[EMU] byuu v1.4

byuu v1.4 released

I would like to release new major versions of all three of my emulators in the near future.

To help facilitate this, I've posted a beta build of byuu v1.4 for testing.

This release adds rewind support to all cores, and run-ahead support to all but the GBA and MSX cores.

Testing and bug reporting would be highly appreciated, thank you!

byuu v1 released

Update: I posted v1.1 to address some rendering issues affecting key Super Nintendo games. Apologies, it will be a touch rocky at the start while I iron out all the kinks in the new renderers. Things should stabilize in the coming months as they did with the bsnes relaunch. Thank you!

I'm excited to release the first official version of my magnum opus software project, byuu version 1.0!

byuu is a multi-system emulator that aims to combine the accuracy of higan with the simplicity and performance of bsnes. Essentially, what bsnes did for higan's SNES emulation, I want byuu to do for all 25 of higan's emulated systems.

byuu currently emulates the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, SG-1000, Master System + Game Gear, Sega Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 + SuperGrafx, MSX + MSX2, Game Boy + Color, Game Boy Advance, WonderSwan + Color, Pocket Challenge V2, and Neo Geo Pocket + Color.

I poured my soul into this, and even for a first release, there has been substantial development. As compared to higan v107, byuu v1 features a brand-new, easy-to-use user interface in the general style of bsnes, that loads traditional game ROM images directly, supports native file dialogs, more than doubles the performance of Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis emulation, quadruples the performance of TurboGrafx-16 emulation, and provides a 20% boost to Game Boy Advance emulation. A Ryzen 5 2600 CPU should be able to run any supported system at 150fps or more. As with my other emulators, features like adaptive sync and dynamic rate control come standard.

Future plans for byuu v2+ are ambitious: I hope to add support for rewind, run-ahead, a save state manager, a cheat code editor, frame advance, screenshot capture, and much more. Possibly even a hybrid desktop + couch-mode user interface! I also want to expose my Famicom Disk System, Sega CD, and future PC Engine CD emulation to byuu. Furthermore, I hope to expand byuu beyond my own collection of emulators: specifically, I would like to offer Nintendo DS, Nintendo N64, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn emulation in future releases by relying on other leading emulation projects; although I may need help in achieving those goals.

And now a heartfelt plea: I'm putting everything I have into this project, and my future in the emulation scene depends upon this project's success. Essentially, I'm getting older, and I have too many emulation cores to maintain as just one person. bsnes brought a revival to higan's SNES emulation, and I am hoping that byuu can do the same for higan's other cores.

I am looking for other developers to join on as equal contributors to this project. If this proves highly successful, I'll stick around to guide the project forward. But if not, then I will be looking for a new lead to take over the project. In that case, I would continue to periodically submit patches, time permitting, but would hope for someone else to guide byuu, higan, and bsnes forward. If neither of these two things happen by the end of this year, then my current intention is to regrettably step down from the projects, although I haven't decided on an exact date of when yet. Effectively, I've gone about as far as I could as a sole developer.

Essentially, I am hoping for this project to be what I'm remembered by after I'm gone one day, and so I want it to be as much of a success as possible. I also want these emulation cores to live on beyond me, and not just be tied to me as a person. Already bsnes and higan benefited massively thanks to 15+ years of contributions from well over a hundred volunteers. These emulators are so much more than just me. I hope to accelerate that trend, so that one day I can pass on the torch.

I hate to ask this, but anything you all can do to help promote this project would be greatly appreciated! Getting the word out about it, creating user guides and video tutorials, writing an article about it, posting about it on a forum, adding it to an existing emulation website, ... anything would help. I am hoping that in naming the project eponymously, that I can short-step some of the time-consuming struggle of establishing a new emulator project, but word of mouth is still vital for people to know that this project exists.

Thank you all so much! I hope you'll enjoy this new software as much as I've enjoyed making it.

byuu v0.14 released

The v1 development phase is basically completed. I'm posting a final beta to catch any last-minute critical issues. Please give it a small test run and report any serious issues that would harm the reputation if they shipped in a v1 release. Thank you!

No need to post news about this elsewhere, if all goes well, v1 will be released very soon.

The big news in this WIP is that I've spent time greatly increasing performance of the most demanding cores in byuu:

- Super Nintendo: 100fps -> 200fps
- Sega Genesis: 85fps -> 210fps
- PC Engine: 68fps -> 240fps
- Game Boy Advance: 123fps -> 154fps

Every system should run at 150+ fps on a $100 desktop CPU now, although of course your mileage may vary.

There are other niceties such as a native file open dialog, auto-saving of memory, support for save games in the Neo Geo Pocket core, a fix for PAL region detection in the Super Nintendo core, and more.

byuu v0.10 released

Another beta before a v1 release ...

If folks could please test this and let me know of any serious issues, I'd like to get those addressed before releasing a final v1 release build. Thanks!

Changelog:

- update driver settings when changing audio and input drivers
- correct sound output when not outputting at 48KHz
- correct sound output when changing frequency after game is loaded
- show program icon when game is not loaded
- move from native status bar to higan/bsnes-style status bar
- fix a bug with WonderSwan internal EEPROM data
- fix hotkey polling in fullscreen mode
- added joypad support
- fixed initial bindings for gamepad axes and hats
- allow multi-selection clear on input mappings
- added path searching to higan::Node::find()
- added higan::Node::scan() to locate relative tree nodes
- exposed settings for color bleed/emulation, interframe blending, overscan
- default to Path::desktop() instead of Path::user() for loading games

Known issues with v0.10:

- region detection is not working (PAL games are running at NTSC speeds)

byuu v0.8 released

I'm releasing the first official beta for the new byuu emulator today.

This is a new multi-system emulator, which shares emulation cores with higan.

Like higan, byuu is focused on accuracy foremost. Unlike higan, byuu aims to be much more user friendly. Think of byuu as easy mode, and higan as advanced mode, but they are fundamentally the same emulator under the hood. One is not a superset of the other; they are sibling projects.

The goal of byuu is to carry forward the breakout success of bsnes for all of higan's emulation cores, and not just for the SNES alone. bsnes, by being much easier to use, led to a resurgence in support that resulted in several new features, speed optimizations, bug reports, and emulator accuracy improvements. I hope to rekindle the same interest in all 25 of my supported emulation cores with this new emulator.

And frankly, higan's future depends on this project being a success. I am aiming to retire around the end of this year (though it's not set in stone), and I am looking for a new lead developer willing to take over byuu.org, github.com/byuu, and its emulation projects. I would still contribute to the projects on GitHub for as long as I were able to.

I am changing my personal name to Near, and calling my new emulator byuu, for many reasons. You can read the complete rationale here: byuu.org/articles/names. But essentially, these emulators are not only mine: they are the work of dozens of volunteers spanning 15+ years of development. It is perhaps too late, but I wish to separate my personal identity from these projects. I want these emulators to become group projects with multiple developers, and I want them to outlast me if at all possible. With 15+ years and 230,000+ backlinks to byuu.org, I could not see a way to move these emulators to a new domain. And based on it taking 2+ years for higan to become even partially known to the general public, I did not see a viable method of establishing this new emulator in less than a year without using an established name, and the only such name I have at my disposal is byuu. Ideally, I would have kept my emulators on a separate website from day one, but I cannot change the past to correct for this mistake. I mulled over this decision for the past few weeks, and this is the best choice I could come up with. I hope you'll understand. I will also understand if folks continue to call me personally by byuu. I understand it's not easy to change names after 22+ years, and that this will invariably cause some level of confusion. But it can't be helped.

The byuu_san Twitter account, as well as most social media accounts using the name byuu, will be used only for official software development news and updates going forward. Some accounts will be harder than others to migrate, and will take more time and planning.

I have spun off my personal Twitter account and set up a new personal website. Over the coming months, I will be migrating personal content from byuu.org and elsewhere over to my personal website.

I make no secret of the mistakes I've made in the past as byuu (nor will the internet ever let us forget them), and that I'll likely continue to make more mistakes as Near. But for the past two years, I have been doing my best to change and improve myself. I am who I am however, and though I am to be more friendly and cooperative, I won't hide my identity nor unwavering support for my friends. But game preservation transcends politics and ideologies, and I've now separated my work from my personality, so at this point, it is up to you if you want to follow me as Near or not. It's no longer directly tied to byuu.

In any case, byuu is still brand-new, and it is missing several major features including gamepad support, multi-player support, cheat codes, and more. These features will be added in due-time. Sans enhancements like HD mode 7, I am for feature-parity with bsnes, including run-ahead support and much more. The speed is rather limited as well, but I hope to implement scanline renderers and roughly double the performance of each emulator core in the coming year. I am releasing this now for feedback and to try to gauge interest in this new idea of mine.

I hope it will be a success! Thank you everyone!

Planned roadmap:

- v1: support for gamepad mapping and the save state manager
- v2: support for other controller types (mice, light guns) and multiple-players
- v3: support for Famicom Disk System, Super Game Boy, and Sega CD emulation
- v?: support for per-system input mapping, cheat codes, movie recording, and run-ahead functionality
- v?+X: optional scanline renderers for each core to boost performance substantially
- v?+Y: additional emulation cores from outside of higan (PS1, Saturn, N64 would be most promising!)