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:
Changelog:
- nall::lstring -> nall::string_vector
- added IntegerBitField<type, lo, hi> -- hopefully it works correctly...
- Multitap 1-4 -> Super Multitap 2-5
- fixed SFC PPU CGRAM read regression
- huge amounts of SFC PPU IO register cleanups -- .bits really is lovely
- re-added the read/write(VRAM,OAM,CGRAM) helpers for the SFC PPU
- but they're now optimized to the realities of the PPU (16-bit data
sizes / no address parameter / where appropriate)
- basically used to get the active-display overrides in a unified place;
but also reduces duplicate code in (read,write)IO
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:
Changelog:
- ruby: if DirectSoundCreate fails (no sound device present), return
false from init instead of crashing
- nall: improved edge case return values for
(basename,pathname,dirname,...)
- nall: renamed file_system_object class to inode
- nall: varuint_t replaced with VariadicNatural; which contains
.bit,.bits,.byte ala Natural/Integer
- nall: fixed boolean compilation error on Windows
- WS: popa should not restore SP
- GBA: rewrote the CPU/APU cores to use the .bit,.bits functions;
removed registers.cpp from each
Note that the GBA changes are extremely major. This is about five hours
worth of extremely delicate work. Any slight errors could break
emulation in extremely bad ways. Let's hold off on extensive testing
until the next WIP, after I do the same to the PPU.
So far ... endrift's SOUNDCNT_X I/O test is failing, although that code
didn't change, so clearly I messed up SOUNDCNT_H somehow ...
To compile on Windows:
1. change nall/string/platform.hpp line 47 to
return slice(result, 0, 3);
2. change ruby/video.wgl.cpp line 72 to
auto lock(uint32_t*& data, uint& pitch, uint width, uint height) -> bool {
3. add this line to the very top of hiro/windows/header.cpp:
#define boolean FuckYouMicrosoft
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:
This release features improvements to all emulation cores, but most
substantially for the Game Boy core. All of blargg's test ROMs that pass
in gambatte now either pass in higan, or are off by 1-2 clocks (the
actual behaviors are fully emulated.) I consider the Game Boy core to
now be fairly accurate, but there's still more improvements to be had.
Also, what's sure to be a major feature for some: higan now has full
support for loading and playing ordinary ROM files, whether they have
copier headers, weird extensions, or are inside compressed archives. You
can load these games from the command-line, from the main Library menu
(via Load ROM Image), or via drag-and-drop on the main higan window. Of
course, fans of game folders and the library need not worry: that's
still there as well.
Also new, you can drop the (uncompressed) Game Boy Advance BIOS onto the
higan main window to install it into the correct location with the
correct file name.
Lastly, this release technically restores Mac OS X support. However,
it's still not very stable, so I have decided against releasing binaries
at this time. I'd rather not rush this and leave a bad first impression
for OS X users.
Changelog (since v096):
- higan: project source code hierarchy restructured; icarus directly
integrated
- higan: added software emulation of color-bleed, LCD-refresh,
scanlines, interlacing
- icarus: you can now load and import ROM files/archives from the main
higan menu
- NES: fixed manifest parsing for board mirroring and VRC pinouts
- SNES: fixed manifest for Star Ocean
- SNES: fixed manifest for Rockman X2,X3
- GB: enabling LCD restarts frame
- GB: emulated extra OAM STAT IRQ quirk required for GBVideoPlayer
(Shonumi)
- GB: VBK, BGPI, OBPI are readable
- GB: OAM DMA happens inside PPU core instead of CPU core
- GB: fixed APU length and sweep operations
- GB: emulated wave RAM quirks when accessing while channel is enabled
- GB: improved timings of several CPU opcodes (gekkio)
- GB: improved timings of OAM DMA refresh (gekkio)
- GB: CPU uses open collector logic; return 0xFF for unmapped memory
(gekkio)
- GBA: fixed sequencer enable flags; fixes audio in Zelda - Minish Cap
(Jonas Quinn)
- GBA: fixed disassembler masking error (Lioncash)
- hiro: Cocoa support added; higan can now be compiled on Mac OS X 10.7+
- nall: improved program path detection on Windows
- higan/Windows: moved configuration data from %appdata% to
%localappdata%
- higan/Linux,BSD: moved configuration data from ~/.config/higan to
~/.local/higan
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 (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
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.
Tim Allen