NanoBoyAdvance 1.8.1

Please backup your save files before updating to be safe.

Changelog

• UI: implement an option to pause the emulator when the window is inactive
• UI: improve lack of response to input changes in the sprite viewer when the emulator is paused
• UI: replace QOpenGLWidget with QWidget (thanks @GranMinigun)
• UI: fix solar sensor level menu that has been broken in 1.8.0 (fixes #370)
• GPIO: fix broken deserialization of port directions
• APU: MP2K HLE: handle corrupted wave info addresses (fixes #362)
• APU: PSG L/R volume must be remapped from 0-7 to 1-8
• GameDB: Japanese Boktai releases have a solar sensor (thanks @raphaelr)
• Redirect stdout on Windows (thanks @GranMinigun)

NanoBoyAdvance 1.8.0

Please backup your save files before updating to be safe.

Changelog

• UI: implement "Sharp" video filter for better nearest interpolation at non-integer scales (thanks GranMinigun)
• UI: implemented PPU viewers for palettes, tiles, backgrounds and sprites
• UI: add an option to set the audio volume
• UI: do not unpause emulator after loading a new ROM
• Input: fix input dropping regression introduced in NBA 1.7.1
• Input: move from SDL game controller to SDL joystick API (fixes broken mapping on some controllers)
• APU: MP2K HLE: interpolate envelopes and use floating-point math
• APU: MP2K HLE: implement a better reverb algorithm
• APU: MP2K HLE: add an option to force-enable reverb
• APU: remove "Zombie" mode emulation (does not appear to exist on GBA)
• APU: fix mid-note envelope frequency changes
• APU: FIFO writes should happen in place
• APU: reset FIFOs on overflow
• APU: add master-enable checks for 16-bit/32-bit IO writes
• PPU: fix sprite pixels from previous scanline displayed in the last scanline
• PPU: more accurate update of attribute buffer for OBJWIN sprites (fixes #275)
• PPU: more accurate emulation of horizontal and vertical sprite mosaic (fixes #322)
• PPU: more accurate handling of mid-frame vertical mosaic reconfiguration
• PPU: fix out-of-bounds bitmap fetches in Mode 3 to 5
• DMA: fix incorrect mapping of DMA channel to APU FIFO
• Timer: somewhat handle timer overflow during one cycle enable delay (thanks alyosha)
• Game Pak: simulate ~6 ms EEPROM device busy period after write (not yet accurate to cartridges that e.g. have been in the freezer for 30 minutes)
• Game Pak: emulate the Mask ROM internal address register
• Audio: fix clicking artifacts when using Sinc resampling
• Audio: fix incorrect liner interpolation in Cosine resampling
• PlatformCore: fixed hang when fast-forwarding while the emulator is paused
• Misc: implemented support for unicode paths

NanoBoyAdvance 1.7.1

Please backup your save files before updating to be safe.

Changelog

• PPU: disallow out-of-bounds BG VRAM tile fetches and return open bus (fixes #298)
• Core: do not skip to the next event if the CPU woke up during a DMA (fixes #297)
• KeyPad: always request IRQs from the emulator (not the calling) thread (fixes #290)
• GameDB: fix entries for a bunch of Classic NES and Famicom Mini titles (fixes #302)
• IO: do not enter STOP mode when it is not implemented
• mGBA log: clear the message buffer after printing the message
• mGBA log: flush STDOUT after each message
• Catch fmt::system_error when fmt::print() fails to write to STDOUT (fixes #301)

NanoBoyAdvance 1.7

This is a major release with lots of code changed. Please backup your save files before updating to be safe.

Changelog

• UI: implement a 'Use integer scaling' option
• UI: allow limiting the screen scale
• UI: allow accessing the menu during fullscreen gameplay
• UI: allow setting a custom save folder
• Core: implement save compatibility with mGBA 0.10.0+
• Core: implement basic support for the mGBA logging interface
• PPU: rewrite the PPU to be mostly cycle-accurate (fixes #241, #230, #229, #208, #141)
• PPU: implement the GREENSWAP register
• PPU: use the 6-th green channel bit during blending
• PPU: round the blending result to the nearest integer
• ARM: fix a minor timing oversight in ARM mode
• ARM: SWP and SWPB should lock the bus (no DMA interleave is possible)
• ARM: do not force-align mis-aligned PC in ARM mode
• Bus: allow the CPU to execute idle cycles in parallel to DMA
• Bus: more accurately emulate disabling the prefetch buffer
• Bus: force the first CPU access after a DMA to be non-sequential
• Bus: implement penalty for ROM code access during the last ROM prefetch cycle (fixes #203)
• IRQ: delay IO writes by one cycle
• IRQ: delay update of the IE&IF condition for unhalting the CPU
• SIO: implement basic serial transfer timing (fixes #282)
• APU: emulate the master enable bit
• APU: cancel a potentially pending event whan starting a channel (fixes #278)
• Scheduler: allow for (de)serialization of events for save states

Notes

On Linux make sure SDL2, GLEW and Qt5 are installed

NanoBoyAdvance 1.6

Changelog

• UI: implement game controller selection and remapping
• UI: enable loading ROMs from archives (Zip, 7z, RAR4)
• UI: enable loading ROMs via Drag & Drop onto the main window
• UI: fix occasional crashes when loading a ROM while the emulator is running
• UI: fix screen clearing and stop audio if ROM could not be loaded
• UI: unpause the emulator if a ROM is loaded
• UI: add an option to unlock the aspect ratio
• Core: implement Solar Sensor emulation (for Boktai I and II)
• Core: implement experimental save state support
• Save Memory: automatically detect EEPROM save sizes (closes #219)
• ARM: fix switch between FIQ and non-user/system modes
• PPU: delay H-blank IRQs by four cycles (fixes #89, fixes #175)
• PPU: disable VRAM mirror at 06018000h in bitmap modes (fixes #102)
• PPU: latch BGX/Y writes at the beginning of each scanline (fixes #176)
• PPU: delay scanline rendering by 32 cycles (fixes #93)
• PPU: properly initialise WIN0/1 state after reset (fixes #223)
• PPU: 2D OBJs should wraparound horizontally (fixes #224)
• PPU: move rendering to a secondary thread for better performance
• PPU: improve DMA3 video transfer timing
• PPU: respect WININ/WINOUT if Alpha OBJ does not have a blend source
• IRQ: add 16-bit IO access handlers to avoid scheduling multiple events
• IRQ: assign (preliminary) priorities to events for IRQ raise and acknowledge/disable events
• Timer: be explicit about IO write event order
• RTC: enable 24h-mode by default (fixes #136)
• RTC: multiple small fixes and accuracy improvements

Notes

On Linux make sure SDL2, GLEW and Qt5 are installed

NanoBoyAdvance 1.5

Linux installation instructions:

• install SDL2, GLEW and Qt5

Changelog

• ARM: force CPSR/SPSR bit 4 to one (fixes Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge)
• Bus: Game Pak access sometimes incurs a one-cycle penalty when prefetch is active
• Bus: HALT incurs a two-cycle penalty
• DMA: make access pattern (more) accurate for ROM to ROM and other weird DMAs.
• DMA: move the second internal cycle at the end of the transfer
• DMA: handle more changes to the control register during a transfer
• IRQ: rework interrupt delay emulation (once again)
• Timer: writing to the control register takes one cycle to apply
• PPU: apply horizontal sprite mosaic as a post-process
• APU: model FIFO as a buffer of seven (not eight) 32-bit words (thanks Gericom) (fixes #101)
• APU: high bits of SOUND2CNT_L should return zero
• Input: make KEYINPUT updates atomic to avoid incorrect game resets (from the Key IRQ)
• UI: maintain a list of recently opened files for quick loading
• UI: allow loading ROMs via process arguments
• UI: add shortcuts for fullscreen and window scale
• UI: implement a workaround for the broken menu bar during fullscreen on Windows
• UI: hide the FPS counter by default and add an option to unhide it
• OpenGL: fix a black screen issue on some Intel integrated GPUs
• macOS: build NanoBoyAdvance as an App Bundle (thanks nadiaholmquist)

NanoBoyAdvance 1.4

macOS installation instructions:

• install brew if you haven't already
• install Qt5 from brew: brew install qt@5

Linux installation instructions:

• install SDL2, GLEW and Qt5

Changelog

• Audio: added a high-quality software/HLE mixer for the MusicPlayer2000 sound engine
• Platform: added a new Qt frontend with OpenGL post-processing options
• PPU: render sprites one scanline ahead (fixes #130)
• PPU: fix an off-by-one in the OBJ draw loop
• PPU: apply OAM draw limit only on OAM (instead of pixel) boundaries for now
• PPU: fix Mode4 transparency (fixes #169)
• PPU: emulate BG enable delay (fixes #94)
• PPU: update internal (affine) X/Y registers only if the BG is enabled (fixes #177)
• Memory: handle 16-bit KEYCNT writes (fixes #152)
• Memory: HALTCNT and POSTFLG should only be writable from BIOS code
• Memory: mask top two bits of the IE register
• DMA: each DMA channel should have its own memory data register (MDR)
• CPU: rework IRQ signal propagation delay
• CPU: improve IRQ exception timing
• CPU: emulate user-mode LDM bus conflict
• CPU: handle invalid CPU modes
• CPU: emulate MSR user-mode restrictions
• CPU: boot into supervisor mode instead of system mode
• CPU: handle rD=r15 edge-case in CMP/CMN/TST and TEQ
• CPU: Thumb ALU shifts now mask the shift amount
• CPU: fix unsigned multiply-long timing
• EEPROM: fix address masking

NanoboyAdvance 1.3

• ARM: handle CMP, CMN, TST and TEQ with rD = 15
• ARM: handle mode switches when the register bank does not change.
• ARM: removed errorneous user-mode switch from LDRT/STRT opcodes.
• DMA: allow DMAs to take priority over the CPU in the middle of an instruction
• DMA: delay DMA startup by two cycles and account for 2I internal cycles
• DMA: force ROM accesses to increment source address mode
• DMA: respect source address mode setting for FIFO DMA
• DMA: force FIFO DMA to use word sized accesses
• DMA: handle manual disable (via enable flag) more gracefully
• Timer: respect cascade flag in sample rate calculation
• APU: emulate DAC enable bits (fixes #64)
• PPU: match WIN0/1 trigger logic to hardware (thanks @destoer)
• PPU: fix H-blank IRQ timing (once again)
• PPU: better handle internal affine registers when multiple BG modes are used in a single frame.
• PPU: handle invalid BG modes 6 and 7 (thanks @ladystarbreeze)
• PPU: update internal affine & mosaic registers at the start of H-blank, not at the end.
• MMIO: do not fallthrough on SOUNDBIAS writes (fixes #125)
• Keypad: implemented keypad IRQ (thanks @destoer)
• Serial: implemented a serial IRQ stub
• SDL: always call glewInit() (fixes #129 )
• SDL: use binary directory as current working directory

NanoboyAdvance 1.2

• CPU: Optimized GamePak prefetch buffer emulation

• CPU: Reading prefetched GamePak memory engages the GamePak prefetcher.

• CPU: Delay all IRQs by four cycles (fixes James Pond)

• CPU: Handle pipeline flush for halfword reads

• CPU: Force next ARM instruction fetch to be sequential if the condition isn't met.

• CPU: Optimized ADC and SBC flag calculations

• DMA: Ignore repeat-flag for immediate DMAs

• DMA: Mask source and destination addresses on write.

• DMA: Properly disable non-repeating FIFO DMA (fixes #97)

• Timer: Greatly optimized emulation efficiency, timers now are scheduled.

• Memory: Fix unaligned S16 reads from out-of-bounds ROM

• Memory: Allow read/write to POSTFLG register

• Memory: Allow read from WAVE_RAM registers

• Memory: Fix unaligned S8/S16 reads from SRAM

• Memory: Handle DMA reads from open bus addresses (fixes #109)

• Memory: Improved GPIO bus emulation

• Memory: Force-align 16-bit expanded 8-bit VRAM and PRAM writes.

• PPU: Raise H-blank IRQs after 960 cycles instead of 1006 (fixes #89)

• PPU: Handle OBJ priority hijacking (fixes #99)

• PPU: Respect per-scanline cycle limit for OBJ rendering (fixes #98)

• PPU: Handle odd tile numbers in 256-color OBJs (fixes #106)

• PPU: Emulate tile number limit for 256-color OBJs

• PPU: Latch internal affine registers on mode switch (fixes #90)

• PPU: Handle setting V-count setting to the current V-count value.

• PPU: Make V-count IRQ edge-triggered

• PPU: Fixed broken semi-transparency logic

• APU: Clamp samples before converting to S16 format (fixes #100)

• APU: Use BLEP resampler to improve quality of direct audio.

• RTC: Fix off-by-one error in the day of month.

• GameDB: Added save type override for Acrobat Kid (Japan)

• GameDB: Added save type override for Baldur's Gate - Dark Alliance

• GameDB: Added save type override for 007 - Everything or Nothing

• GameDB: Added save type override for Super Monkey Ball Jr.

• GameDB: Fixed save type override for Classic NES - Legend of Zelda

• Common/DSP: Linearly interpolate CosineResampler lookup-table

• Common/DSP: Added a BLEP resampler

• Miscellaneous: Do not sync to audio by default

• Miscellaneous: Experimental, optional hack to increase audio sample rate in games which use the M4A/Sappy sound engine. This will break games and is thus not turned on by default.

NanoboyAdvance 1.1

• implemented GLSL shader support
• fix broken Vsync on Windows and presumably macOS
• fix crash when no keymap.toml is present

macOS instructions:

• You need to install SDL2 via brew: brew install sdl2