bsnes v0.032 released

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:40 am

byuu.org wrote:2008-05-25 - bsnes v0.032 released

A new version of bsnes has been released. This version includes multiple user interface enhancements, including localization support.
Changelog:
• Core: simplified CPU / SMP flag calculations
• Added ALSA audio output driver to Linux port [Nach]
• Improved font handling for Windows and Linux ports
• Greatly cleaned up the user interface
• Windows port now uses Unicode instead of ANSI
• Added localization support
• Config and locale files can now be placed inside bsnes executable directory for single-user mode, if desired
• Fixed crashing bug with HQ2x on Linux/amd64 port [RedDwarf, Nach]
• Hid "Power Cycle" option by default, as it is too similar to "Reset"
• Slighty tweaked program icon [FitzRoy]
• Minor code cleanups -- replaced union bitfields with templates, improved memory allocation, etc

Because of the last-minute GUI changes, the previous locale.cfg files will not work fully.

If you wish for me to post your locale files onto my website, simply repost links in this thread once you've updated it to the final release version. As always, I humbly thank everyone who has helped by translating the bsnes UI.

franpa · Post by **franpa** » Sun May 25, 2008 11:39 am

Load Cartidge - Lists all file extensions which is a bit annoying with ZST, SRM and other files in the same spot as your roms >.>

still does not initialize when set to run on a single core.

Crashes upon loading invalid files. (AKA: .ZST)

a weird beep/chirp sound is played upon opening bsnes. and when adjusting screen size via the menu.

edit: smoother performance over 0.31 though that could be due to video driver updates.

edit 2: i just encountered the weirdest glitch in megaman x3, the Rock moved 3 millimeters forward then straight down instead of rolling onto the pit of spikes. http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h133/ ... led-12.png

only occured once though.

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Sun May 25, 2008 11:57 am

Updated version of my cfg.

The CPU usage seems to have been reduced on my A64 X2 4800+, from a previous 50% to 35~40%.

Turambar · Post by **Turambar** » Sun May 25, 2008 1:48 pm

franpa wrote:Load Cartidge - Lists all file extensions which is a bit annoying with ZST, SRM and other files in the same spot as your roms >.>

I guess a filter would be nice, but there are still lots of extensions we should consider: smc, sfc etc. and the rom might be compressed, so we need at least zip and jma too. I'd vote for a filter, but the best way (considering other programs too) is to organize your save files better i.e. to a different location.

franpa wrote:Crashes upon loading invalid files. (AKA: .ZST)

I wouldn't see this as a problem. Many apps crash when you try to do something similar. It's actually really hard to determine what a file contains, it may have a wrong file extension or perhaps no extension at all. It's especially difficult in the case of Snes ROM images (or so I think) because they might contain a header with arbitrary data. I think it's the users fault in this case, not the programs.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Sun May 25, 2008 1:53 pm

Turambar wrote:
franpa wrote:Load Cartidge - Lists all file extensions which is a bit annoying with ZST, SRM and other files in the same spot as your roms >.>
I guess a filter would be nice, but there are still lots of extensions we should consider

Only "058 078 1 bin dx2 eur fig gb gbc jap mgd mgh sfc smc swc ufo usa zip", and you might argue that only "jma sfc zip" is required at all.

Hatsuyuki · Post by **Hatsuyuki** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:35 pm

bsnes v0.032 crashes when I'm trying to load cartridge

tukuyomi · Post by **tukuyomi** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:38 pm

http://kuro-hitsuji.net/~tukuyomi/stuff/locale.cfg
Updated to fit v0.032 release!

Edit: ZIP version: http://kuro-hitsuji.net/~tukuyomi/stuff ... french.zip

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:52 pm

Thanks, byuu! Looks great.

franpa wrote:Load Cartidge - Lists all file extensions which is a bit annoying with ZST, SRM and other files in the same spot as your roms >.>

You know, I never noticed this before but you're right. In my XP file type dropdown when you go to open a file, a list is given, but it doesn't filter out extensions not of that type. Ideally, it would do that and have a second selection called "All files" that does no filtering. Maybe this was asked before and it couldn't be done because of linux, I dunno.

It's also kind of funny that the file type list is so long, I have to increase the size of the window to see them all.

Hatsuyuki · Post by **Hatsuyuki** » Sun May 25, 2008 5:27 pm

Here is updated Russian translation: http://www.wikifortio.com/948408/locale_ru_v032.cfg

Verdauga Greeneyes · Post by **Verdauga Greeneyes** » Sun May 25, 2008 6:03 pm

Hey guys, is it just me or does Speed Regulation not stick? After you restart bsnes, the right option is checked, but emulation speed is capped to 100%.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Sun May 25, 2008 6:21 pm

Verdauga Greeneyes wrote:Hey guys, is it just me or does Speed Regulation not stick? After you restart bsnes, the right option is checked, but emulation speed is capped to 100%.

Yep, happens to me, too. And if you look at the statusbar, it will say something like "60/45" for fps.

OmegaX · Post by **OmegaX** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:29 pm

I just compiled this new version and speed regulation doesn't seem to work.
If I leave it at 100% I'm getting 90-120 fps and if I decrease it to 50% it goes down a little but still way beyond 60, I didn't have this problem with version 0.031
I'm using "glx" video driver and I changed the sound output to "alsa" because that is what my system uses (with version 0.031 I used default "" and I'd get occasionally something like "alsa buffer underrun error" in the console but it sounded fine).

Post by **Nach** » Sun May 25, 2008 9:38 pm

OmegaX wrote:I changed the sound output to "alsa" because that is what my system uses

That's faulty logic. Use the one that works the best, alsa is very probably not to be the one that works the best, especially since ALSA works better via other APIs.

OmegaX · Post by **OmegaX** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:00 pm

Nach wrote:That's faulty logic. Use the one that works the best, alsa is very probably not to be the one that works the best, especially since ALSA works better via other APIs.

Yeah you are right, I changet it to default and it now runs at a constant 60 fps.
I just thought the new ALSA driver might work better but in the end it seems ALSA is crap as always (I should have known better after reading your blog

)
This makes me wonder if it was worth it to make the ALSA driver for bsnes knowing that it wouldn't perform as good as the others or if it doesn't work because I don't have ALSA properly configured.

Hatsuyuki · Post by **Hatsuyuki** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:40 pm

Russian translation update
http://www.wikifortio.com/864370/locale_ru_v032a.cfg
Fixed: Angle brackets weren't displayed correctly under certain circumstances

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:46 pm

I wish these bugs would've been found during testing.

The file filter is there, it's just getting smashed by the conversion to UTF-16. I can fix it. The speed reg on startup, not sure why that isn't working, but again I'm sure I can fix that.

Only "058 078 1 bin dx2 eur fig gb gbc jap mgd mgh sfc smc swc ufo usa zip", and you might argue that only "jma sfc zip" is required at all.

"Only". I'm intentionally removing the obscure ones. Ideally, sfc should be the only extension used for pure SNES carts. But we've got a long way to go for that.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Sun May 25, 2008 10:59 pm

For the speed thing, I don't think it did that before the release version. And there's no way I would have noticed the file filter as I don't keep different filetypes in my snes rom folder.

I don't think anybody's going to revolt if you release .033 as a bugfix version. You've got 967 numbers left, you know.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Sun May 25, 2008 11:27 pm

Hatsuyuki wrote:bsnes v0.032 crashes when I'm trying to load cartridge

Huh! Games load perfectly fine for me; but is this version slightly slower than the last one or is it just my imagination??

Post by **Nach** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:04 am

OmegaX wrote: This makes me wonder if it was worth it to make the ALSA driver for bsnes knowing that it wouldn't perform as good as the others

I wrote the ALSA driver more to prove a point than anything else.

I only have it working good on 2 of the 11 machines I tested it on. I have no idea how to make it work better. It also took forever to get it working at all.

Someone else is welcome to come along and improve the ALSA driver, based on the documentation and examples I read, I don't know if or how to improve it.

This proves ALSA is junk, since compatibility is low when I tried my best to make a driver, spending several hours on it. Contrast this to the fact that I also wrote the OSS, OpenAL, and libAO drivers for bsnes too, and that I didn't spend much time on any of them, and they work great (well, except for libAO with ultra high latency).

If the ALSA driver works fine for you, great, otherwise, try something else. Odds of it working great for you are low. If you know how to fix it, byuu and myself would appreciate a patch.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:17 am

Minor bugfix version released. Thanks for the bug reports, franpa and Verdauga.

2008-05-25 - bsnes v0.032a released

Very sorry for the inconvenience. Some last minute bugs snuck into the last release.

Also, I've added three new localizations: French (by tukuyomi), Portugese - Brazillain (by Hunter) and Russian (by Hatsuyuki). Dutch, Finnish and German should follow shortly, so be sure to check back in a week or two if you'd like one of those.

I forgot to mention this on the last update, but for any sites hosting the bsnes executable, you are free to distribute the archive with any locale you'd like. In fact, I'd prefer if you did, as it makes it easier for those who cannot read English.
Changelog:
• Windows: file open filters are now working once again
• All ports: emulation speed setting is now properly restored at startup

---

I don't think anybody's going to revolt if you release .033 as a bugfix version. You've got 967 numbers left, you know.

Yeah, I know. Just hate to bug all the emu news sites by releasing back to back versions. I don't like bumping up whole numbers so quickly, so I used 0.032a.

is this version slightly slower than the last one or is it just my imagination??

It tends to go back and forth for everyone. Every time I build bsnes, I get a ~5fps variance in either direction. It's either because GCC is producing different binaries given the same code, or just due to random things on the machine causing it to run faster or slower. My bet is on the latter.

This proves ALSA is junk, since compatibility is low when I tried my best to make a driver, spending several hours on it.

Agreed. I can't get it working good on any of my systems. I have various HDA and AC'97 boxes, and one SB Live. Speed regulation doesn't seem to work on any of the cards I have. Yet it does for Nach's two boxes. If I remove the SND_PCM_NONBLOCK flag, it just deadlocks or crashes.

I just included the driver to see if anyone could improve it, and for the very off chance that it's the only driver that works.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:19 am

byuu wrote:Ideally, sfc should be the only extension used for pure SNES carts. But we've got a long way to go for that.

Code: Select all

MessageBox(hWnd, "WARNING: DEPRECATED FILE EXTENSION DETECTED", "Dire Warning", MB_RETRYCANCEL | MB_ICONWARNING);

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:21 am

creaothceann, same problem I mentioned before about SNES ROM headers and such. I don't have the clout to do something like that. People would just stop using my emulator.

I would, however, be willing to do this if other emulators followed suit.

creaothceann · Post by **creaothceann** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:26 am

byuu wrote:People would just stop using my emulator.

I'd guess that those who prefer accuracy over savestates are willing to fix their ROMs, too.
It's your choice though, of course.

neo_bahamut1985 · Post by **neo_bahamut1985** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:29 am

Hey, thanks for the quick bugfix; the "open" window now just shows the ROMs properly now; it's working great!

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Mon May 26, 2008 12:53 am

You know, I was going to ask the same question about ALSA. It seemed like Nach really hated it and wanted it wiped from history before it got to point where a bunch of programs supported it until a fear of breaking them through abandoning it took hold, solidifying its permanent existence in an oxymoronic field of "standards."

Awesome, now developers have to support three APIs to please everyone. Let's go for four!