- Note: The backlight intensity is only emulated on frontends with 3D-based display methods, such as OpenGL and Metal. CPU-based display methods, such as DirectDraw, SDL and Cairo, are currently unsupported.
- The old Tools > Save Screenshot As has been replaced with the new Screenshot Capture Tool.
- The new Screenshot Capture Tool allows screenshots to be configured to render with the same layout features as a display view.
- Screenshot captures now both render and save to file on their own independent threads.
- Screenshots are now captured using the Take Screenshot button, and files are now automatically named based on ROM name and timestamp.
- All of these features means that users can now rapidly take screenshots with their own custom layouts, all with little to no slowdown to the emulation.
- Also do a bunch of code cleanup and refactoring as a side-effect of adding these new features.
- Also be more consistent when recovering from an internal emulation halt.
- Also apply enabling the external BIOS, external firmware and firmware boot settings at load/reset time instead of at frame time.
- Framebuffer fetches no longer run on a CocoaDSThread, but instead uses a pthread directly. This can be done since framebuffer fetching only serves one function and always receives the same execution message, making a full CocoaDSThread a waste.
- SPU_Emulate_user() is no longer called on a separate thread, and instead is called in the emulation thread directly. For the typical SPU use case (SPU Sound Synchronization w/ Advanced SPU Logic), SPU_Emulator_user() becomes negligible, and so the threading overhead becomes unnecessary. In the use case where Dual SPU Synch/Asynch is used, Advanced SPU Logic is almost always disabled with it, and so the penalty of calling SPU_Emulator_user() on the emulation thread will be more than compensated by the performance increase of turning off Advanced SPU Logic.
- Also do some code cleanup/refactoring here and there.
- Fix a bug where Metal display views can block emulation execution if the user very quickly spams inputs while the input HUD is shown.
- Metal display views are no longer frame capped -- they can now run to their fullest performance potential, as fast as the host hardware will allow. This behavior is now consistent with OpenGL display views.
- As a side-effect, non-layer backed OpenGL display views also have a performance improvement.
- The MSAA sample size limit is now based on the following sizes:
1x Native Resolution - 32xMSAA
2x Native Resolution - 16xMSAA
3x-8x Native Resolution - 8xMSAA
9x and greater Native Resolution - 4xMSAA
- Function/method parameters for EMUFILE objects are now passed by
reference instead of passed by pointers, where appropriate. This is
true for the vast majority of EMUFILE usage.
- Eliminate duplicate little-endian read/write functions in
readwrite.cpp. Use the equivalent methods in EMUFILE instead.
- Completely standardize the design patterns and usage of the various
little-endian read/write methods. Should help stabilize interactions
with save state files, as well as try to make save states
cross-compatible between big-endian and little-endian systems.
- Replace EMUFILE fread()/fwrite()/fputc() calls with equivalent
size-specific methods where applicable.
- Misc. code readability and stability improvements.
- Also add macosx_10_5_compat.cpp back into the normal OS X build of
the Xcode Latest project. It’s still needed for compatibility on OS X
10.5 Leopard for x86/x86-64. (Don’t know how this got disabled — it
just somehow mysteriously did.)
rogerman