byuu says:
Don't let the point release fool you, there are many significant changes in this
release. I will be keeping bsnes releases using a point system until the new
higan release is ready.
Changelog:
- GUI: added high DPI support
- GUI: fixed the state manager image preview
- Windows: added a new waveOut driver with support for dynamic rate control
- Windows: corrected the XAudio 2.1 dynamic rate control support [BearOso]
- Windows: corrected the Direct3D 9.0 fullscreen exclusive window centering
- Windows: fixed XInput controller support on Windows 10
- SFC: added high-level emulation for the DSP1, DSP2, DSP4, ST010, and Cx4
coprocessors
- SFC: fixed a slight rendering glitch in the intro to Megalomania
If the coprocessor firmware is missing, bsnes will fallback on HLE where it is
supported, which is everything other than SD Gundam GX and the two Hayazashi
Nidan Morita Shougi games.
The Windows dynamic rate control works best with Direct3D in fullscreen
exclusive mode. I recommend the waveOut driver over the XAudio 2.1 driver, as it
is not possible to target a single XAudio2 version on all Windows OS releases.
The waveOut driver should work everywhere out of the box.
Note that with DRC, the synchronization source is your monitor, so you will
want to be running at 60hz (NTSC) or 50hz (PAL). If you have an adaptive sync
monitor, you should instead use the WASAPI (exclusive) or ASIO audio driver.
byuu says:
The Windows port can now run the emulation while navigating menus,
moving windows, and resizing windows. The main window also doesn't try
so hard to constantly clear itself. This may leave a bit of unwelcome
residue behind in some video drivers during resize, but under most
drivers, it lets you resize without a huge amount of flickering.
On all platforms, I now also run the emulation during MessageWindow
modal events, where I didn't before.
I'm thinking we should probably mute the audio during modal periods,
since it can generate a good deal of distortion.
The tooltip timeout was increased to ten seconds.
On Windows, the enter key can now activate buttons, so you can more
quickly dismiss MessageDialog windows. This part may not actually work
... I'm in the middle of trying to get messages out of the global
`Application_windowProc` hook and into the individual `Widget_windowProc`
hooks, so I need to do some testing.
I fixed a bug where changing the input driver wouldn't immediately
reload the input/hotkey settings lists properly.
I also went from disabling the driver "Change" button when the currently
active driver is selected in the list, to instead setting it to say
"Reload", and I also added a tool tip to the input driver reload button,
advising that if you're using DirectInput or SDL, you can hit "Reload"
to rescan for hotplugged gamepads without needing to restart the
emulator. XInput and udev have auto hotswap support. If we can ever get
that into DirectInput and SDL, then I'll remove the tooltip. But
regardless, the reload functionality is nice to have for all drivers.
I'm not sure what should happen when a user changes their driver
selection while a game is loaded, gets the warning dialog, chooses not
to change it, and then closes the emulator. Currently, it will make the
change happen the next time you start the emulator. This feels a bit
unexpected, but when you change the selection without a game loaded, it
takes immediate effect. So I'm not really sure what's best here.
byuu says:
I've added tool tips to hiro for Windows, GTK, and Qt. I'm unsure how to
add them for Cocoa. I wasted am embarrassing ~14 hours implementing tool
tips from scratch on Windows, because the `TOOLTIPS_CLASS` widget just
absolutely refused to show up, no matter what I tried. As such, they're
not quite 100% native, but I would really appreciate any patch
submissions to help improve my implementation.
I added tool tips to all of the confusing settings in bsnes. And of
course, for those of you who don't like them, there's a configuration
file setting to turn them off globally.
I also improved Mega Drive handling of the Game Genie a bit, and
restructured the way the Settings class works in bsnes.
Starting now, I'm feature-freezing bsnes and higan. From this point
forward:
- polishing up and fixing bugs caused by the ruby/hiro changes
- adding DRC to XAudio2, and maybe exclusive mode to WGL
- correcting FEoEZ (English) to load and work again out of the box
Once that's done, a final beta of bsnes will go out, I'll fix any
reported bugs that I'm able to, and then v107 should be ready. This time
with higan being functional, but marked as v107 beta. v108 will restore
higan to production status again, alongside bsnes.
byuu says:
Everything *should* be working again, but of course that won't
actually be the case. Here's where things stand:
- bsnes, higan, icarus, and genius compile and run fine on FreeBSD
with GTK
- ruby video and audio drivers are untested on Windows, macOS, and
Linux
- hiro is untested on macOS
- bsnes' status bar is not showing up properly with hiro/qt
- bsnes and higan's about screen is not showing up properly with
hiro/qt (1x1 window size)
- bsnes on Windows crashes often when saving states, and I'm not sure
why ... it happens inside Encode::RLE
- bsnes on Windows crashes with ruby.input.windows (unsure why)
- bsnes on Windows fails to show the verified emblem on the status bar
properly
- hiro on Windows flickers when changing tabs
To build the Windows bsnes and higan ports, use
ruby="video.gdi audio.directsound"
Compilation error logs for Linux will help me fix the inevitable list of
typos there. I can fix the typos on other platforms, I just haven't
gotten to it yet.
byuu says:
These WIPs-within-WIPs are getting more and more broken ... this isn't
going the way I wanted.
But ... this time around, I've revamped the entire ruby API again, to
solve a bunch of tough problems that have always made using ruby really
clunky.
But there are *so many* ruby drivers that it's going to take a long
time to work through them all. This WIP is only going to run bsnes, and
only on FreeBSD, and only with some drivers.
hiro's Application::initialize() now calls hiro::initialize(), which you
define inside of your hiro apps. This lets you call
Application::setName(...) before anything else in hiro runs. This is
essential on Xorg to set program icons, for instance.
With the ruby rewrite and the change to hiro, I can get away from the
need to make everything in bsnes/higan pointers to objects, and can now
just declare them as regular objects.
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:
I failed to complete a WIP, have five of eight cores updated with some
major changes to Emulator::Interface. I'll just post a quick temporary
WIP in the off chance someone wants to look over the new interface and
comment on it.
Also implemented screen saver suppression into hiro/GTK.
I should also add ... a plan of mine is to develop target-bsnes into a
more generic user interface, with the general idea being that
target-higan is for multiple Emulator::Interface cores at the same time,
and target-bsnes is for just one Emulator::Interface core.
The idea being that if one were to compile target-bsnes with the GBA
core, it'd become bgba, for instance.
I don't plan on releasing single-core emulators like this, but ... I don't see any downsides to being more flexible.
byuu says:
The problems with the Windows and Qt4 ports have all been resolved,
although there's a fairly gross hack on a few Qt widgets to not destruct
once Application::quit() is called to avoid a double free crash (I'm
unsure where Qt is destructing the widgets internally.) The Cocoa port
compiles again at least, though it's bound to have endless problems. I
improved the Label painting in the GTK ports, which fixes the background
color on labels inside TabFrame widgets.
I've optimized the Makefile system even further.
I added a "redo state" command to bsnes, which is created whenever you
load the undo state. There are also hotkeys for both now, although I
don't think they're really something you want to map hotkeys to.
I moved the nall::Locale object inside hiro::Application, so that it can
be used to translate the BrowserDialog and MessageDialog window strings.
I improved the Super Game Boy emulation of `MLT_REQ`, fixing Pokemon
Yellow's custom border and probably more stuff.
Lots of other small fixes and improvements. Things are finally stable
once again after the harrowing layout redesign catastrophe.
Errata:
- ICD::joypID should be set to 3 on reset(). joypWrite() may as well
take uint1 instead of bool.
- hiro/Qt: remove pWindow::setMaximumSize() comment; found a
workaround for it
- nall/GNUmakefile: don't set object.path if it's already set (allow
overrides before including the file)
byuu says:
Changelog:
- hiro/Windows: use `WS_CLIPSIBLINGS` on Label to prevent resize
drawing issues
- bsnes: correct viewport resizing
- bsnes: speed up window resizing a little bit
- bsnes: fix the cheat editor list enable checkbox
- bsnes: fix the state manager filename display in game ROM mode
- bsnes: fix the state manager save/rename/remove functionality in
game ROM mode
- bsnes: correct path searching for IPS and BPS patches in game ROM
mode
- bsnes: patch BS-X town cartridge to disable play limits
- bsnes: do not load (program,data,expansion).(rom,flash) from disk in
game pak mode
- this is required to support soft-patching and ROM hacks
- bsnes: added speed mode selection (50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%);
maintains proper pitch
- bsnes: added icons to the menubar
- this is particularly useful to tell game ROMs from game paks in
the load recent game menu
- bsnes: added emblem at bottom left of status bar to indicate if a
game is verified or not
- verified means it is in the icarus verified game dump database
- the verified diamond is orange; the unverified diamond is blue
- bsnes: added an option (which defaults to off) to warn when loading
unverified games
- working around a bug in GTK, I have to use the uglier
MessageWindow instead of MessageDialog
- bsnes: added (non-functional) link to <https://doc.byuu.org/bsnes/>
to the help menu
- bsnes: added GUI setting to toggle memory auto-save feature
- bsnes: added GUI setting to toggle capturing a backup save state
when closing the emulator
- bsnes: made auto-saving states on exit an option
- bsnes: added an option to auto-load the auto-saved state on load
- basically, the two combined implements auto-resume
- bsnes: when firmware is missing, offer to take the user to the
online help documentation
- bsnes: added fast PPU option to disable the sprite limit
- increase from 32 items/line + 34 tiles/line to 128 items/line +
128 tiles/line
- technically, 1024 tiles/line are possible with 128 sprites at
64-width
- but this is just a waste of cache locality and worst-case
performance; it'll never happen
Errata:
- hiro/Windows: fallthrough on Canvas `WM_ERASEBKGND` to prevent
startup flicker
byuu says:
Changelog:
- nall: added -static-libgcc -static-libstdc++ to Windows/GCC link
flags
- bsnes, higan: added program icons to main window when game isn't
loaded
- bsnes: improved recent games menu sorting
- bsnes: fixed multi-game recent game loading on Windows
- bsnes: completed path override support
- bsnes, higan: added screensaver suppression on Windows
- icarus: add 32K volatile RAM to SuperFX boards that report no RAM
(fixes Starfox)
- bsnes, higan: added automatic dependency generation [Talarubi]
- hiro/GTK: appending actions to menus restores enabled() state
- higan: use board node inside manifest.bml if it exists
- bsnes: added blur emulation and color emulation options to view menu
- ruby: upgraded input.sdl to SDL 2.0 (though it makes no functional
difference sadly)
- ruby: removed video.sdl (due to deprecating SDL 1.2)
- nall, ruby: improvements to HID class (generic vendor and product
IDs)
Errata:
- bsnes, higan: on Windows, Application::Windows::onScreenSaver needs
`[&]` lambda capture, not `[]`
- find it in presentation/presentation.cpp
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:
- nall/GNUmakefile: build=release changed to -O2, build=optimize is
now -O3
- hiro: added Monitor::dpi(uint index) → Position [returns logical
DPI for x, y]
- Position is a bad name, but dpi(monitor).(x,y)() make more sense
than .(width,height)()
- hiro: Position, Size, Geometry, Font changed from using signed int
to float
- hiro: Alignment changed from using double to float
- hiro: added skeleton (unused) Application::scale(), setScale()
functions
Errata:
- hiro/cocoa's Monitor::dpi() is untested. Probably will cause issues
with macOS' automatic scaling.
- hiro/gtk lacks a way to get both per-monitor and per-axis (x,y) DPI
scaling
- hiro/qt lacks a way to get per-monitor DPI scaling (Qt 5.x has this,
but I still use Qt 4.x)
- and just to get global DPI, hiro/qt's DPI retrieval has to use
undocumented functions ... fun
The goal with this WIP was basically to prepare hiro for potential
automatic scaling. It'll be extremely difficult, but I'm convinced that
it must be possible if macOS can do it.
By moving from signed integers to floats for coordinates, we can now
scale and unscale without losing precision. That of course isn't the
hard part, though. The hard part is where and how to do the scaling. In
the ideal application, hiro/core and hiro/extension will handle 100% of
this, and the per-platform hiro/(cocoa,gtk,qt,windows) will not be aware
of what's going on, but ... to even make that possible, things will need
to change in every per-platform core, eg the per-platform code will have
to call a core function to change geometry, which will know about the
scaling and unscale the values back down again.
Gonna be a lot of work, but ... it's a start.
byuu says:
Updated to compile with all of the new hiro changes. My next step is to
write up hiro API documentation, and move the API from alpha (constantly
changing) to beta (rarely changing), in preparation for the first stable
release (backward-compatible changes only.)
Added "--fullscreen" command-line option. I like this over
a configuration file option. Lets you use the emulator in both modes
without having to modify the config file each time.
Also enhanced the command-line game loading. You can now use any of
these methods:
higan /path/to/game-folder.sfc
higan /path/to/game-folder.sfc/
higan /path/to/game-folder.sfc/program.rom
The idea is to support launchers that insist on loading files only.
Technically, the file can be any name (manifest.bml also works); the
only criteria is that the file actually exists and is a file, and not
a directory. This is a requirement to support the first version (a
directory lacking the trailing / identifier), because I don't want my
nall::string class to query the file system to determine if the string
is an actual existing file or directory for its pathname() / dirname()
functions.
Anyway, every game folder I've made so far has program.rom, and that's
very unlikely to change, so this should be fine.
Now, of course, if you drop a regular "game.sfc" file on the emulator,
it won't even try to load it, unless it's in a folder that ends in .fc,
.sfc, etc. In which case, it'll bail out immediately by being unable to
produce a manifest for what is obviously not really a game folder.
byuu says:
Windows port should run mostly well now, although exiting fullscreen
breaks the application in a really bizarre way. (clicking on the window
makes it sink to background rather than come to the foreground o_O)
I also need to add the doModalChange => audio.clear() thing for the
accursed menu stuttering with DirectSound.
I also finished porting all of the ruby drivers over to the newer API
changes from nall.
Since I can't compile the Linux or OS X drivers, I have no idea if there
are any typos that will result in compilation errors. If so, please let
me know where they're at and I'll try and fix them. If they're simple,
please try and fix them on your end to test further if you can.
I'm hopeful the udev crash will be gone now that nall::string checks for
null char* values passed to its stringify function. Of course, it's
a problem it's getting a null value in the first place, so it may not
work at all.
If you can compile on Linux (or by some miracle, OS X), please test each
video/audio/input driver if you don't mind, to make sure there's no
"compiles okay but still typos exist" bugs.
byuu says:
Main reason for this WIP was because of all the added lines to hiro for
selective component disabling. May as well get all the diff-noise apart
from code changes.
It also merges something I've been talking to Cydrak about ... making
nall::string::(integer,decimal) do built-in binary,octal,hex decoding
instead of just failing on those. This will have fun little side effects
all over the place, like being able to view a topic on my forum via
"forum.byuu.org/topic/0b10010110", heh.
There are two small changes to higan itself, though. First up, I fixed
the resampler ratio when loading non-SNES games. Tested and I can play
Game Boy games fine now. Second, I hooked up menu option hiding for
reset and controller selection. Right now, this works like higan v094,
but I'm thinking I might want to show the "Device -> Controller" even if
that's all that's there. It kind of jives nicer with the input settings
window to see the labels there, I think. And if we ever do add more
stuff, it'll be nice that people already always expect that menu there.
Remaining issues:
* add slotted cart loader (SGB, BSX, ST)
* add DIP switch selection window (NSS)
* add timing configuration (video/audio sync)
byuu says:
This will easily be the biggest diff in the history of higan. And not in
a good way.
* target-higan and target-loki have been blown away completely
* nall and ruby massively updated
* phoenix replaced with hiro (pretty near a total rewrite)
* target-higan restarted using hiro (just a window for now)
* all emulation cores updated to compile again
* installation changed to not require root privileges (installs locally)
For the foreseeable future (maybe even permanently?), the new higan UI
will only build under Linux/BSD with GTK+ 2.20+. Probably the most
likely route for Windows/OS X will be to try and figure out how to build
hiro/GTK on those platforms, as awful as that would be. The other
alternative would be to produce new UIs for those platforms ... which
would actually be a good opportunity to make something much more user
friendly.
Being that I just started on this a few hours ago, that means that for
at least a few weeks, don't expect to be able to actually play any
games. Right now, you can pretty much just compile the binary and that's
it. It's quite possible that some nall changes didn't produce
compilation errors, but will produce runtime errors. So until the UI can
actually load games, we won't know if anything is broken. But we should
mostly be okay. It was mostly just trim<1> -> trim changes, moving to
Hash::SHA256 (much cleaner), and patching some reckless memory copy
functions enough to compile.
Progress isn't going to be like it was before: I'm now dividing my time
much thinner between studying and other hobbies.
My aim this time is not to produce a binary for everyone to play games
on. Rather, it's to keep the emulator alive. I want to be able to apply
critical patches again. And I would also like the base of the emulator
to live on, for use in other emulator frontends that utilize higan.
byuu