29 March 2009

FCEUX 2.1 release

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The 2.1.0 is a major new release that incorporates new mappers and mapper fixes from FCEU-mm. In addition it offers a multitude of bug fixes, and feature enhancements to both the Win32 and SDL ports.

Major Bug / Crash Bug Fixes

*Fixed throttling problems that resulted on AMD Dualcore processors. (Caused FCEUX to appear to be in turbo mode).
*Fix major crash issue where NROM game (such as SMB) savestates were writing erroneous information if a non NROM game was loaded prior.
*Fixed a bug that caused a new sav file to not get created when loading a 2nd battery backed game.
*Fix Directory Overrides so to allow users to have no override.  Also fixes directory override reset bug.

Minor Bug fixes

*Hotkeys - prevent "Hotkey explosion" where some laptop keys set off all unassigned hotkeys
*Timing - "disable throttling when sound is off" now only affects FCEUX when sound is off
*Clip Left and Right sides taken into account when drawing on screen (record/play/pause, lag & frame counters, messages, etc)
*Fixed bug where having sound off and Mute turbo caused chirps when toggling
*Video settings - fixed bug when both aspect ratio correction and special scaling 3x are set, video was getting resized incorrectly
*Auto-save cleanup -prevent loading an auto-save from previous session.  Added flags for enabling auto-save menu item.
*Fixed issues related to big endian compiling.
*Fix bug so that Escape can now be assigned as a hotkey
*Fixed bug in screenshot numbering that caused numbering to not reset when changing games.

SDL
*SDL Movie subtitle support and subtitle toggle hotkey added.
*SDL Added fcm to fm2 converter tool to SDL version.
*SDL Improved the SDL sound code; drastically improves quality of sound.
*SDL Savestate slots are now mappable.
*SDL Major updates to SDL documentation
*SDL Added Shift+M for toggling automatic movie backups.
*SDL Added option to mute FCEUX for avi capturing, check the documentation for more details.
*SDL Added --noconfig command line option
*SDL Frame Advance Skip Lag frames toggle implemented

New Features Win32

*The latest mappers and mapper fixes from FCEU-mm.  Adds support for many new games such as Warioland II (Unl), Shu Qi Yu,  and Street Dance
*Full screen mode fixed!  Also, Alt+Enter properly toggles full screen.
*Individual control for sound channels! (See sound config for details).
*Undo/Redo Savestate/Loadstate features installed!  No more loss of data to unintentional presses.  (See getting started for details).
*Movie subtitles can now be included in .fm2 files.  See .fm2 documentation for details and Movie options for details on customizing.
*Auto-backup for movie files.  (See movie options for details).
*A Ram change monitor for the Memory watch dialog. (see memwatch for details).
*Frame counter works even without a movie loaded.
*AVI Directory Override option.

GUI / Menu Enhancements

*A right-click context menu added!  Includes many commonly used items for a variety of situations.
*Menu items that are hotkey mappable now show their current hotkey mapping
*Major overhaul to the Menu organization.
*All FCEUX features are now accessible in the menu
*Alt Menu Shortcuts properly configured
*Menu items are properly grayed when not useable
*All movie related menu items moved to a Movie options dialog
*Removed hard-coded Accel keys and replaced with re-mappable hotkeys (Open & Close ROM)
*Drag & Drop for .fm2 and .lua files
*Many new functions added to the context menu (See context menu for details)
*New Mappable Hotkeys: Open Cheats, Open ROM, Close ROM, Undo/Redo savestate, Toggle Movie Subtitles

Lua

*Added input.get() !  Returns the mouse info and all keyboard buttons pressed by the user.
*Fixed joypad.set().  False now sets a button to off.  Nil does not affect the button at all (allowing the user to still control it).
*gui.text() Increased height (to approx. 7 lines).
*speedmode("turbo") now turns on turbo (which employs frame-skipping) rather than max speed.
*memory.readbyte will recognize frozen addresses (cheats).
*movie.framecount() always return a number, even when no movie is playing (since the frame counter is implemented without a movie loaded).
*Added FCEU.poweron()
*Added FCEU.softreset()
*Added FCEU.lagged()
*Added FCEU.lagcount()
*Added FCEU.getreadonly()
*Added FCEU.setreadonly()
*Added FCEU.fceu_setrenderplanes(sprites, background)
*Added movie.active()
*Added movie.rerecordcount()
*Added movie.length()
*Added movie.getname()
*Added movie.playbeginning()
*Added -lua command line argment, loads a Lua script on startup
*Added zapper.read() - returns the zapper (mouse) data.  (Currently does return zapper data in movie playback).
*Added joypad.write and joypad.get for naming consistency.
*Added rom.readbyte()
*Added rom.readbytesigned()

Sound Config

*Turning sound off disabled sound config controls
*Re-enabled sound buffer time slider control

Hex Editor

*Freezing ram addresses automatically updates the Cheats dialog if it is open.
* Added prevention from freezing more than 256 addresses at once (doing so caused crash bugs).
*Dialog remembers window size.
*Dump Rom & Dump PPU to file Dialogs use ROM to build default filename
*Maximize and minimize buttons added.
*Help menu item added

Memory Watch

*Dialog now includes Ram change monitoring. (see memwatch for details).
*Dialog is now collapsible to 1 column.
*No longer crashes when attempting to load an invalid file from the recent file menu.
*Cancel option added to the save changes dialog.
*Memory address values that are frozen by the debugger or hex editor are displayed in blue.
*Fixed bug that caused dialog to "disappear" due to saving -32000 as its window position.
*Save as dialog uses ROM name to build a default memory watch filename if there was no last used memory watch filename
*Drag and drop for .txt (memory watch) files.
*Minor menu and hotkey fixes.
*Watch values now compatible with custom windows dialog colors.

Debugger

*Shows scanlines and PPU pixel values
*Shows scanlines even while in VBlank
*Added a Run Line button (runs 1 scanline per click)
*Run 128 Lines button (runs 128 scanlines per click)
*Number of active cheats listed.
*Cheats list automatically updated if ram addresses are frozen in the hex editor.
*Fixed bug that caused dialog to "disappear" due to saving -32000 as its window position.
*Debugger now has a minimum valid size
*Added "Restore original window size" button

PPU Viewer

*Default refresh value set to 15
*Refresh value stored in the .cfg file

Nametable Viewer

*Default refresh value set to 15
*Refresh value stored in the .cfg file

Trace Logger

*Fixed bug where user can't scroll the log window while it is auto-updating.
*Changed message about F2 pause (left over from FCEUXDSP) to display the current hotkey mapping.

Text Hooker

*Saving a .tht file no longer crashes
*Dialog updates every frame
*Initialization error checking reinstalled,
*Dialog remembers window position
*Fixed bug where canceling save as produces an error message.
*Save As produces default filename based on the current ROM

Message Log

*Remembers X,Y position
*Resized width and height
*Allowed more lines of text to appear on the screen at once.

Metadata

*Remembers window position
*Can be called from the context menu if a movie is loaded (see context menu for details).

TASEdit

*added help menu item
*disabled menu items that are not currently implemented.

Turbo
*Turbo now employs frame skip, greatly increasing its speed
*The mute turbo option completely bypasses sound processing (another big speed boost)
*Turbo now works with the Lazy wait for VBlank sync setting
        

emulator:
bug: fix fcm conversion, recording, and playback of reset and power commands
bug: prevent excessively long movie filenames
bug: SF [ 2085437 ] should fix issues with missing author field in fcm convert crashing fceux
bug: fix savestate recovery code which prevented aborted savestate loads from recovering emulator state correctly.
bug: gracefully handle non-convertible broken utf-8 text without crashing
enh: permit user optionally to proceed through the movie savestate mismatch error condition, in case he knows what he is doing.
enh: Adding an experimental (optional and undocumented) new PPU. Slow, but more precise in some ways. 
     Contact developers if you think you need more precision

sdl: 
bug: fixed issue where windowed mode would always be set to 32 bpp
bug: SF [ 2062823 ] fixed ppc build errors and added LSB_FIRST option to build scripts
bug: SF [ 2057008 ] lua is now optional, thanks shinydoofy for a patch.  also fixed some build issues.
bug: SF [ 2008437 ] fixed an issue where flawed movie would crash fceux on every startup
enh: added support for AVI creation for SDL, see documention/Videolog.txt for more
enh: toggle lag frame counter for SDL, default hotkey F8
enh: toggle skipping of lag frames for SDL, default hotkey F6
enh: made the input config window more usable
enh: --inputcfg can now be used without a filename
enh: SF [ 2179829 ] user ability to toggle "bind savestates to movie" added for SDL, default hotkey F2
enh: SF [ 2047057 ] added uninstall script for gfceux

windows:
bug: SF [ 2073113 ] Child windows inside debugging window get invalid sizes
bug: Sound config dialog will now look to see if Mute Turbo should be checked
bug: hex editor find dialog does not reopen (fixed)
bug: SF [ 2058942 ] Load state as... does not use the savestate override dir (fixed; now, it does)
bug: fix problem where replay dialog couldnt work when the process current directory 
     had changed to something other than emulator base directory
bug: fix issue where keyboard keys get stuck when switching between debugger window and main window
enh: added a toggle for binding savestates to movies
enh: added -cfg (config file) command line argument
enh: add maximize button to debugger window
enh: bind a menu option for display framecounter
enh: autoload the only useful rom or movie from an archive, in cases where there is only one
enh: don't read every archive file when scanning for replay dialog. scan them, and only look for *.fm2

emulua:
bug: SF [ 2153843 ] Lua ignores second joypad.set()
enh: add execute timeout functions useful for lua contests

emulator:
bug: restore support for old-format savestates.
bug: restore savestate load error-recovery system
bug: restore IPS patching capability which was lost when archive support was added
bug: restore ungzipping (and unzipping in sdl) capability which was lost when archive support was added
bug: SF [ 2046985 ] SRAM not wiped on power cycle (during movies)
bug: palflag 1 in .fm2 files crashes fceux
enh: add lagcounter and lagflag to savestate
enh: support loading movies from archives

mappers:
bug: remove cnrom chr rom size limit for homebrew roms
bug: upgrade to cah4e3's latest mapper 163&164 code to fix a crash in a game
bug: mmc5 - 64KB WRAM games now work correctly
bug: mmc5 - use of chr A regs for BG in sprite 8x8 mode is fixed

windows:
bug: fix a bug which caused fourscore emulation to fail in some cases
bug: SF [ 2030405 ] Avi recording: no sound b0rks format
bug: SF [ 2040448 ] View Slots bug - does not include new savestate naming
bug: prevent windows from memory re-positioning themselves in the abyss when theyre closed while minimized
bug: removed broken hotkey ctrl+x (prevented cut from working in accel dialogs)
bug: fixed the (null) in the default lua directory listing
bug: SF [ 2037878 ] Convert .fcm doesn't do special characters
bug: SF [ 2046984 ] Player 3/4 input events recorded even when not used
bug: SF [ 2047001 ] Low speeds crash FCEUX
bug: SF [ 2050371 ] FCM>FM2 converter should release file handle
enh: added input display to the FCEUX main menu
enh: auto-fill .fcs extension in save state as dialog
enh: change config filename from fceu98.cfg to fceux.cfg
enh: new toggles: frame adv, lag skip (menu item + hotkey mapping + saved in config)
enh: added a mute turbo option in sound config
enh: add an option to pick a constant color to draw in place of BG when BG rendering is disabled (look for gNoBGFillColor in config; 255 means to use palette[0])
enh: added shift+L as default hotkey for reload lua script
enh: SF [ 2040463 ] Add an "author" text field in the record movie dialog
enh: SF [ 2047004 ] Moviefilenames without extension don't automatically get fm2 (and they need to)
enh: print a special message when trying to open an FCM reminding user to convert
enh: movie replay dialog displays fractions of a second

debugger:
bug: restore the debugger snap functionality
enh: add FORBID breakpoints - regions which block breakpoints from happening if they contain the PC
enh: debugger window is now resizeable and therefore useable at 1024x768
enh: nametable viewer correctly displays more cases (some MMC5 cases I needed)

sdl:
bug: all commandline options now use --argument as they always should have.
bug: fix issue which was resetting config file
bug: Saner sound defaults for less choppy sound
bug: Fixed a bug that would crash fceux if the emulation speed was overincreased
bug: fixed --input(1-4) options
bug: build scripts now look for lua5.1 and lua (distributions package lua differently)
bug: prevent frame advance from crashing emulator
enh: New default hotkeys more closely match win32 defaults
enh: --special option fixed for special video scaling filters
enh: rename options --no8lim -> --nospritelim and --color -> --ntsccolor
enh: Screenshots now always prepend the game name.
enh: Changed default A/B from numpad 2 and 3 to j and k.
enh: Enable frameskip by default
enh: change config path to ~/.fceux/fceux.cfg
enh: Added lua script loading hotkey (f3).  Non-win32 SDL requires zenity for this to function.

emulua:
bug: SF [ 2041944 ] Savestates remember Lua painting (and they shouldn't)
enh: add memory.readbyterange to emulua