M
Higan version 099 was released today!
Time for a new release. There are a few important emulation improvements and a few new features; but for the most part, this release focuses on major code refactoring, the details of which I will mostly spare you.
The major change is that, as of v099, the SNES balanced and performance cores have been removed from higan. Basically, in addition to my five other emulation cores, these were too much of a burden to maintain. And they've come along as far as I was able to develop them. If you need to use these cores, please use these two from the v098 release.
I'm very well aware that ~80% of the people using higan for SNES emulation were using the two removed profiles. But they simply had to go. Hopefully in the future, we can compensate for their loss by increasing the performance of the accuracy core.
If you want to know more about the removal of these two profiles, please read
this article for a more in-depth explanation.
- SFC: balanced profile removed
- SFC: performance profile removed
- SFC: expansion port devices can now be changed during gameplay (atlhough you shouldn't)
- SFC: fixed bug in SharpRTC leap year calculations
- SFC: emulated new research findings for the S-DD1 coprocessor
- SFC: fixed CPU emulation-mode wrapping bug with pei, [dp], [dp]+y instructions [AWJ]
- SFC: fixed Super Game Boy bug that caused the bottom tile-row to flicker in games
- GB: added MBC1M (multi-cart) mapper; icarus can't detect these so manual manifests are needed for now
- GB: corrected return value when HuC3 unmapped RAM is read; fixes Robopon [endrift]
- GB: improved STAT IRQ emulation; fixes Altered Space, etc [endrift, gekkio]
- GB: partial emulation of DMG STAT write IRQ bug; fixes Legend of Zerd, Road Rash, etc
- nall: execute() fix, for some Linux platforms that had trouble detecting icarus
- nall: new BitField class; which allows for simplifying flag/register emulation in various cores
- ruby: added Windows WASAPI audio driver (experimental)
- ruby: remove attempts to call glSwapIntervalEXT (fixes crashing on some Linux systems)
- ui: timing settings panel removed
- video: restored saturation, gamma, luminance settings
- video: added new post-emulation sprite system; light gun cursors are now higher-resolution
- audio: new resampler (6th-order Butterworth biquad IIR); quite a bit faster than the old one
- audio: added optional basic reverb filter (for fun)
- higan: refresh video outside cooperative threads (workaround for shoddy code in AMD graphics drivers)
- higan: individual emulation cores no longer have unique names
- higan: really substantial code refactoring; 43% reduction in binary size
Download it here!
http://byuu.org/emulation/higan/Higan is now version 100!!!
I feel it's important to stress right away that this is not "version 1.00", nor is it a major milestone release. Rather than arbitrary version numbers, all of my software simply bumps version numbers by one for each official release. As such, higan v100 is simply higan's 100th release.
Information!
That said, the primary focus of this release has been code clean-ups. These are always somewhat dangerous in that regressions are possible. We've tested through sixteen WIP revisions, one of which was open to the public, to try and minimize any regressions. But all the same, please report any regressions if you discover any.
Change Log!
- FC: render during pixels 1-256 instead of 0-255 [hex_usr]
- FC: rewrote controller emulation code
- SFC: 8% speedup over the previous release thanks to PPU optimizations
- SFC: fixed nasty DB address wrapping regression from v099
- SFC: USART developer controller removed; superseded by 21fx
- SFC: Super Multitap option removed from controller port 1; ports renamed 2-5
- SFC: hidden option to experiment with 128KB VRAM (strictly for novelty)
- higan: audio volume no longer divided by number of audio streams
- higan: updated controller polling code to fix possible future mapping issues
- higan: replaced nall/stream with nall/vfs for file-loading subsystem
- tomoko: can now load multi-slotted games via command-line
- tomoko: synchronize video removed from UI; still available in the settings file
- tomoko, icarus: can navigate to root drive selection on Windows
- all: major code cleanups and refactoring (~1MB diff against v099)
Notes:-
Note 1: the audio volume change means that SGB and MSU1 games won't lose half the volume on the SNES sounds anymore. However, if one goes overboard and drives the sound all the way to max volume with the MSU1, clamping may occur. The obvious solution is not to drive volume that high (it will vastly overpower the SNES audio, which usually never exceeds 25% volume.) Another option is to lower the volume in the audio settings panel to 50%. In general, neither is likely to ever be necessary.Note 2: the synchronize video option was hidden from the UI because it is no longer useful. With the advent of compositors, the loss of the complicated timing settings panel, support for the WonderSwan and its 75hz display, the need to emulate variable refresh rate behaviors in the Game Boy, the unfortunate latency spike and audio distortion caused by long Vsync pauses, and the arrival of adaptive sync technology ... it no longer makes sense to present this option. However, as stated, you can edit settings.bml to enable this option anyway if you insist and understand the aforementioned risks.
Download it here!
http://byuu.org/emulation/higan/Version 101 is now updated! Change log!
- fixed SNES SA-1 IRQ regression (fixes Super Mario RPG level-up screen)
- new scheduler for all emulator cores (precision of 2^-127)
- icarus database adds nine new SNES games
- added Input/Frequency to settings file (allows simulation of latency)
Download it here!
http://byuu.org/emulation/higan/[USER=2331002]@M.AzaryPika3172[/USER]: don't link directly to files on other people's sites, it's bad manners and could harm our reputation. Link to the download page instead.
M
Version 102 was updated! Plus BYUU.ORG website is now using HTTPS instead of HTTP. Change log!
This release adds very preliminary emulation of the Sega Master System (Mark III), Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive (Genesis), and NEC PC Engine (Turbografx-16). These cores do not yet offer sound emulation, save states or cheat codes.
I'm always very hesitant to release a new emulation core in its alpha stages, as in the past this has resulted in lasting bad impressions of cores that have since improved greatly. For instance, the Game Boy Advance emulation offered today is easily the second most accurate around, yet it is still widely judged by its much older alpha implementation.
However, it's always been tradition with higan to not hold onto code in secret. Rather than delay future releases for another year or two, I'll put my faith in you all to understand that the emulation of these systems will improve over time.
I hope that by releasing things as they are now, I might be able to receive some much needed assistance in improving these cores, as the documentation for these new systems is very much less than ideal.
Also, please note that starting with this release, I am omitting the settings.bml file. This means that you will have to manually configure your gamepad input assignments, and select the appropriate devices from the system menu after loading games. You may also want to select a more conservative driver profile than the default (OpenGL, WASAPI.) If they cause you any troubles, a safer bet would be (Direct3D, DirectSound.)
The good news in omitting this file is that you'll only have to configure inputs once, and you won't lose any customizations by upgrading to future releases.
Download it here! Available on 32 bit and 64 bit!
https://byuu.org/emulation/higan/Alternative link (EmuCR)
http://www.emucr.com/2017/01/higan-v102.html