changelog.txt

HalfNES Version Notes:

056 (7/17/2014)
-Multithreaded NTSC filter for better performance
-Rewrote CPU/PPU timing entirely (passes many timing tests that used to fail)
-Fixed VRC7 feedback (Lagrange Point now sounds almost completely correct)
-Fixed loading of large NSF files.
-Many other minor fixes over the past year. 

055(9/7/2013)
-Added support for NSF music files.
-Added mapper for Super Spike V'Ball/Nintendo World Cup combo cartridge
-Changed sprite DMA timings (fixes Battle Chess again)

054 (8/13/2013)
-Changed NES color palette to match NTSC filter colors
-Fixed VRC 7 Vibrato, no longer crackles
-Improved speed of NTSC filter some more
-General code cleanups (more are still necessary)
-Provided a more helpful error on stdout when the jInput lirary is missing

053 (2/10/2013)

-Added Action Replay and Game Genie code support
-Now turning on sound filtering by default

0.052 (10/14/2012)

-Changed the APU timer code to run more efficiently 
(filtering now has very little performance penalty)
-Fixed GI Joe, Burai Fighter
-Fixed title screen of Brush Roller
-Fixed intro of Lagrange Point

0.051 (9/17/2012)

Many more mappers added for this release.

Added Mappers:

15 (100 in 1 Contra Function 16)
33 and 48 (Taito TC0190FMC)
41 (Caltron/Myriad 6 in 1)
58 (Game Star multicart)
60 (reset based 4 in 1)
61 (super 42-in 1)
62 (700 in 1 Multicart)
65 (Irem H-3001)
67 (Sunsoft-3)
72 (Jaleco JF-17)
73 (VRC3)
75 (VRC1)
76 and 206 (Tengen MIMIC-1)
79 (NINA-3)
86 (Jaleco JF-13)
88 (NAMCOT-3433/3443)
92 (Jaleco JF-19)
112 (Chinese MIMIC-1 clone)
113 (NINA-6)
154 (NAMCOT-3453)
182 (Chinese MMC3 clone)
201 (8-in-1, 21-in-1 multicarts)
212 and 213 (9999999-in-1)
214 (Super Gun 20-in-1)
225 (58/64/72-in-1 multicarts)
226 (20-1n-1)
229 (31-in-1)
231 (20 in 1 multicart)
241 (Fan Kong Jing Ying)
242 (Wai Xing Zhan Shi / Dragon Quest VIII board)
244 (Decathlon)
255 (110/115 in 1 multicarts)

Other Changes:

-Changed decay after key off on VRC7 sound chip
-Changed color settings on NTSC renderer and rewrote encoding portion for better 
 speed (64 bit JVM also makes this faster) and no more horizontal bars.
-Passes sprite overflow basics test
-Fixed reset code to reset mapper before CPU
-Rom loader handles games with unusual/incorrect headers more gracefully
-APU square wave frequency is now correct 
 (would go out of tune at higher frequencies before)
-Full screen mode with maintain aspect ratio on now stretches to fill screen
-Added .exe and .sh versions of HalfNES to the standard JAR file to
work around systems where JAR files are difficult to make executable.

0.050 (8/9/2012)
Lots of minor improvements for this release, and new mapper support as well.
Thanks to Nawrot Kryzystof for many of these fixes.

Added Mappers:
Mapper 10 (Fire Emblem, Famicom Wars)
Mapper 19 (Megami Tensei II, Rolling Thunder (J), etc.) with expansion sound
Mapper 34 (Impossible Mission II)
Mapper 38 (Crime Busters)
Mapper 64 (Klax, Rolling Thunder (U))
Mapper 70 (Kamen Rider Club)
Mapper 89 (Mito Koumon)
Mapper 93 (Fantasy Zone (J))
Mapper 94 (Senjou no Ookami)
Mapper 97 (Kaiketsu Yanchamaru)
Mapper 107 (Magic Dragon)
Mapper 140 (Bio Senshi Dan)
Mapper 152 (Arkanoid 2)
Mapper 180 (Crazy Climber)
Mapper 185 (Spy Vs Spy (J) but NOT Banana)
Mapper 200 (36-in-1 Multicart)
Mapper 203 (35-in-1 Multicart)
Mapper 240, 246 (More Chinese original games)

Fixed:
-Fixed DMC timing (passes DMC basics test and makes Bee 52 work better)
-CPU interrupt is delayed so CLI+SEI only causes 1 interrupt after SEI
 (fixes Break Time, Hebereke)
-Fixed APU frame counter reset to within 1 CPU opcode of correct timing
-Fixed APU sweep behavior when clocked then immediately reset
 (Super Mario Bros. sound effects, Driar wrong notes in music)
-Updated VRC7 sound to use new patch set from nesdev, 
 changed the way modulator feedback works, increased envelope attack rate
-Added CRC to options menu to make verifying dumps easier
-Fixed Uchuusen - Cosmo Carrier mirroring
-Fixed bug with file dialog where it wasn't clearing the old name when loading
 a ROM by double clicking

Broke:
- Lagrange Point intro was broken by the CPU interrupt change. Game is still playable.

0.049 (7/9/2012)
-CPU core is much improved. All undocumented opcodes should now be implemented
 and cycle timing is more correct.
-Fixed Low G Man crashing after the first boss
-APU is now synchronized exactly with CPU (lowers performance, but fixes 
 Dreamworld Pogie)
-Made DMC sample channel timing more accurate, which fixed Bee 52 and several 
 DPCM letterbox demos and made Fire Hawk at least show the titlescreen/intro. 
 (Still crashes in game.)
-Made the audio high pass filter more aggressive to eliminate clipping and noise
-Fixed VRC7 audio envelopes (Rate was right but notes couldn't be turned off
 while in the decay phase. Now that works.)
-Fixed PPU OAM reading to pass oam_stress test and used blargg's NES power up 
 palette

0.048 (6/5/2012)

You can now change all options without having to restart the emulator. Also
changed the set of values used for the VRC7 registers and did some code cleanups
 in various places. Significant rewrite is needed to improve basic timing 
accuracy some time soon.

0.047 (5/12/2012)

VRC7 channel volumes and modulation are correct now. Still not quite like the 
real thing because envelopes are based off info from the data sheet and not the
actual implementation. (Plus, no one has ever read the presets for the built in
instruments from the VRC7; I've tested several sets of approximations.)

Releases will probably be coming much slower in the future.

0.046 (4/7/2012)

-VRC7 audio (Lagrange Point) sounds much closer to the real thing
-Fixed several UI bugs:
    -menu bar is no longer visible in fullscreen on some systems
    -no longer possible to load a ROM or open the preferences window in 
     fullscreen as this could sometimes cause hangs
    -Full screen now defaults to maintain aspect ratio
     (doesn't stretch and look terrible on widescreen displays)
-Now handles mising JInput library more gracefully
-NTSC filter is somewhat faster (still not really real time) and disables
 dot crawl in Battletoads as it should.
-Changed audio core so it shouldn't clip with sound filtering on any more
-Found a solution to the packaging problem! Library folder is no longer necessary.

Next version I will be switching to LWJGL for the interface as it should add
a decent speed improvement and the NTSC filter will be MUCH faster if written
as a shader.

0.045 (3/8/2012)

-Fixed some undocumented opcodes to allow homebrew game Driar to run
-Fixed bug with special characters in ROM filenames causing a crash
-Added gamma correction to NTSC filter and changed filter parameters yet again.
still not sure what looks best, and there are a few artifacts here that don't
show up on the real thing unless you're using a cheap capture card.
If you want to experiment, the brightness, contrast, and gamma correction is at
the top of the NTSCFilter file in the code.
Please use it with smoothing on or it'll look bad no matter what.
-now change the aspect ratio when ntsc filter is used.
-Added mapper 85 (VRC7) (Lagrange Point and Japanese Tiny Toons 2)
-Partially implemented VRC7 sound (envelopes and vibrato are still missing)
-Small speed improvements (except in the ntsc filter, that's just as slow).

0.044 joystick test (1/9/2012)

 - Added preliminary joystick support (thanks to Zlika) To use this, the 
lib folder must be extracted in the same location as halfnes, and also the 
program must be run from the "run.bat" file. The first detected gamepad 
will be used as Controller 1, and the second will be Controller 2. 
Currently the buttons used are not configurable.

 - Also improved the NTSC filter, color is perfect now and it looks 
better than Blargg's. (Sadly, the speed has taken another hit; I think 
the problem is cache churn due to the order I operate in?) 

0.043 (12/27/2011)
Last version for the year.
-Fixed many more bugs and edge cases with the file loading, including a crash
that only seemed to happen on Linux when loading a ROM from the command line
-Made some changes to the sprite rendering code, now pass more of blargg's sprite
hit tests and the Snake Pit level in Battletoads shouldn't flicker any more.
(I haven't actually tested this since I can't get back there now.)
0.042 (12/12/2011)
-Added "smooth video" option
-Improved the NTSC filter (run it full screen with the video smoothing option on
and it looks very nice. sadly it is still jut as slow as it was.)
-Fixed bug in VRC6 audio that muted both expansion sound channels instead of just one
-Fixed crash on loading a .nes file with a bad header
0.041(11/6/2011)
-Added experimental NTSC graphics filter. Wriiten from scratch, not a port of
 Blargg's NTSC code. This looks quite a bit more like a real old terrible 80's TV.
 Unfortunately, it's still very slow.
-Fixed Punch-Out, which was broken since version 0.039
0.040(10/17/2011)
Added Mapper 68 (Afterburner and Afterburner II)
Monkeyed around with the audio code, MMC5 sound channels had the wrong pitch
and audio was clipping at full volume. Both of those should be fixed. Also fixed
sound popping when pausing and unpausing. And in the time it took me to do that
byuu made in a week what took me a year. eh.
0.039 (9/24/2011)
Added mappers 5 and 119. Castlevania III works now and so do all other MMC5 games
except for Laser Invasion and two Japanese exclusive ones. Also fixed one tiny
almost unnoticeable bug with drum sounds cutting off a tiny bit early that
has been there for months unnoticed.
0.038 (8/12/2011)
-Added Action 52 mapper (228)
-Improved audio quality some more
-Made the screen repaint even when paused
-Behind the scenes changes to make things easier to port
-Some speed improvements as well
If there is a game that you want to play that's broken or mapper unsupported, let me know!
Otherwise I think I'm just going to port this to Android next.
0.037 (7/7/2011)
-Fixed Guardian Legend, Dizzy's Adventure, others (APU interrupt bugs again)
-Improved performance of sprite rendering code
-Fixed broken Reset option in menu
Current known broken games: Break Time, Big Nose Freaks Out, Bigfoot
0.036 (6/20/2011)
-Added Mapper 9 (Punch-Out!!)
-Fixed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (leftover bug from last PPU rewrite)
-Fixed Jurassic Park (same problem as Twin Cobra, changed the code so both worked)
-Increased audio volume
-Added greyscale and color emphasis to PPU 
 (Noah's Ark is maybe the only game this is visible in)
-Fixed off-by-one error causing scanline 261 to be run twice
 (fixed some timing issues, maybe caused a few more)
-Completely changed the way the PPU renders sprites - broke some games (Guardian Legend and
some Codemasters games that never looked right anyway) but fixed screen shaking and
single scanline glitches in a LOT of games.
-Also, sprite flicker is back from the old days.
0.035 (6/9/2011)
-Now cropping off the top and bottom 8 pixels of the video output, since these are
not visible on most TVs and a lot of games render garbage on those lines.
-Added volume slider to options dialog (and rewrote the sound output code as well.)
-Fixed a lot of sound bugs. Crystalis, Zombie Nation, A Boy And His Blob etc. all sound right now.
-Fixed Twin Cobra
0.034 (5/22/11)
-Fixed full screen code for people who still had flicker at bottom
-Fixed Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
-Rewrote some code to enable putting ROM @ $6000-7fff
-Implemented Mapper 69 (Sunsoft FME-7) and the extra sound hardware for the Japanese version of Gimmick.
(If you haven't ever played Gimmick, find the ROM and give it a go sometime. Great game.)
-Also added mappers 78 (Holy Diver) and 87 (Twinbee).
0.033 (5/10/2011)
-Improved MMC3 mapper (Fixed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3, Smash TV)
-Improved audio code more, added an option to enable audio filtering so a separate compile isn't required
-Tied expansion audio into the regular audio code
-Made full screen support more robust (let me know if it's still broken on your XP machine, but it works on mine)
0.032 (4/26/2011)
The most notable improvement is the audio. I'm compiling 2 versions this 
time - one uses a linear audio filter and the other uses point samples. 
The linear audio filter makes the whole code run about twice as slow 
(Java is really not very good at doing anything 2 million times a 
second), but it sounds SO much better I couldn't throw it out for 
performance reasons. However, it's still a bit buggy and completely 
breaks VRC6 audio for some reason. Also, added option for changing audio 
sample rate to the options dialog, tweaked the volumes of all the audio 
channels to be more balanced with each other, and probably cleaned up 
some things since last release that I've forgotten about now. 
0.031 (4/3/2011)
-Rewrote PPU to draw only 1 scanline at a time, instead of 8 scanlines like before.
(should fix various glitchy raster effects and status bars in various games)
Performance should actually be increased for most games.
-removed the old tile caching system as it is no longer necessary.
-Fixed the sprite priorities
-improved VRC6 audio
-made the VRC6 expansion audio work for the games other than Castlevania 3
0.030 (3/27/2011)
-Rewrote the audio system to eliminate more unnecessary method calls
-Added Mapper 24 and 26 (Japanese Castlevania III) including the expansion sound chips!
-Added a full screen mode
(still a bit buggy; fast forward doesn't work when in fullscreen for some reason.)
-added ability to drag and drop ROM files into the window to load them
-rearranged a couple of the keyboard shortcuts
-added a frame advance key.
0.029 (3/8/2011)
-Rewrote the CPU timing system, so the NES's timing is a lot more accurate
(and faster as well; eliminated about 2 million unnecessary method calls per
frame, which means that I get about 40 extra FPS.)
-Added support for Mapper 11 (Color Dreams)
-Mapper fixes to Mappers 1 and 4 (Fixed Dragon Warrior 3 + 4, Kickle Cubicle)
-Added a proper error message for trying to load a UNIF file.
0.028 (3/2/2011)
Rewrote/refactored a bunch of code to make things more object oriented. Also
changed the display code to use Java's double buffering scheme instead of my own
hackish method, which MAY have made things a bit faster but definitely fixed that
occasional flicker that was there before. (Simplified the code, too!)
Also made some changes to the sound engine, so Contra and a few other things
sound closer to how they should.
Next update will hopefully bring more visible improvements.
0.027.2 (2/12/2011)
perhaps THIS will solve the problems with Windows XP. (Last version worked ok on
the first XP machine I tried, but not the second.)
0.027.1 (2/11/2011)
Switched back to the old frame limiter code, now things should hopefully
work right on Windows XP again. Also fixed the crash when audio was disabled.
0.027 (2/4/2011)
Since I'm trapped at home in a snowstorm with nothing else to do, might as well release.
-Modified MMC3 scanline counter, which fixed Super Mario 3 and Silver Surfer
-Made the APU counter count 4x a frame instead of 5 (off by one error)
which makes music in a lot of older games sound closer to how it should be.
0.026.1 (2/1/2011)
-Added support for Sunsoft-01 and Konami VRC2 and VRC4 mappers.
VRC4 is still not quite correct... status bar flickers in Parodius, but Gradius II,
the Japanese version of Contra, and Bio Miracle Bokutte Opa all work fine.
-Made sound keep playing while fast forwarding
-Rewrote all the frame limiter code again (need to test on a slower machine with XP)
-Improved speed by making sure that I wasn't regenerating the entire tile cache every
time the game wrote to the mapper, even if the tiles didn't change.

0.025 (1/25/2011)
-Fixed the stupid stupid bug that would probably make the file dialog impossible to
open on any system that hasn't had HalfNES on it before!
(remember: if you haven't tested it, it does not work.)
-Changed the file dialog to one that doesn't look terrible on a Mac
(but now I can't filter files by extension on Windows. oh well.)
-Added keyboard shortcuts to the menus and rearranged them a bit
-Added a fast forward toggle
-Fixed mapper 66
-Fixed controller reading for Paperboy and Captain Planet
-the palette mirroring code passes blargg's test now
-Background of Kirby's Adventure fixed... that one was because the first byte of
expansion RAM was always write protected. Oops.
-SMB3 has stopped working completely. I'll figure out why soon.
0.024 (1/16/2011)
-Added proper options dialog for changing screen size and keymappings
(but you need to restart the emulator to apply the new settings - will fix that
sooner or later but I need to write code to completely rebuild the window first.)
-Removed the old INI file - now settings are saved in your home folder
-Now remembers the position of the window and the last folder you loaded a ROM from
-Fixed a few more bugs in the graphics code so now the intros of Solstice and
Ninja Gaiden look the way they should.
0.023 (1/4/2011)
Bugfixes:
-The Reset command didn't do anything, now it does.
-Gradius and Devil World work properly again and Back to the Future works better
(I used && when what I meant was ||).
-I now realize that file loading doesn't work very well on a Mac
(and the file dialog is terrible too!), so I'll work on that.
0.022 (1/3/2011)
Wow, it's been a while.
Added Player 2 controller support, can remap the buttons in the settings.txt file.
Improved rendering: Gauntlet runs full speed on my computer when it didn't before,
the status bars of Zelda II and Ninja Gaiden now look right,
in general performance is about 20 percent better because the drawing code is more efficient.
Back to the Future works but has random unexplained glitches.
Made a few additional tweaks to the MMC3 code, now Might and Magic works but SMB3 is unchanged.
Also eliminated a potential crash after attempting to load a game with an unsupported mapper.
Changes to the audio code: Excitebike and a lot of other early games that
used the sweep feature on the square wave channels should be correct now,
Super Mario Brothers finally sounds right.
Also, this works. http://kkfos.aspekt.fi/2010/11/14/4-bit-pcm-on-nes-using-the-pulse-channel/
0.021 (12/15/2010)
Added mappers 66 and 71 (SMB/Duck Hunt and Codemasters, respectively).
Also made background sprites actually render behind the background, and fixed
sprite priorities for 8x16 sprites (They were reversed before).
If you're having trouble with SMB3, make sure that you have the PRG1 version of the ROM.
Even then, it still freezes on the title screen half the time when you press Start...
if it does this, reload the ROM and try it again. Once you start the game successfully though it
should be playable. There's just something the title screen does that throws timing off.
0.020 (12/8/2010)
Fixed the missing sprites bug and games with a status bar on the bottom.
Super Mario 3, Tiny Toon Adventures, Marble Madness, Kirby's Adventure and Battletoads are playable.
(Tiny Toons doesn't quite put the status bar in the right place, but it's not too far off.)
Fixed 4-screen mirroring (Gauntlet)
Also added mapper 34 support (Deadly Towers)
Dragon Warrior 3 + 4 still won't start, Zelda II and Crystalis still have problems.
0.019 (12/1/2010)
Fixed the worst of the scrolling bugs. Contra, Castlevania 2, Blaster Master,
and many other games are now actually playable.
Also, it seems that Yo Noid! crashed the emulator
(because bitwise and is NOT the same thing as modulus
when you don't have a power of 2!)
so I very reluctantly fixed that as well.
Known Issues:
-Jump sound doesn't cut off in world 1-2 of SMB
-Zelda II won't scroll correctly until real sprite 0 hit is implemented
-Most games with a status bar on the bottom won't display that bar
-Sprites missing in Tiny Toon Adventures, Little Nemo
-DuckTales status bar uses wrong graphics
-Mario's eyes are missing in SMB2
-Basically every racing game uses the same scrolling trick that won't look right
-SMB3 and Marble Madness both crash and Silver Surfer resets itself
0.018 (11/24/2010)
Timing fixes - Kid Icarus, Solomon's Key, Adventures of Lolo 2, Jackal are now playable.
Fixed a couple issues with the audio as well.
(Periodic noise works, and channels don't buzz when the periods are set to zero.)
Mega Man 2 is where this improvement is most noticeable.
The OS default look and feel is used instead of the Java default now, which
means the Open dialog is improved.
Saved games should always save on close now, no matter how the window is closed.
0.017 (11/21/2010)
Mapper 7 (ANROM) and Mapper 4 (MMC3) are now supported. Unfortunately, most
of those now supported games have graphical glitches because they change the scrolling
in the middle of a frame and that isn't handled properly yet.
Also made remapping keys from the INI file ACTUALLY work (sorry!) and prevented
left and right from registering at the same time because that causes problems
in some games.
0.016 (11/16/2010)
Audio - Sweep and DMC channel supported. Also fixed the frame limiter. 
Added a way to change keybindings (if you can look up Swing keycodes) - see "settings.txt" file.
Removed options dialog for the moment since it didn't do anything.
0.015 (Not Released)
Fixes to MMC1, addition of battery save support, and some unfortunate frame limiter bugs that it took a while to track down.
0.014 (11/1)
Completely rewrote the sound core, it's an order of magnitude better sounding than it was.
Slower,too, but that was necessary. Now updates sound every time something changes. 
Envelopes are correct too. Can make it faster by moving the counters forward in larger 
increments since it doesn't generate samples at 2 Mhz anyway. Also added in frameworks 
for options dialog, about box, and command line args support. 
Missing still:
Sweep unit, noise channel loop flag (MM2 Quickman stage), all of the DMC stuff, vertical scrolling,
just about everything about the PPU,really. And half of MMC1 roms still don't boot,and if I want to 
make the options window et cetera work right I'm going to need to re-abstract the interface away 
from the actual emulation code. Why did I change that in the first place? Plus all the other older stuff.