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The next version of RetroCopy has finally been released! Available in 32bit and 64bit versions, grab it from the download page.

The biggest changes in this release are massive improvements to Genesis/Megadrive accuracy, across the board sound improvements and save states.


Here is what's new :-

v0.720 - March 17th 2010
-[EMU] Improved speed by average 20% in all cores
-[EMU] Fixed issues with shadow/hilight mode, vertical scrolling, DMA bugs, sprite collision, aspect ratio and timing in the Genesis/Megadrive VDP
-[EMU] Cleaned up Sega Genesis / Megadrive state, reduced size of it by 600% (allowing more rewind per megabyte)
-[EMU] Fixed bug in 6button controller that stopped it working in some Genesis/Megadrive games [Sasha]
-[EMU] Fixed a few Genesis/Megadrive memory map issues [Eke]
-[EMU] Improved YM2612/Z80/VDP timing in Genesis/Megadrive (along with other fixes 98+% of all Genesis games work very good now)
-[EMU] Fixed slowdown bug when games read input ports too much (Legend of Galahad, Kawasaki, Aleste) [Sasha]
-[EMU] Fixed numerous bugs in YM2612 core (fixes Gynoug, Beavis and Butthead, Streets of Rage and a few other games with strange glitches) [Eke,Sasha]
-[EMU] Cleaned up Sega Master System, Game Gear, Sega-E and Nintendo states
-[EMU] Added "full display" option to Game Gear. Shows the full Game Gear frame which often has valid screen data.
-[EMU] Added native sampling to YM2413 FM chip (SMS)
-[EMU] Improved efficiency, accuracy and general cleanliness of SMSVDP (SMS, GG, SEGAE)
-[EMU] Improved NES sound filtering, now sample internally at over 240000Hz and then down sample for increased quality.
-[EMU] Fixed bug in Z80 LD R, A instruction
-[EMU] Implemented Z80 IM2 support
-[EMU] Added some config options to set frequency cutoffs and mixing levels of certain audio devices

-[SOUND] Added new high quality resampling engine with different settings for speed. Every sound chip now uses it.
-[SOUND] Added 3 band equalizer (using Linkwitz Riley 4th order) , low (bass boost), medium and high frequencies can now be amplified separately
-[SOUND] Added filtering option which is designed to simulate capacitors/resistors/etc that sound on real machines was filtered through

-[CORE] Added reset button which forces hard reset
-[CORE] Added automatic save states to all systems. Simply leave a game and resume it at any time at same point you left. Can also do manual saves
-[CORE] Added SSE2 optimizations throughout (now a requirement)
-[CORE] Added memory alignment functions for better multithreading performance of video/audio buffers
-[CORE] Upgraded to boost 1.42
-[CORE] Fixed bug that didn't recognize .SMD files for Genesis/Megadrive conversion [lolcano118]
-[GUI] Fixed bug that wasn't translating some keys correctly like the underscore [Pixel_Crusher, Entrax]
-[GUI] Added new slider control for volume/bass/etc adjustment

Major accuracy improvements have happened over the past few days. They easily warrant a new beta release.

First, it turns out that every emulator to date; not only for the SNES, but for the Apple II GS as well, incorrectly computed ADC (add) and SBC (subtract) flags in BCD (binary-coded decimal) mode. At least fifteen years of emulating the 65816 processor, at least five known investigations into their behavior, and we all still had it wrong.

So I wrote some tests that dumped every possible combination of adc and sbc with every possible input and every possible flag, and recorded both the accumulator result and status flag register. From here, blargg figured out the underlying trick: the CPU was computing overflow before the top-nibble's BCD correction pass. With the routines rewritten, bsnes perfectly matches real hardware now.

Next, some background. The whole reason I got into SNES emulation was because I was tired of writing code that ran perfectly fine on emulators, but failed miserably on real hardware. The number one problem was emulators allowing video RAM to be written while the screen was being rendered. This single bug has broken dozens of fan translations and ROM hacks. Some have been updated to work around this bug, and many others are left in a permanently broken state (such as the translations of Dragon Quest I & II and Sailor Moon: Another Story, to name just two.) After asking emulator authors to fix this since 1997, I finally had enough in 2004 and started on bsnes. For this particular bug, I'm very happy to report that all but one SNES emulator now properly blocks these invalid accesses. Although sadly one still offers a configuration setting for backwards compatibility with these translations. What an ironic shame ... emulating an emulator. And in the process, sapping the motivation to ever go back and fix these titles to ever run on real hardware. But I digress ...

The second biggest problem that causes software created under emulation to break on real hardware has, without a doubt, been the hardware delays as the S-CPU computes MUL (multiplication) and DIV (division) results. To date, whenever you used this hardware functionality, emulators have immmediately furnished the correct results. But on real hardware, multiplication requires eight CPU cycles, and division requires sixteen. Each step computes one bit of the source operand and updates the results. Reading the output registers early thus provides the partially computed results.

This is obscure. It isn't well known, and many people writing software for the SNES probably aren't even aware of this limitation. Because of the partial computation results, outright delaying the computation would break many commercial software titles. But by not emulating the delay at all, we were causing a great disservice to anyone wishing to use an emulator for development purposes.

Now, once again, thanks to blargg's algorithm help, he has determined the underlying multiplication and division algorithms. Combined with my expertise of SNES analysis and hardware testing, I was able to determine when and how the ALU (arithmetic logic unit) stepped through each work cycle. Our work combined, bsnes now also perfectly emulates the hardware MUL and DIV delays.

Again, this isn't going to fix commercial software titles. They would have realized that they were reading back invalid MUL and DIV values, and fixed their code. This is for all of the software developed using emulators. This is an extension of my commitment to create a hardware emulator, and not a video game emulator.

We also verified that the S-PPU multiplication interface does indeed return instant results with no delay. So emulation of that interface was already correct.

I'm only labelling this release a beta because it hasn't been tested. But I'm fairly confident that it is stable, and I seriously recommend upgrading from v060 or prior releases. This is easily one of the last major pieces missing from emulation.

The last notable elements are: S-CPU auto joypad poll timing, S-CPUr1 HDMA crash detection, S-CPU<>S-SMP port ORing, S-SMP timer glitching, S-DSP mute pulse, and full cycle-level emulation of the S-PPU. With all of the aforementioned items, I will consider a v1.0 release of bsnes

Lastly, I'll post this screenshot just for fun. When d4s translated Breath of Fire II to German, he added some code that relies on the incorrect emulation of the DIV register to detect emulators. With this emulated properly, you now see the following screen:



Sorry to spoil that, but the secret's already out, as the MESS team reported on it publicly already.

I intend to add pseudo-randomness support shortly, which should eliminate one of the last vectors possible to distinguish bsnes from real hardware

A million thanks to blargg for making this release possible.

I suppose I should start calling these nightlies, heh. blargg went ahead and verified every last possible edge case with regards to the S-CPU MUL / DIV registers. It uncovered a few errors in my implementation, which have since been corrected. The design used now should be a direct reflection of the hardware implementation: no actual multiplication, no actual division, and no variable-length bit-shifting.

We also spent about eight hours straight hammering away at the S-SMP test register. We have a partial understanding of TEST.d3 and TEST.d0, and a complete understanding of the other six bits. All of this has been implemented as well.

Lastly, snesreader gets a tiny update to fix Test Drive II, which broke due to a slight regression when porting the mapping code to XML.

• Added a sample player to the Burn library to allow external samples to used with drivers [iq_132]
  
• Added a module to display LEDs on screen [iq_132]
  
• Ported MAME's M6805 core and added an interface for it to the burn library [iq_132]
  
• Added an interface to the M68705 core for Taito games [iq_132]
  
• Enabled the Y8950 emulation in fmopl.c and created a module for it in the burn library [Barry]
  
• Fixed VSynch support in all blitters [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Added a RGB hex display to the Palette Viewer [Barry]
  
• Added support to the System 16 FD1094 interface for multiple CPUs [Barry]
  
• Added memory callback support to the HD6309 core interface [Barry]
  
• Added custom tile size support to the Generic Tiles Rendering module [Barry]
  
• Added generic rendering for games using transparency tables [iq_132]
  
• Added support to the Namco Sound module for stereo sound and fixed the mono output [iq_132]
  
• Added CUS30 handling to the Namco Sound module [iq_132]
  
• Enabled m6803_internal_register_r in the M6800 CPU core [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Air Buster [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for games on Angel Kids hardware [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Baraduke [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Egg Hunt [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Fairy Land Story [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Ginga NinkyouDen [iq_132]
  
• Hooked up the Y8950 sound in Ginga NinkyouDen [Barry]
  
• Added driver for games on Lady Bug hardware [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Markham [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Mogura Desse [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Pushman [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Sky Kid [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Speed Spin [iq_132]
  
• Added driver for Asuka & Asuka and similar games on Taito hardware [iq_132 (thanks to JackC for testing)]
  
• Added driver for Welltris [iq_132]
  
• Added clone of 1942 to the 1942 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Arkanoid to the Arkanoid driver [Barry]
  
• Enabled clones of Arkanoid that require the M68705 CPU [iq_132][
  
• Added bootleg of Final Fight to the CPS-1 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Pang 3 to the CPS-1 driver [Barry]
  
• Added Street Fighter 2 (Double K.O. Turbo II) bootleg to the CPS-1 driver [iq_132]
  
• Added clone of Dark Stalkers to the CPS-2 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara to the CPS-2 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Hyper Street Fighter 2 to the CPS-2 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Mega Man 2 to the CPS-2 driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo to the CPS-2 driver [Barry]
  
• Rewrote the Dec0 driver from scratch (currently preliminary) [Barry]
  
• Added Dark Tower to the Double Dragon driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Moon Cresta to the Galaxian driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Scramble to the Galaxian driver [Barry]
  
• Added WOW New Fantasia to the Gals Panic driver [BisonSAS]
  
• Added clone of Ghosts n' Goblins to the Ghost's n' Goblins driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of X-Men to the Konami driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Airwolf to the Kyugo driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Last Duel to the Mad Gear driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of King of Fighters '95 to the Neo-Geo driver [iq_132]
  
• Added clone of Samurai Shodown II to the Neo-Geo driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Samurai Shodown IV to the Neo-Geo driver [Barry]
  
• Added Ironclad to the the Neo-Geo driver [iq_132]
  
• Added kof96ep, kof97pla, kf2k1pls, kf2k1pa, cthd2k3a, kf2k2plb, kf2k2plc, kf2k4pls, mslug5b, kof96cn, kof96ae, kof97cn, kof97xt, kof98ae and kf2k2ps2 to the Neo-Geo driver [Barry]
  
• Added Popeye-Man to the Pacman driver [Barry]
  
• Added preliminary driver for Rally X [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Alien Syndrome to the Sega System 16B driver [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Super Hang-On to the Sega Hang-On driver (enabled in debug builds only because it doesn't work) [Barry]
  
• Added clone of Mega Blast to the Taito F2 driver [Barry]
  
• Enabled clones of Tiger Heli that require the M68705 core [iq_132]
  
• Added Demon World, Fire Shark, Rally Bike, and Vimana to the Toaplan-1 driver [iq_132]
  
• Added Knuckle Bash 2 to the Toaplan-2 driver [iq_132]
  
• Added clone of Outzone to the Toaplan-1 driver [Barry]
  
• PGM Changes [iq_132]
  
• 02-27-2010
  
• Added kov2a and kov2b (kov2b is disabled) partially dumped sets
  
• Thanks to JackC for helping sort a few sets.
  
• 12-05-2009
  
• Added Happy6in1 (XingXing)
  
• Added newer 68k bios (XingXing)
  
• Added fake dip switch to switch beween 68k bios versions
  
• Added kovsh103 (XingXing)
  
• Added martmastc102 (XingXing)
  
• Added region dips for martmastc102
  
• Added proper dump for demon front (alt) (XingXing)
  
• Added several pgm bootleg/hacks from MAME Plus
  
• Added proper dump for orlegendc
  
• Labeled region dips as "fake" as they are really hacks since PGM games usually have their regions supplied by the protection devices.
  
• Corrected the CPU clocks in the Outrun driver as per MAME 0.135u4 [Barry]
  
• Fixed a memory issue when exiting the CPS-1 driver [iq_132]
  
• Fixed a crash when loading games in the Blood Bros. driver [BisonSAS and iq_132]
  
• Fixed graphics in My Angel 2 [iq_132]
  
• Emulated the M68705 in Legend of Kage rather than simulate it [iq_132]
  
• Added layer disable to the CPS-3 driver [iq_132]
  
• Fixed CPS-3 sound synch when using non-standard frame rates [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Fixed a romname in mslug4nd [kenshiro]
  
• Fixed init bug in Guardians in the Seta-2 driver [kenshiro]
  
• Added UniCode titles and fixed some details in the Cross Pang driver [BisonSAS]
  
• Fixed crash in the D-Con driver [BisonSAS and iq_132]
  
• Corrected dipswitches in the F-1 Grand Prix driver [BisonSAS
  
• Fixed graphics in Fantasia II (Less Explicit) in the Gals Panic driver [BisonSAS]
  
• Fixed crash in Ultra Balloon (SunA16 driver) [Bruce Lee and iq_132]
  
• Various fixes in the Tao Taido driver [BisonSAS]
  
• Added a new support file importer module [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Added option to use a background image in the menu bar [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Updated the jukebox and improved Neo-Geo support [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Converted the driver list generation perl script to C++ and changed the documentation output to HTML [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Fixed an issue when loading tracklists in the jukebox [Captain CPS-X]
  
• Updated the megadrive driver to the latest one generated from the database on barryharris.me.uk [Barry]
  
• Matched all sets to MAME 0.136u3 [Barry]
  
• Updated libpng to version 1.4.0 [Barry]
  
• Fixed a MSVC compile issue with the latest libpng [Captain CPS-X]

Ok guys, first off, a little warning. With so many many fake news surrounding the homebrew scene lately, this one should be taken with a grain of salt, but apparently, a Japanese homebrew developer named MadDaemon is developing a new custom firmware to bypass the latest PSP firmware 6.20.

According to the dev, the new firmware is still in early stage of development and currently has some bugs on some homebrews and PSX games. Expect CFW 6.20 Mad-001 to be released on February 14 at 16:00 Japanese time. Real or not? Stay tuned.

Thanks to XenderRAy for the tip

It has been a long time since the last release.. (Xmas 2008).
But now its time to show the world what has been done since the last time.

So thats why the new release 0.1 Alpha is there.

Download can be found on the sourceforge page.
dxbx | Get dxbx at SourceForge.net

What has been fixed..

- Game logos are shown in the main form and can also be exported.
- The dll`s don`t need to be copied annymore to the game folders. ( this because of Xbe Loading ).
- No more creating exe files, we run the xbe files instead of converting the xbe to exe.
- We use our own dll files, not working with the cxbx dll`s
- XBEExplorer, a new tool for looking into xbe files like a PE Header viewer, then for xbe files.
- XDKTracker game list has been updated..

This are some features i can think of.. so now you can take a look also with this new setup.
REMEMBER .. THIS IS STILL ALPHA -- NO PLAYABLE STUFF --

We are still hard working on it.. and prehaps we can make a full 0.1 version..
But for now its still ALPHA !!

Greetings,

Dxbx Team