bsnes v0.032 released

[Nach]

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."

I do hate it, and I have also proven how problematic it is, for those who said I was just spewing FUD. I'm not being paid by anyone to advertise their API, nor do I have any agenda (political or whatever) to advance, just telling it as I see it, which is hard to argue against.

If OSS4 was integrated into Linux, ALSA only programs would probably disappear. There's only a handful of ALSA only programs out there. And after a while, it'd be fine to drop ALSA altogether as useless.

From all my machines at the moment, my newest desktop only has sound with OSS4, and my newest laptop only has sound with ALSA, how ironic. For the other machines, all are supported by both, with OSS4 working consistently better across the board.
The ALSA machines all consistently sound better when writing to them with the OSS API, as opposed to the ALSA API.

I really don't see how it's a question which is better, if ALSA wasn't stealing developers from OSS4, those who implemented sound for my laptop in ALSA would've done it in OSS4.

It's basically down to politics or people who haven't really looked deeply into the situation who are promoting ALSA.

[byuu]

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

Trust me, nobody likes having to support multiple APIs. With Windows, 90% of users will be happy with D3D+DSound+Dinput. The other 10% with DDraw in place of D3D. And if Microsoft hadn't abandoned DDraw (I specifically need pixel hardware scaling), that alone would've been fine.

With Linux, we just aren't as lucky. I have three video drivers, four audio drivers and two input drivers. And there are still a few users who can't get bsnes running well.

It sucks, it really does. But it's that, or stay dependent upon Windows forever. At least with the multi-driver approach, we can get as many users up and running as possible.

[Rashidi]

that almost like in DOS era,
however, we do have Miles Sound System for game developer back then...

is no such thing that similar to M.S.S for linux?
(welcome/meet the fourth API lulz)

[OmegaX]

Yes, sound on Linux is a problem because instead of deciding on a single unified API we have like 3 that try to offer compatibility with each other.
And sound servers like PulseAudio make it even worse adding latency to the mix, what makes it worst is that on most linux forums like fedora and ubuntu forums you will get flamed if you criticize their new bleeding edge technology of choice :S

Edit: OSS might be the solution but it was criticized so much and given bad propaganda during its time as a propietary driver that now few people now version 4 even exists and if anybody even mentions it in a forum they will receive answers like "lol use ALSA because OSS is deprecated" or "PulseAudio is the future, we don't need propietary drivers".

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

Thanks for the bugfix release, byuu; intend to use this version to look into doing some filter development and so the problem with speed regulation would've been inconvenient.

By the way, I realise this may be a sensitive issue even here, and I don't want to hijack this topic, but if I decided to take the plunge and try out Linux (I'm a bit worried about the amount of time that will involve), are there any distros I should consider for consistently having the least amount of elitist FUD or BS in them? Obviously, I don't mind elitist things that actually make sense

[Gil_Hamilton]

that almost like in DOS era,
however, we do have Miles Sound System for game developer back then...

Or you could just target the Sound Blaster Pro or 16, and rely on everything else's compatibility mode.

Of course, then you ran into the fact that not all SBPros and SB16s were the same, even if they carried the exact same name.

[byuu]

Thanks for the bugfix release, byuu; intend to use this version to look into doing some filter development and so the problem with speed regulation would've been inconvenient.

Ooh ... filters. Sounds neat, keep me posted please.

By the way, I realise this may be a sensitive issue even here, and I don't want to hijack this topic, but if I decided to take the plunge and try out Linux (I'm a bit worried about the amount of time that will involve), are there any distros I should consider for consistently having the least amount of elitist FUD or BS in them?

I hijack topics all the time, no worries.

Personally, I use Xubuntu. I really like Xfce, it's very lightweight yet has all of the features you would expect, along with ease of use. Now, by using *buntu, you may take some flack for it (it's considered to be a novice's distro), but I don't really have anything to prove by using something like Gentoo or LFS.

Each new release continues to impress me. I wrote a lengthy article about the hell I went through to get my G11 keyboard working on 7.10. With 8.04, it was only three small steps. My Wacom works out of the box now, too. It's not so much that Linux is "getting there" as it is that it's "behind the mainstream just a little."

Goes with the territory. New hardware often does not come with Linux support, and distros tend to update much quicker to compensate.

But I'd strongly recommend checking it out, especially if you're a developer or you just want to learn something different.

If you want help migrating to Windows equivalents, let me know.

[Gil_Hamilton]

Now, by using *buntu, you may take some flack for it (it's considered to be a novice's distro), but I don't really have anything to prove by using something like Gentoo or LFS.

Pfft, distros are for sissies. REAL men download and compile all the components. Then customize their kernel.


(Posted from Windows XP, because I'm not a real man.)

[DancemasterGlenn]

I've been enjoying ubuntu more and more ever since I started using it with Dapper... though Hardy has given me serious problems ever since I upgraded. I could never get the nvidia drivers to take, whether through synaptic, off the nvidia site, or through envyng. So basically, I've been stuck with using the open source, non-3d-accelerated driver ever since hardy came out. Not so fun.

Besides that it's been a good ride, though.

[tetsuo55]

"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.

Maybe a temporary solution would be to have 3 filter levels

Code: Select all

Level 1
-SFC,BIN,ZIP,JMA (basically the only extentions you want to keep) (correct snes extentions)
Level 2
- Level 1+ all the depreciated extentions (old snes extentions (please update your roms to correct extentions))
Level 3
- ALL, every extention (ALL FILES)

this way people would be pushed to change their extentions, but have the option to keep their old extentions

[FitzRoy]

You definitely still want bs and st. Not seeing the point of adding bin either.

The fact is, so long as "all files" exists, it will still be possible to load old filetypes, so I don't see what the hubbub is about. Just display a first-run message notifying people that bsnes only officially supports so and so extensions while active emulators refuse to change and inactive emulators can't change. The end.

[tetsuo55]

You definitely still want bs and st. Not seeing the point of adding bin either.

The fact is, so long as "all files" exists, it will still be possible to load old filetypes, so I don't see what the hubbub is about. Just display a first-run message notifying people that bsnes only officially supports so and so extensions while active emulators refuse to change and inactive emulators can't change. The end.

Good points, 2 levels is enough.

although people can still easily get away with depreciated extentions in zip files

[franpa]

If i force vsync/tripple buffer in my video drivers, the speed regulation options in bsnes has no effect right?

[creaothceann]

[locale_german.rar]

Are there plans on adding support for translated keys & advanced descriptions?

[ShadowFX]

Updated to Dutch v1.05, for use with v0.032a.

I apologize for the slight delay. Let me know if you find any errors.

[Verdauga Greeneyes]

By the way, thanks about your suggestions for Linux, guys.

Ooh ... filters. Sounds neat, keep me posted please.

Somehow managed to miss this before. This is somewhat of a long term project for me, so don't hold your breath; I'm looking into making an alternative to 2xSaI or HQ2X, but I'm running into a brick wall when it comes to speed. At least, I was when I was pursuing this from a GPGPU perspective. I have some ideas on how to improve the situation, but first I want to see if the CPU can do any better. Testing this on bsnes wasn't feasible with my old AMD processor, but now that I finally have my new system it shouldn't be a problem. Anyway, if I make any substantial progress I'll let you know.

[F-3582]

[locale_german.rar]

Are there plans on adding support for translated keys & advanced descriptions?

Thanks for updating the translation. I was pretty busy with studying during the weekend.

Say, is this still UTF-8?

[Snark]

Sorry if this has been posted but how do you change the language under xp?
I mean of bsnes of course...

[creaothceann]

[locale_german.rar]

Are there plans on adding support for translated keys & advanced descriptions?

Thanks for updating the translation. I was pretty busy with studying during the weekend.

Say, is this still UTF-8?

Not sure; I just recently switched to Notepad++.

It seems to be in UNIX format, is that a problem?

[F-3582]

Well, TextEdit (on my Mac) displayed a few garbage characters where umlauts should have been. However, TextWrangler displayed it correctly and claimed to have detected UTF-8.

Never mind.

[krom]

Hey byuu,
Sorry about not being about recently...
I love the improvements/simplification of the UI, I have some ideas that might make bsnes more intuitive:

Could you implement drag and drop snes files in linux and windows?
e.g any compatible snes rom file could be dragged over the bsnes window and would trigger bsnes to load that cartridge.

Would it be possible to put a show menubar toggle in the misc menu, so full screen could default to having no menu bar/status bar.

[cheeky]P.S Could you put my name in the about box! (For the wgl driver, and conformation of mode7 gfx output) =D[/cheeky]

oh by the way, did you mean to write Macaron Golf (U) on your bsnes homepage? http://byuu.cinnamonpirate.com/bsnes/

Cheers

[FitzRoy]

Would it be possible to put a show menubar toggle in the misc menu, so full screen could default to having no menu bar/status bar.

The problem with introducing a menu option is that someone could click it not knowing what the shortcut is. Then it's hidden, as is the config, and the user is sitting there going "shit, what do I do now, dad?"

I was thinking of suggesting mouse activity appearance/disappearance in fullscreen mode, but I realize now that it will conflict with eventual SNES mouse support.

[byuu]

oh by the way, did you mean to write Macaron Golf (U) on your bsnes homepage?

No, it's definitely Mecarobot Golf.

P.S Could you put my name in the about box! (For the wgl driver, and conformation of mode7 gfx output) =D

Hah, I suppose. I haven't touched those credits in roughly two years. You'll obviously have to wait for the next release, but yeah that won't be a problem. Just don't want the list to get too long. Need to keep that window tiny :)

[krom]

Hah, I suppose. I haven't touched those credits in roughly two years. You'll obviously have to wait for the next release, but yeah that won't be a problem. Just don't want the list to get too long. Need to keep that window tiny

Cheers byuu! Luckily my nick is only 4 chars long! =D

[FitzRoy]

Hey byuu, do you have an idea yet what you'll be doing for the next version? Just curious.