Update to bsnes v107 release.

[This is specifically a release of bsnes, not the whole higan suite, even though
it contains all the higan source. -Ed.]

byuu says:

Today I am posting the first release of the new bsnes emulator.

bsnes is designed to be a revival of the classic bsnes design, focusing
specifically on performance and ease of use for SNES emulation.

In addition to all of the features of higan, bsnes supports the following
features:

  - 300% faster (than higan) scanline-based, multi-threaded graphics renderer
  - option to disable sprite limits in games
  - option to enable hires mode 7 graphics
  - option to enable more accurate pixel-based graphics renderer
  - option to overclock SuperFX games by up to 800%
  - periodic auto-saving of game save RAM
  - save state manager with state screenshots
  - several new save state hotkeys such as increment/decrement slot#
  - option to auto-save states when unloading a game or closing the emulator
  - option to auto-load aforementioned states when loading games
  - save state undo and redo support (with associated hotkeys)
  - speed override modes (50%, 75%, 100%, 150%, 200%)
  - recent games list
  - frame advance mode
  - screenshot hotkey
  - path selection for games, patches, saves, cheats, states, and screenshots
  - dynamic video, audio, input driver changes
  - direct loading and playing of games without the use of the higan library
  - ZIP archive and multiple file extension support for games
  - firmware folder for unappended coprocessor firmware (see documentation for
    more)
  - compatibility with sd2snes and Snes9X MSU1 game file naming
  - compatibility with higan gamepaks (game folders)
  - soft-patching support for both BPS and IPS patches
  - menubar that does not pause emulation when entered
  - video pixel shaders (requires OpenGL 3.2)
  - built-in game database with over 1,200 games to ensure perfect memory
    mapping
  - (Linux, BSD only:) audio dynamic rate control to eliminate stuttering
  - and much more!

The one feature I regret not being able to support in this release is Windows
dynamic rate control. I put in my best attempt, but XAudio2's API is simply not
fine-grained enough, and the WASAPI driver is not mature enough. I hope that DRC
support can be added to the Windows port in the near future, and I would like to
offer a large cash bounty to anyone who can help me make this happen.

Update to v106 release.

byuu says:

Changelog (since v105tr1):

Changelog:

  - added Emulation/AutoSaveMemory/Interval setting to specify number of
    seconds between auto-saves
  - added Game Notes tool
  - added 64 new SNES PAL games to the icarus preservation database

The Games Notes tool is a new feature that gives you a blank text box to
enter notes about a game that you're playing: so you can write down
things like level select codes for games with save RAM, combo moves, or
whatever other information you'd like quick and easy access to.

This is kind of an experiment. Ideally, we'd wanna allow more
personalized information, drawings, etc. But hey, let's try it out and
see what people think.

v105tr1 extra release.

After the release of v105, byuu went on holiday. While he was away,
some emulation bugs were uncovered, including for a high-profile
fan-translation. Forum member Cydrak (also known as Talarubi) put
together a release with the required fixes and some other sensible
changes, and called it "v105tr1".

In the [release thread][1], byuu said:

> This is an official higan release, and it supersedes v105 as the
> new latest official version.

[1]: https://board.byuu.org/viewtopic.php?p=48451#p48451

Update to v105 release.

byuu says:

This release provides several major improvements to Mega Drive emulation
which enhances compatibility a good deal. It also includes important
Super Famicom mosaic emulation improvements, plus a much-needed SuperFX
save state issue fix.

Changelog (since v104):

  - higan: many improvements to Emulator::Interface to support
    forks/frontends
  - higan: refreshed program icon
  - icarus: new program icon
  - Game Boy Advance: slight emulation speedup over v104
  - Game Boy Advance: synchronize APU FIFO updates better
  - Mega Drive: added automatic region detection [hex_usr]
  - Mega Drive: support 8-bit SRAM
  - Game Boy Advance: fixed bug when changing to THUMB mode via MSR
    [MerryMage]
  - Master System: fix bug in backdrop color and background 0 priority
    [hex_usr]
  - Mega Drive: backgrounds always update output priority bit [Cydrak]
  - Mega Drive: emulated interlaced video output
  - Mega Drive: emulated shadow/highlight mode [Cydrak]
  - Super Famicom: auto joypad polling clears the shift register when
    starting
  - Super Famicom: added new low-entropy RAM initialization mode to more
    closely match hardware
  - Game Boy Advance: rumble will now time out after being left on for
    500ms
  - ruby: improved rumble support in udev input driver [ma_rysia]
  - M68K: `move.b (a7)[+/-]` adjust a7 by two
  - M68K: illegal/lineA/lineF opcodes do not modify the stack register
  - Mega Drive: emulate VIP status bit
  - uPD7725: improved emulation of OV1/S1 flags [byuu, AWJ, Lord
    Nightmare]
  - uPD7725: improved handling of DP, RP updates [Jonas Quinn]
  - Super Famicom: improved emulation of mosaic effects in hires,
    interlace, and offset-per-tile modes [byuu, Cydrak]
  - ruby: improved Direct3D exclusive mode monitor selection [Cydrak]
  - Super Famicom: fixed save state bug affecting SuperFX games
    [Cydrak]
  - Mega Drive: added workaround for Clang compiler bug; allowing this
    core to work on macOS [Cydrak, Sintendo]
  - higan: hotkeys now also trigger when the main window lacks focus yet
    higan is set to allow input on focus loss
  - higan: fixed an edge case where `int16_t` ↔ `double` audio
    conversion could possibly result in overflows
  - higan: fixed a crash on macOS when choosing quit from the
    application menu [ncbncb]

Changelog (since the previous WIP):

  - higan: restored `make console=true`
  - tomoko: if you allow input when main window focus is lost, hotkeys
    can now be triggered without focus as well
  - hiro/cocoa: fix crash on exit from menu [ncbncb]
  - ruby: smarter `double` → `int16_t` conversion to prevent
    underflow/overflow

Document the rotation feature.

Update to v104 public release.

[As mentioned in the v104 internal release notes, byuu fixed a small typo in
the GBA core. -Ed.]

byuu says:

There are lots of improvements in this new release, both to core
emulation and to the user interface. However, some of these changes are
quite substantial, so regressions are a possibility. Please report any
regressions from v103 on the forums if found.

Note that Mega Drive save RAM files will not be compatible with v103,
but will now be compatible with save RAM files from all other Mega Drive
emulators, and the format will be stable going forward.

Also!! Thanks to the tireless work of Screwtape, the
Help->Documentation link in higan now takes you to a very comprehensive
user guide. Please be sure to consult this if you have any questions
about using higan.

Lastly, I've added a link to my Patreon page (https://patreon.com/byuu/)
to the higan downloads page. The money will go exclusively toward
purchasing SNES games for preservation, hardware and flash carts for
reverse engineering, equipment such as backup drives, etc. Donating is
entirely optional and comes with no rewards, but would of course be
greatly appreciated! ^^;

Changelog (since v103):

  - nall/dsp: improved first-order IIR filtering
  - Famicom: improved audio filtering (90hz lowpass + 440hz lowpass +
    14khz highpass)
  - Game Boy Advance: corrected bug in PSG wave channel emulation
    [Cydrak]
  - Mega Drive: added first-order 2.84KHz low-pass filter to match VA6
    model hardware
  - Mega Drive: lowered PSG volume relative to YM2612 to match VA6 model
    hardware
  - Mega Drive: Hblank flag is not always set during Vblank
  - Mega Drive: fix PAL mode reporting from control port reads
  - Famicom: improved phase duty cycle emulation (mode 3 is 25% phase
    inverted; counter decrements)
  - Mega Drive: reset does not cancel 68K bus requests
  - Mega Drive: 68K is not granted bus access on Z80 reset
  - Mega Drive: CTRL port is now read-write, maintains value across
    controller changes
  - Z80: IX, IY override mode can now be serialized in save states
  - 68K: fixed calculations for ABCD, NBCD, SBCD [hex\_usr,
    SuperMikeMan]
  - SPC700: improved all cycle timings to match results observed by
    Overload with a logic anaylzer
  - Super Famicom: SMP uses a separate 4x8-bit buffer for $f4-f7; not
    APU RAM [hex\_usr]
  - Super Famicom: SMP TEST register is now finally 100% fully emulated
    [byuu, AWJ]
  - Game Boy Advance: DMA can run between CPU instruction cycles
  - Game Boy Advance: added 2-cycle delay between DMA activation and
    transfers
  - higan: improved aspect ratio correction accuracy at higher video
    scaling sizes
  - higan: overscan masking will now actually crop the underlying video
    instead of just blanking it
  - Mega Drive: center video when overscan is disabled
  - higan: added increment/decrement quick save slot hotkeys
  - Game Boy Advance: fixed wave RAM nibble ordering (fixes audio in
    Castlevania, Pocket NES)
  - higan: added new adaptive windowed mode: resizes the window to the
    current emulated system's size
  - higan: added new integral scaling mode: resizes the window to fill
    as much of the screen as possible
  - higan: main window is now resizable and will automatically scale
    contents based on user settings
  - higan: fixed one-time blinking of the main window on startup caused
    by focus stealing bug
  - ruby: fixed major memory leak in Direct3D driver
  - ruby: added fullscreen exclusive mode to Direct3D driver
  - Super Famicom: corrected latching behavior of BGnHOFS PPU registers
  - higan: all windows sans the main viewport can be dismissed with the
    escape key now
  - ruby: complete API rewrite; many audio drivers now support device
    selection
  - higan: output frequency can now be modified
  - higan: configuration settings split to individual menu options for
    faster access to individual pages
  - ruby: improved WASAPI driver to event-driven model; more compatible
    in exclusive mode now
  - libco: fix compilation of sjlj and fiber targets [Screwtape]
  - ruby: added YV12 and I420 support to X-Video driver
  - Game Boy: added TAMA emulation (RTC emulation is not working yet)
    [thanks to endrift for notes]
  - Game Boy: correct data ordering of MMM01 ROMs (MMM01 ROMs will need
    to be re-imported into higan)
  - Game Boy: store MBC2 save RAM as 256-bytes instead of 512-bytes (RAM
    is 4-bit; not 8-bit with padding)
  - Game Boy: fixed a bug with RAM serialization in games without a
    battery
  - Mega Drive: fix CRAM reads (fixes Sonic Spinball) [hex\_usr]
  - Game Boy: added rumble support to MBC5 games such as Pokemon Pinball
  - Game Boy: added MBC7 emulation (accelerometer X-axis, EEPROM not
    working yet) [thanks to endrift for notes]
  - hiro: macOS compilation fixes and UI improvements [MerryMage,
    ncbncb]
  - Game Boy: added MBC6 emulation (no phone link or flash support;
    timing bugs in game still)
  - Game Boy: HDMA syncs to other components after each byte transfer
    now
  - Game Boy: disabling the LCD completely halts the PPU (fixes onscreen
    graphical corruption in some games)
  - Mega Drive: added 6-button Fighting Pad emulation [hex\_usr]
  - 68K: TAS sets d7 when EA mode is a direct register (fixes Asterix
    graphical corruption)
  - Game Boy: STAT mode is forced to zero when LCD is disabled (fixes
    Pokemon Pinball)
  - LR35902: complete rewrite
  - icarus: high-DPI is not supported on Windows yet; remove setting for
    consistency with higan window sizes
  - hiro: added full support for high-DPI displays on macOS [ncbncb]
  - ARM7TDMI: complete rewrite
  - Super Famicom: disabled channels during HDMA initialization appear
    to set DoTransfer flag
  - V30MZ: code cleanup
  - Mega Drive: added optional TMSS emulation; disabled by default
    [hex\_usr]
  - ARM7TDMI: pipeline decode stage caches CPSR.T [MerryMage]
  - ARM7TDMI: fixed timing of THUMB stack multiple instruction
    [Cydrak]
  - higan: detect when ruby drivers crash; disable drivers on next
    startup to prevent crash loop
  - Mega Drive: added automatic region detection (favors NTSC-J >
    NTSC-U > PAL) [hex\_usr]
  - Mega Drive: support 8-bit SRAM
  - ARM7TDMI: PC should be incremented by 2 when setting CPSR.T via MSR
    instruction [MerryMage]
  - ruby: add Windows ASIO driver support (does not work on some systems
    due to buggy vendor drivers)
  - higan: default to safe drivers on a new install; due to instability
    with some optimal drivers

Update to v103 final release.

byuu says (in the public annoucement):

With this release, PC Engine, Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive and
the newly added SuperGrafx support are now quite usable! They're far
from the best emulators for these systems, but with many bugfixes, full
sound emulation, and save state support ... many games are now fully
playable with decent accuracy. The Game Boy Advance emulation is also
now substantially improved with vastly improved sound quality and a new
dot-based PPU renderer. With that change, every single component in
higan is now cycle-based. Regrettably, these changes do carry a ~20%
performance penalty compared to GBA emulation in v102.

Changelog (since the previous release):

  - added SuperGrafx emulation
  - improved audio band-pass filtering for all emulated systems
  - screen rotation is now a hotkey; automatically rotates control
    bindings
  - screen rotation now supported on the Game Boy Advance as well (used
    by a small number of games)
  - massive improvements to Mega Drive emulation
  - massive code cleanups and rewrites to many CPU emulation cores
    (MOS6502, WDC65816, SPC700, etc)
  - Famicom, Master System, Mega Drive: added PAL emulation support
  - PC Engine, SuperGrafx, Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive: added
    save state support
  - PC Engine, SuperGrafx: added PSG sound emulation
  - Master System, Game Gear: added PSG sound emulation
  - Mega Drive: added Z80 APU emulation [with help from Cydrak]
  - Mega Drive: added PSG sound emulation
  - Mega Drive: added YM2612 sound emulation [Cydrak]
  - Super Famicom: fixed Super Game Boy emulation
  - PC Engine: added save RAM support (using per-game PCE-CD backup RAM)
  - Game Boy Advance: substantial improvements to audio emulation
    quality
  - Game Boy Advance: convert scanline-based PPU renderer to a dot-based
    renderer
  - Game Boy Advance: properly initialize CPU state (fixes Classic NES
    Series games)
  - Game Boy Advance: MUL timing corrected [Jonas Quinn]
  - Mega Drive: emulate special mappers for Phantasy Star IV, Super
    Street Fighter II, etc.
  - Super Famicom: use darker luma for INIDISP=0 (large improvement to
    Final Fantasy III opening)
  - Super Famicom: fixed bugs in SMP OR1,AND1 instructions
  - cheat code database regrettably removed from official releases; will
    be made available separately
  - Famicom: PAL emulation improvements [hex\_usr]

Update to v102 release.

byuu says (in the public announcement):

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.

byuu says (in the WIP forum):

Changelog:

  - PCE: latch background scroll registers (fixes Neutopia scrolling)
  - PCE: clip background attribute table scrolling (fixes Blazing Lazers
    scrolling)
  - PCE: support background/sprite enable/disable bits
  - PCE: fix large sprite indexing (fixes Blazing Lazers title screen
    sprites)
  - HuC6280: wrap zeropage accesses to never go beyond $20xx
  - HuC6280: fix alternating addresses for block move instructions
    (fixes Neutopia II)
  - HuC6280: block move instructions save and restore A,X,Y registers
  - HuC6280: emulate BCD mode (may not be 100% correct, based on SNES
    BCD) (fixes Blazing Lazers scoring)

Update to v101 release.

byuu says (in the public announcement):

Not a large changelog this time, sorry. This release is mostly to fix
the SA-1 issue, and to get some real-world testing of the new scheduler
model. Most of the work in the past month has gone into writing a 68000
CPU core; yet it's still only about half-way finished.

Changelog (since the previous release):

  - 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)

byuu says (in the WIP forum):

Changelog:

  - in 32-bit mode, Thread uses uint64\_t with 2^-63 time units (10^-7
    precision in the worst case)
      - nearly ten times the precision of an attosecond
  - in 64-bit mode, Thread uses uint128\_t with 2^-127 time units
    (10^-26 precision in the worst case)
      - far more accurate than yoctoseconds; almost closing in on planck
        time

Note: a quartz crystal is accurate to 10^-4 or 10^-5. A cesium fountain
atomic clock is accurate to 10^-15. So ... yeah. 2^-63 was perfectly
fine; but there was no speed penalty whatsoever for using uint128\_t in
64-bit mode, so why not?

Update to v100 release.

byuu says:

higan has finally reached v100!

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.

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.

Changelog (since v099):
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)

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.

Changelog (since v099r16 open beta):

- fixed MSU1 audio sign extension
- fixed compilation with SGB support disabled
- icarus can now navigate to root directory
- fixed compilation issues with OS X port
- (hopefully) fixed label height issue with hiro that affected icarus
  import dialog
- (mostly) fixed BS Memory, Sufami Turbo slot loading

Errata:

- forgot to remove the " - Slot A", " - Slot B" suffixes for Sufami
  Turbo slot loading
  - this means you have to navigate up one folder and then into Sufami
    Turbo/ to load games for this system
- moving WonderSwan orientation controls to the device slot is causing
  some nastiness
  - can now select orientation from the main menu, but it doesn't rotate
    the display