Most of the changes from v0.11 are related to video filtering options for everything, and developer debug tools for Genesis and add-ons.
TV-based consoles now support an NTSC composite video filter that attempts to be much more authentic than the existing simple blur shaders, and all consoles now support xBRZ and MMPX upscaling filters. There are several other video shader/filtering changes noted below in the full changelog.
Genesis / Sega CD / 32X now support some basic CPU debugging tools in the form of disassembly views, CPU register views, read/write/execute breakpoints, and step-by-instruction. There are also new register views for the two Genesis sound chips and more information in the color palette views.
OpenGL is no longer supported as a graphics backend, only Vulkan and DirectX 12. Some of the new video filtering code uses graphics backend features that are not supported in OpenGL, and I decided to remove support rather than maintain an alternate code path solely for GL compatibility.
Save states are not compatible with previous versions for most systems.
Full changelog below:
New Features
- Added an NTSC composite video shader (in Video > Filtering)
- For video filtering reasons, this only works with the emulated systems that directly support TV video output and use 1 of 2 supported video clock rates (Genesis, SMS, SG-1000, NES, SNES)
- For NES specifically, enabling this shader also makes the emulated NES PPU directly output an NTSC video signal instead of generating RGB pixels, which is much more accurate to how actual hardware generates video
- Added some other video shader/filter options (#496)
- xBRZ image upscaling filter by Zenju, with 2x through 6x upscaling options
- MMPX pixel art magnification filter by Morgan McGuire & Mara Gagiu
- The scanlines filter now supports multiple different brightness levels instead of only 50% (previously "Dim") and 0% (previously "Black")
- Added a new option to render using supersampling when the display window is significantly smaller than the frame size (either natively or because of shaders), which reduces aliasing in some cases
- The anti-dither heuristic filter is now a separate setting from the video shader, so you can enable it in combination with the xBRZ or MMPX upscaling filters
- Added a new video option to rotate the frame in increments of 90°, meant for handheld games/demos that are designed around rotating the console (#169)
- (Genesis) Lots of new debugging functionality within the Memory Viewer window:
- Disassembly views for each emulated CPU, including the Sega CD sub CPU and 32X SH-2s when they are present
- Current register values for each emulated CPU
- Read/write/execute breakpoints for specific memory addresses and for address ranges; emulator execution halts mid-instruction when a breakpoint is hit
- Interactive step-by-instruction for each emulated CPU
- Added register/state viewers for the YM2612 and SN76489 sound chips
- CRAM and 32X palette RAM viewers now show detailed information for colors by hovering over them, and you can click on a color to pin its state to a new side panel
- (Sega CD) When running a multi-disc game, the GUI now attempts to auto-detect other discs and supports changing to any found disc in the Emulation > Change Disc menu
- Note this is based purely on the filename containing "(Disc N)", and it will only search in the same directory as the loaded disc's CUE/CHD file
- There is still a "Select file..." option if auto-detection fails to locate the other discs or if you want to change to a non-auto-detected disc
Improvements
- Emulator backends can now see inputs updates at any time rather than only once per frame, which may slightly reduce input latency in some games depending on when they read inputs
- Note this behavior is heavily affected by sync settings; VSync enabled and frame time sync enabled both cause most inputs updates to occur near the start of the vertical blanking period (fairly similar to previous behavior)
- Horizontal blur shaders now blend colors in sRGB color space instead of linear color space
- This is very wrong from an ideal image processing perspective, but it produces colors much closer to what show up on a TV over contemporary video cables (e.g. RF or composite)
Fixes
- (Genesis) Many invalid memory address reads now return open bus instead of a hardcoded 0xFFFF value; this fixes Sonic 3D Blast: Director's Cut freezing when you enter a password that has the final stage unlocked (#630)
- (Genesis / SMS / Game Gear) More accurate emulation of how the Z80's R register is updated during/after each instruction (some games read the R register as a source of pseudo-randomness)
- (Sega CD) Fixed The Smurfs incorrectly being auto-detected as US/NTSC instead of EU/PAL (#624)
- (NES) When the PPU is in greyscale mode, palette RAM reads through PPUDATA now always have the 4 hue bits masked out (#551)
- (GBA) Fixed certain (officially) undefined ARM opcodes from crashing the emulator (#629)
- On Windows, implemented a workaround for a color space bug that sometimes caused colors to be way too dark when using the Vulkan backend with an AMD GPU
Removed Features
- The OpenGL wgpu backend option has been removed. The OpenGL backend lacks features compared to the Vulkan/DX12/WebGPU backends, and this started to cause problems while implementing the new shaders, so I removed it as an option