(r02 was not posted to the WIP thread)
byuu says:
Internally, all color is processed with 30-bit precision. The filters
also operate at 30-bit depth.
There's a new config file setting, video.depth, which defaults to 24.
This causes the final output to downsample to 24-bit, as most will
require.
If you set it to 30-bit, the downsampling will not occur, and bsnes will
ask ruby for a 30-bit surface. If you don't have one available, you're
going to get bad colors. Or maybe even a crash with OpenGL.
I don't yet have detection code to make sure you have an appropriate
visual in place.
30-bit mode will really only work if you are running Linux, running Xorg
at Depth 30, use the OpenGL or XShm driver, have an nVidia Quadro or AMD
FireGL card with the official drivers, and have a 30-bit capable
monitor.
Lots of planning and work for very little gain here, but it's nice that
it's finally finished.
Oh, I had to change the contrast/brightness formulas a tiny bit, but
they still work and look nice.
byuu says:
Added frequency, latency, resampler selection to the audio settings
panel (I really only wanted it there for resampler selection ... having
three options matches the driver selection style though, so whatever.)
The linear/hermite sampler will double the framerate when running Game
Boy games, and sounds the same. Same framerate and sound quality on
SNES. But it will cause buzzing in many NES titles.
Also re-added the composition { never, fullscreen, always } modes.
I think that option is clutter, but it's just impossible to get good
audio+video on Windows 7 without it ...
Lastly, HQ2x was ported over, but not very well. I just convert source
pixels from RGB888 to RGB555, and output pixels in the opposite
direction.
Need someone good to port the diff() and blend functions over to RGB888
in a way that's not terribly slow.
byuu says:
This release adds preliminary Nintendo / Famicom emulation. It's only
a week or two old, so a lot of work still needs to be done before it can
compete with the most popular NES emulators.
It's important to clarify: bsnes is primarily an SNES emulator. That
will always be its forte and my core focus. I have added Game Boy
support previously for Super Game Boy emulation, and I've added NES
support mostly for something fun to work on to break up the monotony of
working on one system for seven years now. Obviously, I'd like the
emulation to be accurate and highly compatible, but I simply cannot
afford to invest the same amount of time and money into any other
systems.
Still, either way the NES and GB emulation serve as fun side-diversions,
and allow for a unified emulator interface with all of bsnes' unique
features applied to all systems. My personal favorite feature is
mightymo's extended built-in cheat code database that now also includes
NES and Game Boy codes. And it even works in Super Game Boy mode now,
too!
I'm also not worried about speed at all: so long as NES/GB are faster
than SNES/compatibility, it's fine by me. Note that due to the NES audio
running at 1.78MHz, and Game Boy audio at 4MHz stereo, a more
sophisticated audio resampler was needed: Ryphecha (Mednafen author) has
graciously written a first-rate resampler: it is a band-limited
Kaiser-windowed polyphase sinc resampler. It is combined with two
highpass filters to remove DC bias. The filter itself is SSE optimized,
but even still, approximately 50% of CPU usage for NES/GB emulation goes
to the audio filtering alone. However, you now have the best sound
possible for NES and Game Boy emulation as a result.
The GUI has also been heavily re-structured to accommodate multiple
emulators from the same interface. As such, it's quite likely a few bugs
are still lurking here and there. Please report them and I'll iron them
out for the next release.
Changelog:
- license is now GPLv3
- re-structured GUI as a multi-system emulator
- added NES emulation [byuu, Ryphecha]
- added NES ICs: MMC1, MMC2, MMC3, MMC4, MMC5, VRC4, VRC6+audio, VRC7,
Sunsoft-5B+audio, Bandai-LZ93D50
- added NES boards: AxROM, BNROM, CNROM, ExROM, FxROM, GxROM, NROM,
PxROM, SxROM, TxROM, UxROM
- Game Boy emulation improvements [Jonas Quinn]
- SNES core outputs full 19-bit color (4-bit luma included) for more
accurate color reproduction (~5% speed hit)
- audio resampler is now a band-limited polyphase resampler [Ryphecha]
- cheat database includes NES+GB codes as well [mightymo, tukuyomi]
- lots of other changes
This was released beside bsnes v082r19. byuu didn't mention it in the
v082r19 release notes, but in a previous post mentioned that a number of
filters stopped working when bsnes switched to using RGB555 for all its
internal data.
byuu says:
Changelog (since v076):
- video filters and shaders now populate inside main menu; no longer
have to select them as files
- fixed 2xSaI, Super 2xSaI and Super Eagle on 32-bit platforms; still
buggy on 64-bit Windows
- fixed linear mirroring issues (fixes Mega Man X dash bug)
- fixed RAM memory mapping bug in Sufami Turbo games
- home folder is now %APPDATA%/bsnes or ~/.config/bsnes
- added paths.cfg file, which will allow you to specify custom paths for
any file types
- save states and cheat files for multi-slot games are based on slot
names instead of BIOS names
- fixed compilation warning on OS X with nall::decimal
- fixed calculation bug in nall::fp
- Makefile now has options variable, example: make options=debugger
- configuration files and cheat database can now reside in the same
folder as the binary itself
- updated to 2011-03-11 release of mightymo's cheat database
byuu says:
Most notable in this release is that sound support has been added to my
own Super Game Boy emulation. The GUI toolkit, phoenix, has also
received a complete rewrite; with the most visible change there being
that windows are now resizable.
Changelog (since v075):
* added sound emulation to Game Boy core
* fixed Super Game Boy save state
* support added HexEdit widget to Windows and Qt targets; debugger can
now be compiled on all platforms
* entering fullscreen now auto-hides mouse; and mouse capture is toggled
otherwise by F12 key
* fullscreen command and geometry caching works much better on GTK+ and
Qt targets
* phoenix rewritten from scratch; now supports resizable layout
containers
* phoenix/Windows no longer relies on buggy SetParent API to reparent
widgets
byuu says (since v073):
This release adds full low-level emulation of the NEC uPD96050
coprocessor, used by the ST-0010 (F1 Race of Champions II) and the
ST-0011 (Hayazashi Nidan Morita Shougi). The former was already playable
with HLE, but lacked timing emulation. The latter has never been
playable through emulation before now. But as with SD Gundam GX before,
you really weren't missing much.
[...]
Also new in this release is my own Game Boy emulator. It is being used
to provide native Super Game Boy support, built directly into bsnes.
This core is released under the GPLv2, but I am willing to grant a more
permissive license for other SNES emulators, if anyone is interested.
Of course I cannot compete with the quality of gambatte, and certainly
not from only a weeks' worth of work. Currently, there is no Game
Boy-side sound output and there are quite a few bugs remaining in its
emulation core. I would appreciate any help on this, the Game Boy is not
my forte. So yes, we are taking a step back today, so that we may take
two steps forward in the future.
[...]
Lastly, the debugger is still Linux-only, but it is now stable enough to
be considered usable. Check it out if you like, compile with -DDEBUGGER
to enable it.
byuu says:
- added pause shortcut ('P' key, as pause/break is too finicky)
- pause and auto-pause show on status bar
- added a debugger skeleton, very very primitive and completely unusable
- don't try it yet
- added software filter support
Also included is the new snesfilter library. It has all of the filters
the old one had, as well as scanline filters since that's not in my GUI
anymore
If you want scanlines and other software filters, then you can either
make your own hybrid two-in-one software filter, or make a pixel shader
(I don't have one of those yet.)
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.
Tim Allen