OpenMSX 0.6.3 released

[Robert]

MSX emulator

 

Release Notes for openMSX 0.6.3 (2007-12-09)

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This release contains several new features and improvements related to sound. All sound chips are emulated at their native frequency and resampled using advanced resampling techniques to the desired output frequency (typically 44.1 kHz). The advanced resamplers improve the sound quality a lot, because they are free of aliasing distortions.

 

There are three resamplers you can choose from: "fast", which produces approximately the same results as previous openMSX releases, "blip", which produces better sound and is still quite fast and "hq", which produces the best sound but takes a lot of CPU power. Since the quality difference between "blip" and "hq" is very small and the speed difference quite large, "blip" is the recommended resampler and the new default. Many thanks to Blargg, the author of Blip_Buffer, not only for the code but also for explaining the principles behind it.

 

More sound related improvements include stereo balance settings for each sound chip and the ability to record individual channels of sound chips. For PSG we even introduced some sound effects: vibrato and detune can be enabled to get a fatter sound. Try this in Penguin Adventure!

 

Thanks to the blueMSX Team, we were able to quickly bring some new features:

* emulation of the VLM5030, the sample chip used in the unreleased Konami game

* Keyboard Master and emulation of the synthesis part of the Yamaha SFG-05 sound module (keyboard and MIDI support is still missing).

 

Also on the non-sound department, the code of the blueMSX Team enabled us to add some new features: Gouda SCSI, MEGA-SCSI, ESE RAM, ESE SCC and WAVE SCSI. Note that the SCSI emulation is still experimental, so make sure you don't use it to store data of which you don't have recent backups.

 

Last but not least: a lock-up bug was removed from the Windows version, which could occur on dual core and hyperthreading CPU's.

 

New or improved emulator features:

- SDLGL-PP renderer (OpenGL 2.0) can now do RGBTriplet scaling in hardware.

- Several resampling algorithms now available: hq, blip and fast; the first two eliminate aliasing.

- Channels of sound chips can be individually recorded and muted.

- Sound chips now have a stereo balance setting instead of a mode (left, right, mono). Because of this, the _mode settings have been replaced by _balance settings.

- PSG sound effects: vibrato and detune. You can use the new "psg_profile" command to select known good combinations, or experiment wiht the PSG_vibrato_percent, PSG_vibrato_frequency, PSG_detune_percent and PSG_detune_frequency settings directly.

Thanks to Wolf for the idea and his feedback on experiments.

- Several small optimizations, mostly in SDLGL-PP renderer and CPU emulation.

 

MSX device support:

- Partial support for Yamaha SFG-05 (only the YM2151, no keyboard and MIDI).

- Support for the VLM5030 in Konami's Keyboard Master.

- Improved accuracy in SCC emulation.

- Support for ESE devices: MEGA SCSI, ESE RAM, ESE SCC, WAVE-SCSI.

- Support for Gouda/Novaxis SCSI.

- Support for password cartridge.

- Support for the Super Lode Runner mapper.

- Real support for the Halnote mapper. Thanks to the blueMSX team.

 

Build system, packaging, documentation:

- Added support for building a statically linked executable on Windows.

- Added support for building a backwards compatible executable on Mac OS X

10.5 (Leopard). Thanks to BouKiCHi.

- Added support for DESTDIR, which should help packagers.

 

And of course the usual various bug fixes.

 

In "doc/manual/index.html" you can find a set of HTML manuals for openMSX. Make sure you read this if you haven't used openMSX before, but also to learn more about the new and changed features.

 

Known issues / caveats:

- Emulation is not perfect yet. See the bug tracker on sourceforge.net for known bugs.

- Until we reach version 1.0.0, file formats can change in an incompatible way without backwards compatibility. This happened between 0.4.0 and 0.5.0, for example. Keep this in mind if you create machine descriptions, ROM database entries etc. We do try to be backwards compatible for at least one release, though. Keep in mind that openMSX is still evolving at a considerable speed.

- openMSX is confirmed to run on the following operating systems: Linux, Win32, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD; on x86, x86-64, PPC, ARM and Sparc CPU's. Running on other operating systems (wherever SDL runs) or CPU's should be possible, but may require some modifications to the build system. If you are compiling on a new platform, please share your experiences (see below for contact info), so we can make openMSX more portable.

- CPU and graphics performance varies a lot, depending on the openMSX settings and the MSX hardware and software you're emulating. Some things run fine on a 200 MHz machine, others are slow on a 2 GHz machine. For performance tuning tips, see the Setup Guide.

>> Get it HERE.