- Major source code cleanup
- Completely rewrote memory mapper to support runtime MMCs
- Updated S-DD1 MMC to use new memory mapping interface
- Improved S-DD1 emulation, thanks to information from orwannon
- Added support for SameGame -- load via "Load Special -> Load BS-X Slotted Cart" menu option
- Completely rewrote cartridge loader to support BS-X, BS-X slotted carts and ST carts
- Created custom dialog windows for multicart loading
- Improved generic memory mapper, which eliminates the need for cart.db [Nach]
- Added BS-X slotted cart detection to generic memory mapper [Nach]
- Linux port will now ignore keypresses when window is inactive
- Linux port will use much less CPU power when idle
- Added detailed compilation instructions to Makefile for Linux port
- Added "make install" target and PNG program icon for Linux port
- Switched Windows compiler to MinGW/GCC4
- Windows executable is now packed with UPX to decrease filesize
- Removed .ufo, .gd7 and .078 ROM extensions; added .bs extension
- Added preliminary support for the BS-X base unit, BS-X base cartridge + MMC, and BS-X flash I/O
bsnes is exactly three years old today. I've posted a new version which adds DSP-3 and DSP-4 special chip support. The DSP-3 is used by SD Gundam GX, and the DSP-4 is used by Top Gear 3000. Please note that the DSP-3 is not fully emulated, thusly SD Gundam GX is not fully playable. Also, due to lack of timing emulation with the DSP-4, the Top Gear 3000 track sometimes flickers in split screen mode. However, it is believed that Top Gear 3000 is fully playable.
I should also note that I have started on SuperFX emulation, as some will inevitably see said code in my source releases. What I have now is nothing more than a skeleton implementation, and absolutely nothing using it is playable yet. I am making absolutely no promises that I will ever be able to emulate this chip. It will take at least several months of work, and even then, the speed will probably be too slow to reach 60fps on any system, but ... I'm working on it. While I have no way to run tests on the actual SuperFX hardware, I will do the best I can to emulate the chip accurately. I will be emulating the caching and cycle delays as best I can, but the information I have on this chip is extremely limited, so don't expect miracles.
Lastly, as promised, I have released the special chips I have personally emulated to the public domain. See license.txt for more information if interested. I cannot release the special chips whose code I did not write to the public domain, but all of that is already available under the GPLv2 (from ZSNES) or the SNES9x license.
Changelog:
- Added DSP-3 support, thanks to John Weidman, Kris Bleakley, Lancer, z80 gaiden
- Added DSP-4 support, thanks to Dreamer Nom, John Weidman, Kris Bleakley, Nach, z80 gaiden
- Started on support for SuperFX, no games playable as chip emulation is less than 1% complete
- Unsupported special chips will now display an alert
- Missing stbios.bin file when loading Sufami Turbo cartridges will now display an alert
- Video settings now saved separately for windowed and fullscreen mode
- Advanced option video<.mode>.synchronize can be enabled for vsync, but will cause sound crackling
- Added menu option to toggle FPS counter
- Minor source code cleanup
I began working on bsnes on October 14th, 2004. I am releasing bsnes v0.018 today to celebrate bsnes' two year anniversary. Please note that this release incurs a ~15% speed reduction since v0.017, due to IRQ and S-SMP timing improvements.
Changelog:
- Fixed many critical errors in IRQ timing, should be *very* close to real hardware now
- Corrected major CPU timing bug involving CPU I/O condition 4
- Corrected bug with generic HiROM / LoROM memory maps
- Corrected bug involving HDMA indirect channel termination [anomie]
- OAM address reset now occurs when screen display is enabled, per recent research
- Readded full DMA, HDMA and HDMA init bus sync timing
- Added preliminary emulation of S-SMP $00f0 TEST register (6 of 8 bits are supported)
- Readded emulation of known timing differences between CPU revisions 1 and 2
- Config file can now control scanline-based PPU render position. This will only be needed until a proper dot-based PPU renderer is added
- Removed core debugging hooks so that debugging console can remain in public releases, it now functions as a tracer and memory editor
- Config file paths once again work correctly even if missing trailing backslash
- Video configuration simplified, sorry in advance to those who enjoyed the profile mode used before
- Added new configuration screen to control some emulation settings
- Replaced bsnes program icon with a much nicer one [FitzRoy]
- Optimized memory speed detection algorithm
- Preliminary UPS soft-patching support (do not use this yet!)
- Decreased memory usage and optimized generic libraries used by bsnes (/src/lib)
- Now caching OAM by one line, somewhat similar to a real SNES. Fixes Winter Gold, but causes line rendering error in Mega lo Mania
- Lots more, as usual
The following games have been fixed since v0.017 by the above bugfixes:
- Battle Blaze (J, U)
- Circuit USA (J)
- F1 Grand Prix (J)
- Funaki Masakatsu no Hybrid Wrestler - Tougi Denshou (J)
- Jumbo Ozaki no Hole in One (J)
- Mahjongg Taikai II (J)
- RPG Tsukuru - Super Dante (J)
- Robocop Versus The Terminator (U, E)
- Sink or Swim (U, E)
- Street Racer (J)
- Touge Densetsu Saisoku Battle (J)
- Winter Olympics (U, E)
- Added GZ / ZIP / JMA archive support [Nach, NSRT team]
- Fixed bug in APU ADDW/SUBW opcode flags, thanks to DMV27, anomymous for info
- Mosaic support is now (mostly) hardware accurate, thanks to TRAC for info
- Fixed a bug in SC tilemap clipping, fixes Seiken Densetsu 3
- Emulated pseudo-hires mode, uses a fairly poor color filter to simulate TV effect, the same one that SNES9x and Super Sleuth use
- Rewrote the ROM loading code to be more port-friendly, and improved header detection
- Added C4 emulation -- mostly correct. Only minor bugs remain, possibly not C4 related [Nach, byuu], also uses code from zsKnight, Overload, and anomie
- Fixed noise channel generation for DSP, fixes Dual Orb 2 opening. Thanks to DMV27 for info
- Fixed bug with DSP VxSRCN registers, fixes horrible sound corruption in Mortal Kombat 2/3
- Modified DSP KON register reading to act according to anomie's research, while still allowing Der Langrisser, etc. to play sounds correctly
- Fixed a bug in CPU BCD math, fixes numbers in SimEarth, thanks to DMV27 for info
- Rewrote the windows port from scratch
- -- Added triple buffering support (buggy)
- -- Added DirectInput (joypad) support, allows both keyboard and joypad to be mapped to the same SNES controller button. Only one controller supported for this release, will be improved shortly
- -- Added pause key (mapped to Pause/Break)
- -- bsnes no longer consumes CPU time when paused or when no ROM is loaded
- -- Updated DirectDraw to 7, and added video mode configuration options to configuration file
- -- Video modes can specify screen width+height, refresh rate, and render width+height
- -- Added CTRL+[1-0] hotkeys for swapping video modes
- -- Added +/- hotkeys for adjusting frameskipping rate
- -- Added adjustable speed regulation. There are five modes, all can be adjusted inside the configuration file. CTRL+[+/-] will adjust the speed mode.
- -- Added PPU options to toggle any BG / OAM layers with any priority, HDMA effects, and offset per tile effects
- -- Added option to accept invalid button combinations (up+down, left+right) to joypad config menu
- -- bsnes now properly clears the main window when unloading games
- [code] Made destructors for base classes virtual, so the correct destructors will be called now
This version adds speed regulation, greatly improves PPU rendering, and increases speed by ~30% over the previous version.
Changelog:
- Rewrote offset-per-tile mode emulation, should be correct now. Fixes Chrono Trigger, Contra III, Tetris Attack, etc.
- Fixed a bug with HDMA occuring during interrupts. Fixes Tales of Phantasia souond test screen
- Updated compiler to Visual Studio 2005, and enabled profile guided optimizations
- Added conditional compilation of debugging functions (faster without them)
- Added conditional compilation of core classes as pointers (allowing polymorphism) or objects (allowing inlining). The latter results in a speed increase
- Small fixes to BG and OAM rendering routines
- Corrected sprite tile bounds wrapping
- Corrected sprite rendering in hires video modes
- Rewrote color add/sub routines, should be correct now. Fixes Illusion of Gaia menu, etc.
- Optimized video blitting routines, will temporarilly break mixed video mode screenshots
- Prevented selecting menu options via return key from being recognized as keypresses by the emulator
- Added system speed regulation (60hz/NTSC or 50hz/PAL)! Many thanks to kode54, GIGO, and Richard Bannister for their assistance
I disabled the debugger and polymorphism, and enabled profile guided optimizations for this build, to maximize speed. The debugger and polymorphism can be re-enabled via uncommenting the respective #defines in src/base.h and recompiling, or bsnes v0.013 can be used. I may start releasing two separate builds in the future... not sure yet.
Changelog:
- Added S-DSP emulation
- Added sound output support via DirectSound -- no sound buffering though, so sound is muted by default
- Added option to record raw sound output to WAV files
- Added multiple color adjustment filters to the video output
- Added mode3/4 direct color support
- Added mode7 direct color and mosaic support
- Greatly improved mode7 rendering algorithm thanks to anomie
- Fixed mode7 screen repitition and EXTBG effects
- Greatly increased accuracy of NMI and IRQ timing, and emulated many newly discovered hardware quirks involving the two
- A few speed improvements courtesy of Nach for profiling the code for me
I'm now looking for assistance with sound buffering. Specifically, I need help modifying the DirectSound code to allow the emulator to be ran between 50%-400% normal speed, while keeping the sound output relatively good. If you have experience with this and can help, please get in touch with me (setsunakun0 at hotmail dot com).
- Fixed Mode 0 color palette index problem. Fixes ToP, DQ5, etc.
- Improved LoROM memory mapper to support 32mbit images. Fixes Tokimeki Memorial, etc.
- Added full S-DD1 support, SFA2 and Star Ocean are now playable. Special thanks to Andreas Naive
- Updated BGnxOFS / Mode7 registers with anomie's latest findings
- Added basic ROM mirroring support. Fixes copy protection issues in MMX, etc.
- Rewrote string library to work better on gcc/linux
- Cleaned up S-RTC/S-DD1 emulation to make way for future add-on chip emulation
- Rewrote DMA code, now runs cycle-by-cycle
- Rewrote HDMA code, now allows HDMA to be enabled mid-frame, fixes many games
- Fixed a bug in Mode7 vertical screen flip mode. Fixes FF5 title screen, etc.
- Greatly improved IRQ triggering. Fixes Der Langrisser, etc.
- Added full support for open bus. This includes PPU1 and PPU2 open bus support
- Modified CPU core back to cycle-based system. Slower, but improves debugger
- Implemented temporary fix for debugger to handle new cycle-based cores
- Modified CGRAM to ignore highest bit, since it is not used at all by the SNES, and is impossible to read on real hardware. Lowers memory usage by ~1.2mb
- Added mostly accurate PAL timing support. This should increase compatibility by ~30% or so
- More stuff I'm forgetting at the moment...
