byuu says:
There was one unfortunate aspect of the S-DD1 module: you had to give it
the DMA length and a target buffer, and it would do the entire
decompression at once. Real hardware would work by streaming the data
byte by byte. So with that, I went ahead and rewrote the code to handle
byte-based streaming.
This WIP is an important milestone for me personally. Up until now,
bsnes has always had code that was directly copy-pasted from other
authors. With all of the DSP and Cx4 chips rewritten in LLE, and the
SPC7110 algorithm already ported over from C, and archive decompression
code removed for a long time, the S-DD1 was the only module left like
this. It's obviously not that big of a deal. The code is basically still
a copy of the original. S-DD1 decomp from Andreas Naive, SPC7110 decomp
from neviksti, and S-DSP from blargg. And the rest of the emulator is of
course only possible because of code and research before it, although
everything else has no resemblance at all to code before it. The main
advantage, really, is absolute code consistency. I always use the same
variant of K&R, for instance. I dunno, I guess I just never really liked
the "Build-a-Bear Workshop" style of emulators, like is so prominent in
the Genesis scene: "My new Genesis emu (uses Starscream/Musashi 68K
core, Marat Fayzullin's Z80 core, YM2612 core from Game_Music_Emu, VDP
core from Gens, SVP core from picodrive)", sorry, but you wrote
a front-end, not an emulator :/
I also updated the SPC7110 decompression module: I merged the class
inside the SPC7110 class (not sure why it was separate before), and
replaced the morton lookup tables with for-loops. The morton tables were
added to be a tiny bit faster when I was more interested in speed than
code clarity. It may be a tiny bit slower (or faster due to less L2
cache usage), but you won't even notice an FPS drop, and it cuts out
a good chunk of code and some tables. Lastly, I added pinput_poll() to
video_refresh(). Forgot to remove Interface::input_poll() from the C++
side, will have to do that later.
byuu says:
This release adds low-level emulation of the Hitachi HG51B169 DSP, which
was used in Mega Man X2 and Mega Man X3 as the Cx4 chip. It also fixes
a regression in both the sound core and cheat engine.
You will now need the HG51B169 data ROM to play MMX2/MMX3.
Once again, Cx4 LLE could not have been possible without the help of Dr.
Decapitator, Jonas Quinn, Overload and Segher. Be sure to thank them,
please!
Changelog:
* added Cx4 low-level emulation; removed Cx4 high-level emulation code
* fixed S-SMP synchronization to S-CPU on CPUIO writes
* controllers now have their own threads and classes
* serial controller is now emulated as an actual controller, rather than
as a coprocessor
* added link coprocessor module for special chip research and homebrew
* fixed cheat codes that target mask ROM addresses [Cydrak]
* fixed compilation error with the latest GCC 4.6.0 beta releases
* added flexibility to XML memory mapping file format
* updated to mightymo's latest cheat pack (2011-06-20)
byuu says:
Started on a new SMP core for bsnes/Performance. I wanted to start
clean, and only copied over the debugger+disassembler portions from the
existing version. I figured that if I took the existing one and tried
trimming it down, that it'd end up with too much old baggage. But so
far, the opcodes are looking mostly the same anyway, only I'm
using #defines and a switch table in place of the template function
trickery.
I have enough written now that I can run Zelda 3 at least (although it
gets stuck in a loop immediately after.) No real point in comparing
speed yet, because it'll definitely go down as it becomes more complete.
byuu says:
Finally, a new release. I have been very busy finishing up SNES box,
cartridge and PCB scanning plus cataloguing the data, however this
release still has some significant improvements.
Most notably would be randomization on startup. This will help match the
behavior of real hardware and uninitialized memory + registers. It
should help catch homebrew software that forgets to initialize things
properly. Of course, I was not able to test the complete library, so it
is possible that if I've randomized anything that should be constant,
that this could cause a regression. You can disable this randomization
for netplay or to work around any incompatibilities by editing bsnes.cfg
and setting snes.random to false.
The GUI also received some updates. Widget sizes are now computed based
on font sizes, giving it a perfectly native look (because it is native.)
I've also added a hotkey remapping screen to the input settings. Not
only can you remap inputs to controllers now, but those who did not know
the hotkey bindings can now quickly see which ones exist and what they
are mapped to.
Changelog (since v077):
- memory and most registers are now randomly initialized on power-up
- fixed auto joypad polling issue in Super Star Wars
- fixed .nec and .rtc file extensions (they were missing the dot) [krom]
- PPU/accuracy now clears overscan region on any frame when it is
disabled
- PPU/compatibility no longer auto-blends hires pixels (use NTSC filter
for this)
- added hotkey remapping dialog to input settings window
- added a few new hotkeys, including quick-reset
- phoenix API now auto-sizes widgets based on font sizes
- file dialog once again remembers previously selected file when
possible
byuu says:
Rather than make the libsnes API incompatible with previous versions,
I just implemented path as return { basename, hint };
So you will still use the set basename function already there as before.
So either DSP/MSU1/Serial all go in the ROM folder, or they all go
somewhere else. You can be fancy and detect the gametype and override
the basename as you like, if you really want.
Bumped the API to 1.3, and added const char* snes_library_id(void); it
will return "bsnes v076.07" at the moment. The internal string is
static, but don't try caching it or modifying it anyway. You'll have to
split the name and version yourself if you want them separately. API is
backward-compatible to 1.0 still.
Also improved string::assign and string::append to take a variadic
number of arguments. To make this happen, I had to make to_string return
const char* so that infinite recursion did not happen.
byuu says:
Changelog:
- fixed a crashing bug when you toggle a cheat code and then load a save state
- added paths.cfg
- bsnes now remembers the most recent path per file-type, like bsnes/Qt
used to do
- re-added -s to Linux linker flags
- fixed crash with libsnes/SGB XML parsing
byuu says:
This release brings improved Super Game Boy emulation, the final SHA256
hashes for the DSP-(1,1B,2,3,4) and ST-(0010,0011) coprocessors, user
interface improvements, and major internal code restructuring.
Changelog (since v074):
- completely rewrote memory sub-system to support 1-byte granularity in
XML mapping
- removed Memory inheritance and MMIO class completely, any address can
be mapped to any function now
- SuperFX: removed SuperFXBus : Bus, now implemented manually
- SA-1: removed SA1Bus : Bus, now implemented manually
- entire bus mapping is now static, happens once on cartridge load
- as a result, read/write handlers now handle MMC mapping; slower
average case, far faster worst case
- namespace memory is no more, RAM arrays are stored inside the chips
they are owned by now
- GameBoy: improved CPU HALT emulation, fixes Zelda: Link's Awakening
scrolling
- GameBoy: added serial emulation (cannot connect to another GB yet),
fixes Shin Megami Tensei - Devichil
- GameBoy: improved LCD STAT emulation, fixes Sagaia
- ui: added fullscreen support (F11 key), video settings allows for
three scale settings
- ui: fixed brightness, contrast, gamma, audio volume, input frequency
values on program startup
- ui: since Qt is dead, config file becomes bsnes.cfg once again
- Super Game Boy: you can now load the BIOS without a game inserted to
see a pretty white box
- ui-gameboy: can be built without SNES components now
- libsnes: now a UI target, compile with 'make ui=ui-libsnes'
- libsnes: added WRAM, APURAM, VRAM, OAM, CGRAM access (cheat search,
etc)
- source: removed launcher/, as the Qt port is now gone
- source: Makefile restructuring to better support new ui targets
- source: lots of other internal code cleanup work
