byuu says:
Changelog:
- game/memory/category → game/memory/content
- game/memory/model → game/memory/architecture
- game/memory/identity → game/memory/identifier
- Super Famicom: memory/content=Bitmap → memory/content=Save
- Super Famicom: memory/architecture=DMG,MGB →
memory/architecture=LR35902
The game manifest field names are now officially set in stone. I won't
change them again, I'll only add new fields if required.
As for the values in the field, I'm still undecided on the manufacturer
of the ST018, and I could be talked into different identifiers for the
Super Game Boy (SGB1/SGB2, DMG/MGB, or just ICD(2)?)
The board manifest format is still in flux, as is the choice of what to
name firmware files (it's between manufacturer and architecture, where
I'm leaning toward the latter currently.)
Board memory to Game memory mappings will require both the manufacturer
and architecture fields to match.
I'll be updating doc.byuu.org soon with the finalized game manifest
format.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Emulator: update to final manifest syntax
- Super Famicom: new board syntax (still experimental)
- Super Famicom: match (manufacturer.)category.type instead of
(model.)category.type
Errata:
- Markup::Node::find() needs to be extended to support multiple
subtype matches
- Sufami Turbo ROM/RAM nodes are part of separate gamepaks; need to
refactor this
byuu says:
Changelog:
- higan, icarus, genius: new manifest syntax (work in progress)
Pretty much only LoROM and HiROM SNES games will load right now, and RAM
will only work right if the save.ram file already exists to pull its
file size from (a temporary cheap hack was used.)
Basically, I'm just getting this out there for evaluation.
One minor errata is that I switched icarus to using “memory/battery” to
indicate battery-backed RAM, whereas genius still uses “memory/volatile”
to indicate non-battery-backed RAM.
I intend to make it “memory/battery” in genius, and have the field
auto-enable when RAM or RTC is selected for type (obviously allowing it
to be unchecked for volatile memory.)
I need to update all 64 production boards, and 25 of 29 generic boards,
to use the new slot syntax; and I also need to update every single core
in higan to use the new manifest game syntax. I want to build out a
generic manifest game parser that all emulation cores will use.
Once I finish this, I'll also need to write a database converter to
update all of my licensed game dumps to the new database syntax.
I also need to write up something for doc.byuu.org explaining the new
manifest game syntax. The manifest board syntax will still be “internal”
and subject to revisions, but once v107 is out, the gamepak manifest
format will be set in stone sans extensions.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Game Boy: fixed RAM/RTC saving¹
- Super Famicom: ICD2 renamed to ICD (there exists an SGB prototype
with a functionally identical ICD1)
- Sufami Turbo: removed short-circuiting when loading an unlinkable
cartridge into slot A²
- Super Game Boy: the 20971520hz clock of the SGB2 is now emulated
- Super Famicom: BSC-1Lxx (SA1) boards now prompt for BS memory
cartridges; and can make use of them³
- Super Famicom: fixed a potential for out-of-bounds reads with BS
Memory flash carts
¹: I'm using a gross hack of replacing `type: ` with `type:` so that
`memory(type=...)` will match without the extra spaces. I need to
think about whether I want the BPath query syntax to strip whitespace or
not. But longer term, I want to finalize game/memory's design, and build
a higan/emulation/manifest parser that produces a nicer interface to
reading manifests for all cores, which will make this irrelevant for
higan anyway.
²: I don't think it's appropriate for higan to enforce this. Nothing
stops you from inserting games that can't be linked into a real Sufami
Turbo. I do short-circuit if you cancel the first load, but I may allow
loading an empty slot A with a populated slot B. I think the BIOS does
something when you do that. Probably just yells at you.
³: I know it's emulated correctly now, but I still don't know what
the heck changes when you load the SD Gundam G Next - Unit & Map
Collection BS Memory cartridge with SD Gundam G Next to actually test
it.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- icarus: new Firmware/ folder, which is used to import external
firmware when it's missing from the ROM image
- icarus: improved Super Famicom heuristics; including Shift-JIS to
UTF-8 encoding of game titles
Errata:
- if firmware isn't appended, it still cuts out the size from the
memory/program.rom file
- boards.bml is still missing the new Japanese production boards
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: added remaining generic board types
- icarus: improved Super Famicom heuristics
- icarus: reworked BS Memory heuristics
- icarus: reworked Sufami Turbo heuristics
Notes: this is really complicated, and is going to take a long time to
work 100% smoothly again.
Starting off, I am trying to get rid of the weird edge case zero-byte
SRAM mapping for the Cx4. It has the RAM region present, but returns
logic low (0x00) instead of open bus, when SRAM isn't present. I started
by making it `map=ram` instead of `ram/map`, which is gross, and then it ended
up detecing the map tag ending in RAM and pulling the Cx4 data RAM into that
slot. Ugh. The preservation board mapping is still as it was before and will
need to be updated once I get the syntax down.
The BS Memory and Sufami Turbo moving to the new `game/memory`
ending means I can't use the SuperFamicom::Cartridge::loadMemory
function that looks at the old-style rom/ram tags. Because I didn't
write more code, the result is those sub-carts won't load now.
The old heuristics were short-circuiting on SA1 before bothering with
BS-X slots, so that's why SD Gundam G-Next wasn't asking for a data
pack. The problem is, I don't know where the BS-X pack maps to on this
cartridge. It's at c0-ef on the other BS-X slotted cartridges, but
that's mapped to the SA1 on regular SA1 cartridges, so ... for now, it's
not actually mapped in.
I'm still struggling with naming conventions on all these boards. I'll
make a public post about that, though.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- nall: `Markup::Node::operator[]` now uses `find()` instead of `lookup()`
behind the scenes
- Super Famicom: RAM memory ordering is now independent of ROM memory
ordering
- Super Famicom: added 19 new generic board definitions
- icarus: improved Super Famicom heuristics generation
Not putting it in the changelog, but the SPC7110 RAM now has write
protection disabled again.
99% of games should now be playable with heuristics. The exceptions
should be:
- 4MB LoROM games with SRAM (Ys 3, FE: Thracia 776)
- 2MB DSP LoROM games
- BS-X Town
- BS-X slotted games
- SA1 BSX slotted games
- SPC7110 games without the RTC (Momotarou Dentetsu Happy, Super Power
League 4)
- SPC7110 7MB fan translation (wasn't supported earlier either)
- ExLoROM games (wasn't supported earlier either)
- Sufami Turbo
- Campus Challenge '92 and Powerfest '94
- ST010 is going to run at 15MHz instead of 11MHz
- MSU1 (needs to be supported in higan, not icarus)
I'll add support for most of these before the release of v107.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: update to newer board markup syntax
- Super Famicom: update all mapped ROMs to be write-protected
- errata: SPC7110 set ram.writeProtect(true), I'll fix it in the
next WIP
- icarus: rewrote the Super Famicom heuristics module from scratch
Instead of icarus heuristics generating higan-specific mappings, it now
generates generic board IDs that can be used by any emulator. I had
originally planned to print out real PCB ID codes here, but these board
mappings are meant to be more generic, and I don't want them to look
real. The pseudo-codes are easy to parse, for example: `DSP-LOROM-NVRAM`
for Super Mario Kart, `SUPERFX-RAM` for Doom.
I'm going to make a `Boards (Generic).bml` file that will contain mapping
definitions for every board. Until this is done, any games not in the SNES
preservation database will fail to play because the mapping information is
now missing.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- Super Famicom: added support for loading manifests without embedded
mapping information¹
- genius: initial commit
- various Makefile cleanups
¹: so the idea here is to try and aim for a stable manifest format,
and to allow direct transposition of icarus/genius database entries into
manifest files. The exact mechanics of how this is going to work is
currently in flux, but we'll get there.
For right now, `Super Famicom.sys` gains `boards.bml`, which is the raw
database from my board-editor tool, and higan itself tries to load
`boards.bml`, match an entry to game/board from the game's `manifest.bml`
file, and then transform it into the format currently used by higan. It
does this only when the game's `manifest.bml` file lacks a board node.
When such a board node exists, it works as previous versions of higan
did.
The only incompatible change right now is information/title is now
located at game/label. I may transition window title display to just use
the filenames instead.
Longer term, some thought is going to need to go into the format of the
`boards.bml` database itself, and at which point in the process I should
be transforming things.
Give it time, we'll refine this into something nicer.
Tim Allen