emulate the audio being crushed
that badly.

I'm sticking with 20Hz everywhere since it won't negatively affect audio
quality. In fact, you should not be able to hear any difference between
this WIP and the previous WIP. But theoretically, DC bias should mostly
be removed as a result of these new filters. It may be that we need to
raise the values on some cores in the future, but I don't want to do
that until we know for certain that we have to.

What I can say is that compared to even older WIPs than r15 ... the
removal of the simple one-pole low-pass and high-pass filters with the
newer three-pass, second-order filters should result in much better
attenuation (less distortion of audible frequencies.) Probably not
enough to be noticeable in a blind test, though.
2017-03-09 07:20:40 +11:00
Tim Allen fa6cbac251 Update to v102r06 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - added higan/emulator/platform.hpp (moved out Emulator::Platform from
    emulator/interface.hpp)
  - moved gmake build paramter to nall/GNUmakefile; both higan and
    icarus use it now
  - added build=profile mode
  - MD: added the region select I/O register
  - MD: started to add region selection support internally (still no
    external select or PAL support)
  - PCE: added cycle stealing when reading/writing to the VDC or VCE;
    and when using ST# instructions
  - PCE: cleaned up PSG to match the behavior of Mednafen (doesn't
    improve sound at all ;_;)
      - note: need to remove loadWaveSample, loadWavePeriod
  - HuC6280: ADC/SBC decimal mode consumes an extra cycle; does not set
    V flag
  - HuC6280: block transfer instructions were taking one cycle too many
  - icarus: added code to strip out PC Engine ROM headers
  - hiro: added options support to BrowserDialog

The last one sure ended in failure. The plan was to put a region
dropdown directly onto hiro::BrowserDialog, and I had all the code for
it working. But I forgot one important detail: the system loads
cartridges AFTER powering on, so even though I could technically change
the system region post-boot, I'd rather not do so.

So that means we have to know what region we want before we even select
a game. Shit.
2017-02-11 10:56:42 +11:00
Tim Allen bdc100e123 Update to v102r02 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - I caved on the `samples[] = {0.0}` thing, but I'm very unhappy about it
      - if it's really invalid C++, then GCC needs to stop accepting it
        in strict `-std=c++14` mode
  - Emulator::Interface::Information::resettable is gone
  - Emulator::Interface::reset() is gone
  - FC, SFC, MD cores updated to remove soft reset behavior
  - split GameBoy::Interface into GameBoyInterface,
    GameBoyColorInterface
  - split WonderSwan::Interface into WonderSwanInterface,
    WonderSwanColorInterface
  - PCE: fixed off-by-one scanline error [hex_usr]
  - PCE: temporary hack to prevent crashing when VDS is set to < 2
  - hiro: Cocoa: removed (u)int(#) constants; converted (u)int(#)
    types to (u)int_(#)t types
  - icarus: replaced usage of unique with strip instead (so we don't
    mess up frameworks on macOS)
  - libco: added macOS-specific section marker [Ryphecha]

So ... the major news this time is the removal of the soft reset
behavior. This is a major!! change that results in a 100KiB diff file,
and it's very prone to accidental mistakes!! If anyone is up for
testing, or even better -- looking over the code changes between v102r01
and v102r02 and looking for any issues, please do so. Ideally we'll want
to test every NES mapper type and every SNES coprocessor type by loading
said games and power cycling to make sure the games are all cleanly
resetting. It's too big of a change for me to cover there not being any
issues on my own, but this is truly critical code, so yeah ... please
help if you can.

We technically lose a bit of hardware documentation here. The soft reset
events do all kinds of interesting things in all kinds of different
chips -- or at least they do on the SNES. This is obviously not ideal.
But in the process of removing these portions of code, I found a few
mistakes I had made previously. It simplifies resetting the system state
a lot when not trying to have all the power() functions call the reset()
functions to share partial functionality.

In the future, the goal will be to come up with a way to add back in the
soft reset behavior via keyboard binding as with the Master System core.
What's going to have to happen is that the key binding will have to send
a "reset pulse" to every emulated chip, and those chips are going to
have to act independently to power() instead of reusing functionality.
We'll get there eventually, but there's many things of vastly greater
importance to work on right now, so it'll be a while. The information
isn't lost ... we'll just have to pull it out of v102 when we are ready.

Note that I left the SNES reset vector simulation code in, even though
it's not possible to trigger, for the time being.

Also ... the Super Game Boy core is still disconnected. To be honest, it
totally slipped my mind when I released v102 that it wasn't connected
again yet. This one's going to be pretty tricky to be honest. I'm
thinking about making a third GameBoy::Interface class just for SGB, and
coming up with some way of bypassing platform-> calls when in this
mode.
2017-01-23 08:04:26 +11:00
Tim Allen bf90bdfcc8 Update to v101r31 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - converted Emulator::Interface::Bind to Emulator::Platform
  - temporarily disabled SGB hooks
  - SMS: emulated Game Gear palette (latching word-write behavior not
    implemented yet)
  - SMS: emulated Master System 'Reset' button, Game Gear 'Start' button
  - SMS: removed reset() functionality, driven by the mappable input now
    instead
  - SMS: split interface class in two: one for Master System, one for
    Game Gear
  - SMS: emulated Game Gear video cropping to 160x144
  - PCE: started on HuC6280 CPU core—so far only registers, NOP
    instruction has been implemented

Errata:

  - Super Game Boy support is broken and thus disabled
  - if you switch between Master System and Game Gear without
    restarting, bad things happen:
      - SMS→GG, no video output on the GG
      - GG→SMS, no input on the SMS

I'm not sure what's causing the SMS\<-\>GG switch bug, having a hard
time debugging it. Help would be very much appreciated, if anyone's up
for it. Otherwise I'll keep trying to track it down on my end.
2017-01-13 12:15:45 +11:00
Tim Allen 5df717ff2a Update to v101r12 release.
byuu says:

Changelog:

  - new md/bus/ module for bus reads/writes
      - abstracts byte/word accesses wherever possible (everything but
        RAM; forces all but I/O to word, I/O to byte)
      - holds the system RAM since that's technically not part of the
        CPU anyway
  - added md/controller and md/system/peripherals
  - added emulation of gamepads
  - added stub PSG audio output (silent) to cap the framerate at 60fps
    with audio sync enabled
  - fixed VSRAM reads for plane vertical scrolling (two bugs here: add
    instead of sub; interlave plane A/B)
  - mask nametable read offsets (can't exceed 8192-byte nametables
    apparently)
  - emulated VRAM/VSRAM/CRAM reads from VDP data port
  - fixed sprite width/height size calculations
  - added partial emulation of 40-tile per scanline limitation (enough
    to fix Sonic's title screen)
  - fixed off-by-one sprite range testing
  - fixed sprite tile indexing
  - Vblank happens at Y=224 with overscan disabled
      - unsure what happens when you toggle it between Y=224 and Y=240
        ... probably bad things
  - fixed reading of address register for ADDA, CMPA, SUBA
  - fixed sign extension for MOVEA effect address reads
  - updated MOVEM to increment the read addresses (but not writeback)
    for (aN) mode

With all of that out of the way, we finally have Sonic the Hedgehog
(fully?) playable. I played to stage 1-2 and through the special stage,
at least. EDIT: yeah, we probably need HIRQs for Labyrinth Zone.

Not much else works, of course. Most games hang waiting on the Z80, and
those that don't (like Altered Beast) are still royally screwed. Tons of
features still missing; including all of the Z80/PSG/YM2612.

A note on the perihperals this time around: the Mega Drive EXT port is
basically identical to the regular controller ports. So unlike with the
Famicom and Super Famicom, I'm inheriting the exension port from the
controller class.
2016-08-22 08:11:24 +10:00
Tim Allen 76a8ecd32a Update to v100r03 release.
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.
2016-07-10 15:28:26 +10:00
Tim Allen 3dd1aa9c1b Update to v100r02 release.
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.
2016-07-09 14:21:37 +10:00