ares

141

Since v140, 13 contributors have created 52 commits to the ares codebase.

As always, if you wish to see the full changelog in a per-commit format along with their authors, you can do so on GitHub here.

Systems

Nintendo - SNES / Super Famicom

• Fix detection of the Sufami Turbo base cartridge (Avoiding serial conflict with Sailor Moon SuperS - Fuwafuwa Panic).
• Fix PowerFest '94 and Campus Challenge '92.
• Add support for games with 256KB of SRAM (Notably used in rom hacks, but these hacks also work on real hardware).
• Add support for the NTT Data Keypad
• Fix SA-1 DMA to BWRAM banks 0x41 and above.

Nintendo - Game Boy Advance

• Improve stop mode emulation, ensuring it only exits once the requested input is registered.
• Improve interrupt timings (latch IE and IF for 1 cycle).
• Add latches to DISPCNT background enable, object enable and force blank; these now correctly take effect after 3 scanlines.
• Improve SIO register handling.
• Fix an off-by-one error with BG mosaic handling.
• Fix an oversight in OBJ mosaic at x=0. Improve OBJ timing: OBJs are now correctly rendered one scanline in advance, and OBJ PRAM access timings are closer to hardware.
• Add a 2-cycle synchronizer and improve halted CPU timings
• Selectively synchronize CPU and APU, allowing for the removal of the compile time 'PERFORMANCE' profile. (Greater accuracy in Release builds with no performance downsides).
• Small improvements to PPU timing.
• Added support for the Pixel Accuracy toggle; significant performance increase when pixel accuracy is disabled.

Nintendo - Nintendo 64

• Remove the 'devertualizeFast' performance optimisation from code block lookups: this was proven to compromise correctness/accuracy.
• Refactor devirtualize to return additional context for memory access, reducing code duplication in-memory operations.
• Use JIT only when running code from i-cache.
• Add support for 40 Winks (Aftermarket).
• Add support for Xeno Crisis (World) (Aftermarket)
• Allow for Pak swapping on Controller Port 1 (You can now change between Controller Pak/Transfer Pak/Rumble Pack at runtime).
• Fix instruction trace debugging when using the recompiler.
• Add support for multi-byte writes to the GDB debugger.
• Use different GDB signals for the various exception types.
• Allow arbitrary and possibly unaligned writes to RDRAM through GDB.
• Add unusual warning when software uses CACHE on uncached addresses
• Refactor JIT to remove an extra function call (instructionEpilogue) per instruction.

Sega - Mega Drive / Genesis / 32X / CD

• Synchronize components more regularly when emulating 32X; this fixes a regression that caused 'Knuckles Chaotix' to be broken in ares v140.
• Add an option to enable the TMSS "Produced by or under license from..." screen.

Other

• Stage resources into the output directory on Linux; allowing running self-compiled builds without running 'make install' first.
• Address some possible uses of uninitialized variables.
• Enable the use of loading higan-style rom folders when using the command line
• Update librashader integration for librashader ABI 2

MacOS fixes

• Display errors from the shader loader in metal, easing debugging of librashader.
• Add bounds checking for table view context menus; fixes a crash when right-clicking beyond the bounds of defined rows in a table.
• Fix an issue where librashader did not function on macOS versions lower than 12 (Monterey) when compiled by CI

ares v140 released

2024-08-27 17:45:00

ares v140 has now been released.

Since v139, a total of 15 contributors have created 53 commits to the ares codebase.

As always, if you wish to see the full changelog in a per-commit format along with their authors, you can do so on GitHub here.

Systems

Bandai - WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color

• Implement cartridge SRAM open bus

Nec - PC Engine / TurboGrafx / SuperGrafx / CD

• Automatic bios detection now prefers the Arcade Card bios for NTSC-J Region, rather than System Card 3.0

Nintendo - NES / Famicom / Disk System

• Fix an issue where cartridge ram was not included in save states for some HVC-NROM and Sunsoft 1-3 mappers.
• Add support for Camerica/Codemasters mappers
• Add support for Tengen Rambo-1 mapper
• Add support for Sachen-0037/Tengen-800008 mapper
• Add support for the NES Zapper

Nintendo - Game Boy Advance

• Prevent the debugger from advancing the CPU clock
• Reset prefetch buffer on ROM accesses from DMA
• Improve DMA timings
• Implement that the prefetcher should halt only once DMA is accessing ROM
• Prevent DMA from interrupting ROM accesses
• Fix controls when using a rotated screen
• Reload timer value after tick
• Use separate latches per DMA channel
• Implement graphics viewer in the debugger

Nintendo - Nintendo 64

• Clear R0 register only when written to (Performance optimisation)
• Fix an issue where loading save states would not set the correct audio frequency
• Add missing fields to save states
• Refactor to remove the branch state machine from the instruction epilogue (paving the way for future recompiler improvements)

Sega - SG-1000

• Fix an issue where cartridge ram was not included for Taiwan-A and Taiwan-B mappers.

SNK - Neo Geo

• Fix an issue where cartridge ram was not included in save states for the Jockey GP mapper.

Sony - PlayStation

• Fix a crash when the display surface wraps around the framebuffer.
• Fix an issue where CD-ROM seeking would not interrupt a read operation

Shared Components

ARM7TDMI

• Fix reading SPSR register in user and system modes
• Improve LDM/STM edge case handling

NEC V30MZ

• Fix DAS overflow flag emulation
• Fix instruction prefix handling
• Fix IP on interrupt fired when prefixes are being used with non-prefixed instructions

Other

• Fix an issue where settings may not save correctly on non-english locale
• Improve the OpenGL integration with librashader; matching the implementation for the Metal driver
• Improve the OpenGL driver on macOS: Fix flickering on resize, add fullscreen behavior toggle and fullscreen monitor selection
• Fix building using Make 3.81 (macOS users no longer need to install a newer Make manually to build ares)
• Properly detect the target arch when compiling with CL
• Improve compatibility with FreeBSD
• Fix an issue where the settings window would be too small to show all options on some configurations
• Add the ability to switch between the interpreter and recompiler at runtime; previously this was a compile time switch unavailable to end users. You can use the "Force Interpreter" setting to force the 32X, N64 and PS1 cores to use the interpreter.

ares v139 released

2024-06-19 17:00:00

ares v139 has now been released.

Since v138, a total of 13 contributors have created 67 commits to the ares codebase.

If you wish to see the full changelog in a per-commit format along with their authors, similarly to how previous release notes were written, you can do so on GitHub here.

Bandai - WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color

• Improve EEPROM emulation accuracy

Nintendo - NES / Famicom

• Fix DMA interrupt
• Various PPU improvements: most (all?) current PPU accuracy test roms now pass!
• Improve emulation of MMC3: fixes test roms and crashes in Mickey's Safari & Incredible Crash Dummies
• Fix missing scanlines in Burai Fighter (USA) (last known rendering bug!)
• Fix MC-ACC IRQ timing
• Add support for mapper 150 (UNL-SACHEN-74LS374N)
• Add support for mapper 229 (UNL-BMC-31-IN-1)
• Add support for mapper 225/255 (UNL-BMC-128)
• Add support for mapper 172 (TXC-22211B)
• Add support for mapper 132/173 (TXC-22211A/C)
• Add support un-headered roms with the .unh extension (note: uses internal database; unknown roms will not work, headered roms are still preferred)

Nintendo 64 / Nintendo 64 DD

• Disable run-ahead for 64DD; fixes an issue that caused 64DD games to fail to boot.

Nintendo - Game Boy Advance

• Improve VRAM mirroring in bitmap background modes
• Implement 1-cycle timer latch behavior
• Improve BIOS open bus edge case emulation
• Increase synchronisaton between comonents: slight performance loss for measurable accuracy gain in irq dma tests
• Improve video capture DMA such that it only runs if enabled on scanline 162 of previous frame

Sega - Mega Drive / Genesis / CD / 32X

• Implement correct SH2 clocks for PAL/NTSC 32X
• Improve 32X PWM volume/mixing by taking configured cycle rate into account

User Interface

• Improve driver settings and full-screen behavior on macOS
• Fix an issue where IPS patches that extend the rom would fail to apply
• Fix an issue where changing the video driver may not correctly apply settings
• Support "Default" as a device with the WASAPI driver on Windows (Win10 only)
• FIx an issue where some settings would not persist on non-english locales

ares v138 released

2024-05-02 15:00:00

ares v138 has now been released.

Since v137, a total of 10 contributors have created 58 commits to the ares codebase.

If you wish to see the full changelog in a per-commit format along with their authors, similarly to how previous release notes were written, you can do so on GitHub here.

Atari 2600

• Improved 6502 CPU emulation; all unofficial opcodes are now implemented
• Improve handling of the HMOVE register
• Refactor of TIA; fixes many emulation issues but still imperfect
• Implement correct 6502 reset timing

Bandai - WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color

• Minor fixes to v30mz CPU emulation
• Emulate 32KB SRAM for '8KB' type cartridges
• Implement Sound Test register bits 1,2 and 3

Nintendo - NES / Famicom

• Improved 6502 CPU emulation; all unofficial opcodes are now supported
• Fix APU frame counter emulation
• Various improvements to APU emulation
• Implement correct 6502 reset timing

Nintendo - Nintendo 64

• Fix an issue where saved data from the current game could be duplicated into the next
• Fix an issue where the Real Time Clock may not function correctly depending on the user's local time zone

Nintendo - Game Boy Advance

• Implement that the last cycle of the prefetcher cannot be interrupted
• Implement correct ROM mirroring for Famicom Mini / Classic NES series
• Improve handling of SRAM/Flash bus
• Fix the timing of initial DMA wait cycles

Sega Mega Drive / CD / 32X

• Lower sync interval between MD and 32X: improves emulation accuracy but does reduce performance

Sony - PlayStation

• Update the blitter to operate on a copy of the framebuffer; fixes potential threading issues

ruby (Audio/Video/Input abstraction layer)

• Added a native Metal backend for macOS with VRR support
• Implemented latency selection in SDL audio driver
• Removed the built-in Blur shader, using the bilinear slang shader is preferred
• Removed non-hardware accelerated video drivers (any platform capable of running ares should at least have OpenGL, D3D or Metal available)
• Reduce CPU usage on the video thread by using a condition variable rather than a spinlock
• Add support for connecting a Mouse on macOS (for emulating SNES mouse, etc)
• Remove tight loops in SDL and OpenAL drivers, reducing CPU usage when using these drivers.

User Interface

• Fix an issue where nested slang shaders were not available in the UI