bsnes v0.035 released

Verdauga Greeneyes · Post by **Verdauga Greeneyes** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:15 am

mudlord wrote:
Baron_Samedi wrote:"Should I release a new version with just this fix, after we test it?"
Byuu's license prohibits that.

lol, he was quoting byuu.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:59 am

Well, better safe than sorry. I should check with this byuu person first, just to avoid any legal troubles ...

mudlord · Post by **mudlord** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:30 am

I should check with this byuu person first, just to avoid any legal troubles ...

True, however there is lines in byuu's license that explicitly prohibit forks. Which means the code must be non public, or peer reviewed and then given to byuu for him to add the code to BSNES.

Thats how I see his license. Which I certainly think is fair. Its his emu, after all.

Rhapsody · Post by **Rhapsody** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:14 am

Am I missing some sarcasm or did I just see what I thought I saw?

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:59 am

Baron_Samedi wrote: i wonder if nintendo looked at your source code before programming there virtual console snes emulator

i dont have a wii
but are there fx or sa-1 games available for it ?
by disassemble wiis virtual console ......
just an idea

i mean not copy the code.... just look at it how big n emulates the games, may be this will bring new ideas.....

If Nintendo "borrowed" an emulator for the Wii, it was almost certainly SNES9x.

Of course, the fact that Nintendo has things like technical documentation and original dev kits makes things EVER SO SLIGHTLY easier for them.
I'm sure they were laughing their asses off watching emulator authors try to figure out the SPC700 module.

And yes, there are SA1 games. If nothing else, there's the recent Mario RPG release.

gllt · Post by **gllt** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:18 pm

OOT on the GC was my all time favorite Nintendulator moment.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:09 pm

FitzRoy wrote:Did you test Mario Kart and see if it, by chance, fixed the map bug in that as well? I was actually going to PM you about that...

Yes, it seems to have. Left is the official release, right is with the fix. The black line at the bottom of the top half doesn't flicker on either version, as it did in v033 and below.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:28 am

Okay, in the compatibility and feature status thread, I posted about the problems with adding save states to bsnes. Since that thread is locked, you can discuss that post here, if you like.

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:24 am

I currently list netplay as "possible in the future" but in all honestly I don't know if that's correct. Could you please explain the situation surrounding that one a little better for me? Possibility, difficulty, interest, all that fun stuff...

ps. whoever removed the thread craziness, thanks

henke37 · Post by **henke37** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:52 am

How about just adding a link to the old savestate topic in the FAQ, it had some good points I think.

And I hope that you don't really feel that the mouse/super scope is too hard and just forgot about them when writing the reply and only thinking of the extra chips.

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:04 am

Could you please explain the situation surrounding that one a little better for me?

Not enough of a userbase to attempt at the moment. Probably because so few people can run the emulator fast enough. Doesn't sound impossible, I've been extraordinarily careful not to introduce "core randomness" stuff that would throw off netplay. Not one I'm personally interested in working on, but who knows in the future. I also don't know much about network programming. I wrote a proxy server once, but that was it.

And I hope that you don't really feel that the mouse/super scope is too hard and just forgot about them when writing the reply and only thinking of the extra chips.

That sounds awfully bitter; hopefully I'm misreading you. By all means, you're welcome to add mouse/super scope support yourself. Getting upset isn't making me any more interested in adding them.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 8:56 am

Well explained byuu.

Its completely clear now to me at least(not that i want/need savestates)

Baron_Samedi · Post by **Baron_Samedi** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:23 pm

my opinion is that netplay is not so important

(at least for me

)

i think that it is better to concentrate on game compatibility
(emulate the special ships like fx, sa-1 etc and hardware)

even if its difficult but there was a time when people thought that
street fighter alpha will never be emulated on snes
and after some years it was possible
first with gfx pack now it works without one

and people thought that cps3 will never be decrypted
but again after some years its possible

(i hope i sound not too much like sybok from star trek

)

i learned that there is nothing people cannot achieve

so i hope that all special chips and hardware will be emulated by bsnes in the future
in the near future....

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:55 pm

Yeah, no more prodding byuu to do one thing or another unless he asks. Lately it seems like he overworks to give us something, and then he's met with repeat requests on major stuff. I just wanted to know if I was giving false hope to people on something we never discussed.

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:36 pm

Hey FitzRoy.

Could you add the following to the list of un-emulated devices

The Super-Gameboy is interesting because some games have extra/secret/enhanced featues. Some games even have real snes games built into them.

Code: Select all

Super GameBoy
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/supergameboy.html

Super GameBoy 2
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/supergameboy2.html

Satellaview (i believe only the BS-X is emulated, and its emulation is not complete)

TeeV Golf
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/teevgolf.html

Twin Tap
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/twintap.html

Super Famicom Modem
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/sfc_modem.html

Barcode Battler
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/barcodebattler.html

XBAND Modem
http://www.gamersgraveyard.com/repository/snes/peripherals/xband.html

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:12 pm

Done. BS-X is emulated to capacity, I'm not going into partial/incomplete categorization on top of what I already have.

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 6:50 pm

Baron_Samedi wrote:i think that it is better to concentrate on game compatibility
(emulate the special ships like fx, sa-1 etc and hardware)

so i hope that all special chips and hardware will be emulated by bsnes in the future
in the near future....

Unless you have a flying DeLorean that can travel 30 years into the future to get computers capable of running those special chip games at full speed... those probably won't be done anytime soon.

Not because it's not possible, because it won't be fast AT ALL. Byuu has mentioned time and time again why he hasn't done this yet, because modern computers probably can't get full speed. It's like emulating a separate processor which brings a terrible amount of overhead to the mix.

So, don't hold your breath on that at all.

Baron_Samedi · Post by **Baron_Samedi** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:33 pm

hmmm these chips are over 15 years old

fx is "only" a risc with 10.5 mhz
and sa-1 is a wdc 65816 cpu

if i am right the wdc 65816 is still sold by wdc, so getting infos about it should be possible

a normal core2duo should be able to emulate them without probs

i remember in the past that people were saying that emulating an amiga
would be impossible because a pc is not fast enough.....

on mame there seems to be no prob emulating cpus which are more powerfull than the fx and sa-1 cpus

is there no way to include the code from zsnes/snes9x and
improve it later little by little ?

tetsuo55 · Post by **tetsuo55** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:38 pm

FitzRoy wrote:Done. BS-X is emulated to capacity, I'm not going into partial/incomplete categorization on top of what I already have.

Thanks!

Baron_Samedi wrote:"lots of returns"

The problem is not the clockspeed but the emulation overhead

King Of Chaos · Post by **King Of Chaos** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:40 pm

Them being 15 years old is irreverent. It may take another 15 years before they can be emulated fully for all we know.

Baron_Samedi wrote:a normal core2duo should be able to emulate them without probs

If it was that simple, do you think support for those chips would have been added ages ago? The answer is in the lack of support itself. Face it, modern computers cannot emulate those chips at full speed. And no, a Core 2 Duo probably couldn't emulate those chips at full speed. Core 2 100 perhaps? Too damn much overhead involved.

Baron_Samedi wrote:is there no way to include the code from zsnes/snes9x and
improve it later little by little ?

This will NEVER happen.

It's pointless to ask for it. Even if it was included, everyone would be bitching about not being able to play Super Mario RPG, since it'd be SO slow. Hate to disappoint you, but it'll probably remain that way for awhile. If you want to play these special chip games, then I suggest having a copy of ZSNES or Snes9x around for that purpose.

Seriously, how fast would the games go if support was added? Half a single frame per second?

Baron_Samedi · Post by **Baron_Samedi** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:53 pm

i didn't know that emulating them would require so much cpu power

its hard to believe that u need a 10 ghz to emulate an old 10mhz cpu with environment

i just see mame and there emulating a complete system which is more powerfull than the "old" snes chips are not a big problem today

i don't want to blame byuu for not including it

he (and the ones who helped him) did a great job and bsnes is the best snes emu today

Post by **grinvader** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 7:57 pm

You're totally the first guy who thought that. You should get a medal or something. Now we're gonna press the big green button labelled 'go fast' and it's all gonna rock whoopee

...

byuu · Post by **byuu** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:29 pm

I'll append the main thread with some notes on mouse and light gun emulation, I suppose.

As for SuperFX and SA-1. Of course you can get the games playable at full speed on modern computers. ZSNES, Snes9X and SNESGT do it just fine.

To get them bus accurate, well ... you'd need a new approach. Not state machines, not threading. Something else that I don't know much about. Maybe time stamping or something. Please don't start another discussion on this here. It's been beaten into the ground already.

The big issue is, once again, parallelism. With the S-CPU and S-SMP, we are quite lucky. They share only a 4-byte address window. So whenever the S-CPU is ahead of the S-SMP, it doesn't really matter until it tries to access one of those four bytes. You can sync up the other processor then. Ignoring the V/Hblank signals, the S-CPU and S-PPU are the same, sharing a 6-bit address bus. The S-SMP and S-DSP are slow enough at 1MHz, and the S-DSP simple enough to only need one state machine, that it's not as big of an issue.

But with the S-CPU and SuperFX, they both have access to work RAM, the cart (which can also be RAM or MMIO) etc. So your 2-bit shared address bus becomes nearly the entire 24-bit address bus. In other words, whenever either chip accesses nearly any memory address, you're going to have to sync the chips. And memory accesses make up at least ~65% of all processor cycles.

And now you're talking about two 21MHz chips communicating with each other and having to sync constantly. It's not just me who found it impractical, I believe even _Demo_ made a similar comment about the overhead truly proper SA-1 support would entail.

No, with bsnes' current precision, and the model it uses, extending it for SuperFX and SA-1 support isn't going to work. Could I do it, syncing only between opcodes? Sure. Would it work for all known games? Probably. Would it be as accurate as the rest of the emulator? Not a chance. So what then, is the point? Just use an existing emulator for these games. Sure, I added incomplete DSP-3 and DSP-4, because it took me two hours and Nach said it was okay to use his code. SuperFX and SA-1 will take many months each.

Will I eventually implement this less accurate model anyway? Doubtful, but maybe.

As for using ZSNES / Snes9X' code. One, the licenses are incompatible; and two, they're designed entirely within the frame of their respective emulators. Our ROM mapping models will be completely different, interactions with interrupts will be different, etc etc. It'd actually be easier to write my own.

Why am I not doing so? I'm not particularly driven to. It's a seriously complex under-taking, and there really aren't that many good games on these two co-processors. Yes, I know, the half dozen games they have are arguably some of the best on the system, but they're still only a half dozen games. I'd rather focus improvements on things that affect the other 4,000 games.

its hard to believe that u need a 10 ghz to emulate an old 10mhz cpu with environment

Your biggest mistake is assuming that the emulated processor's clock speed has any relevance in determining host system requirements. It does, but when we're talking about 1-100MHz with today's systems, it doesn't really matter much.

The number one issue that determines speed is how much parallelization you have between components.

I know it's hard to understand as an end-user, you'll have to trust me on this one.

Post by **Nach** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 10:16 pm

byuu wrote:It's a seriously complex under-taking, and there really aren't that many good games on these two co-processors. Yes, I know, the half dozen games they have are arguably some of the best on the system, but they're still only a half dozen games. I'd rather focus improvements on things that affect the other 4,000 games.

That's absurd. Every single SFX and SA-1 game is 1000 orders of magnitude better than all other SNES games combined. It's not even worth having SNES emulation without SFX or SA-1 support, as not a single plain SNES game is worthwhile in the slightest.

Thanks for keeping your emulator worthless

Peace!

Dullaron · Post by **Dullaron** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 10:19 pm

bsnes is kind of like MAME. Accurate and other thing much as possible. No hacks and no other bullshit. Going by the real hardware and other things that have been documents. If there anything that isn't documents then no telling how it run or work.

People need start reading what came with bsnes from now on without thinking asking byuu on requests.

==================
Known Limitations:
==================

S-CPU
- Multiply / divide register delays not implemented
- "Glitch" when reading joypad registers during auto polling not implemented

S-PPU
- Uses scanline-based renderer. This is very inaccurate, but few (if any)
games rely on mid-scanline writes to function correctly
- Does not support FirstSprite+Y priority
- OAM / CGRAM accesses during active display not supported correctly
- RTO flags are not calculated on frames that are skipped when frameskipping
is enabled. This provides a major speedup, however it will cause in issues
in games that test these flags, eg the SNES Test Program Electronics Test.
Turning frameskipping off will allow RTO flag calculation on every frame

Hardware Bugs
- S-CPU.r1 HDMA crashing bug not emulated
- S-CPU<>S-SMP communication bus conflicts not emulated

=====================
Unsupported Hardware:
=====================

SA-1
Coprocessor used in many popular games, including:
- Dragon Ball Z Hyper Dimension
- Kirby Super Star
- Kirby's Dreamland 3
- Marvelous
- SD Gundam G-NEXT
- Super Mario RPG

Super FX
Coprocessor used in many popular games, including:
- Doom
- Star Fox
- Star Fox 2 (unreleased beta)
- Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

ST-011
SETA DSP used by Quick-move Shogi Match with Nidan Rank-holder Morita

ST-018
SETA RISC CPU used by Quick-move Shogi Match with Nidan Rank-holder Morita 2

Super Gameboy
Cartridge passthrough used for playing Gameboy games

========================
Unsupported Controllers:
========================

Mouse
Super Scope
Justifier