Website updates2019-02-18

I've upgraded my web server (TLS 1.3!), so it'll take a bit of time to restore all the older file download links. Sorry for the inconvenience in the mean time.

amethyst v3.1 released2019-02-18

I've been using amethyst as my primary text editor for several weeks now, and this release addresses all of the minor issues I've encountered during that time.

Changelog:

amethyst v3.1 (source code)

amethyst v1 released2018-12-27

amethyst is a new lightweight text editor; currently for GTK (Linux, BSD) only.

It uses a tree-view navigation with lazy loading of directories and files, and also features a hex editor (currently read-only) for binary files.

It is pretty specifically designed to my exact tastes, which was the entire point of writing it in the first place, but it does have settings files to configure the MIME types, window geometry, fonts, and colors.

If nothing else, it could make a good base to create your own custom editor from. It comes in at around 500 lines of actual code on top of hiro (my GUI toolkit abstraction layer.)

Update

amethyst has been bumped to v2, now with file management support in tree-view mode: create, delete, and rename files and folders (recursively.)

Coming soon: amethyst v3 with built-in mail client.

Download

amethyst v2 (source code)

bsnes v106r44 beta released2018-06-27

I'm releasing a beta version of bsnes, for the purpose of gathering feedback and ensuring that the first official release of bsnes is as solid as possible.

With the exception of dynamic rate control for automatic audio/video sync, and no pack-in video shaders or cheat code database, it is mostly feature complete. However, please do not form a lasting opinion of bsnes based on this beta.

( Download )

bsnes revival2018-05-17

Today I'm announcing the revival of the bsnes project.

This is going to be a standalone SNES emulator, utilizing the higan SNES core, but with a much faster multi-threaded PPU renderer. The performance should hopefully exceed the old bsnes-balanced releases, while being just as accurate.

The bsnes project is also going to focus heavily on ease of use, providing support for direct ROM file loading, automatic gamepad mapping (where possible), soft-patching support, etc.

The goal is to provide all of the recent higan SNES emulation improvements and the SNES preservation project work to a wider audience.

bsnes project page

higan v106 released2017-11-19

This release adds auto-saving RAM support and a new tool to save per-game text notes. It also adds 64 new SNES PAL game verifications to the icarus database, courtesy of DoNotWant and Smarthuman.

( Download )

higan v105tr1 released2017-10-25

This release supersedes higan v105, and is released to fix a critical issue that was affecting the newly completed English translation of Tengai Makyou Zero. It also has fixes for two other games.

Many special thanks to Cydrak for putting this release together during my vacation! =^-^=

Changelog:

( Download )

bass v15 released2017-10-08

After two years, a new version of bass has been released, which contains many substantial changes: expressions, multi-argument defines, inline macros, and much more.

Unfortunately, code written for bass v14 is unlikely to be compatible with v15, and code changes will be necessary.

However, the goal going forward is for bass to stabilize. I wanted to offer a guarantee that all code compiled with v15 will be forward-compatible, but given the large number of changes, this seems a bad idea. Instead, I'd like to run with v15 for a decent length of time, and if no serious issues arise, then we can consider this for the next release.

Do note that unlike previous releases, backward-incompatible changes won't occur to v15 unless they are of significant, quantifiable benefit.

( Download )

higan v105 released2017-10-07

This release provides several major improvements to Mega Drive emulation which enhances compatibility a good deal. It also includes important Super Famicom mosaic emulation improvements, plus a much-needed SuperFX save state issue fix.

This will be the last release for a while: I have an upcoming vacation, and following that, I'll be shifting my focus back to the SNES preservation project until my backlog of 125 PAL games is cleared.

Changelog:

( Download )

higan v104 released2017-08-12

There are lots of improvements in this new release, both to core emulation and to the user interface. However, some of these changes are quite substantial, so regressions are a possibility. Please report any regressions from v103 on the forums if found.

Note that Mega Drive save RAM files will not be compatible with v103, but will now be compatible with save RAM files from all other Mega Drive emulators, and the format will be stable going forward.

Also!! Thanks to the tireless work of Screwtape, the Help->Documentation link in higan now takes you to a very comprehensive user guide. Please be sure to consult this if you have any questions about using higan.

Lastly, I've added a link to my Patreon page (https://patreon.com/byuu/) to the higan downloads page. The money will go exclusively toward purchasing SNES games for preservation, hardware and flash carts for reverse engineering, equipment such as backup drives, etc. Donating is entirely optional and comes with no rewards, but would of course be greatly appreciated! ^^;

Changelog:

( Download )

higan v103 released2017-06-21

With this release, PC Engine, Master System, Game Gear, Mega Drive and the newly added SuperGrafx support are now quite usable! They're far from the best emulators for these systems, but with many bugfixes, full sound emulation, and save state support ... many games are now fully playable with decent accuracy.

The Game Boy Advance emulation is also now substantially improved with vastly improved sound quality and a new dot-based PPU renderer. With that change, every single component in higan is now cycle-based. Regrettably, these changes do carry a ~20% performance penalty compared to GBA emulation in v102.

Changelog:

This changelog is a summary of major changes. For a detailed list of all changes, which spans several pages, please see the higan Gitlab repository.

( Download )

higan v102 released2017-01-19

This release adds very preliminary emulation of the Sega Master System (Mark III), Sega Game Gear, Sega Mega Drive (Genesis), and NEC PC Engine (Turbografx-16). These cores do not yet offer sound emulation, save states or cheat codes.

I'm always very hesitant to release a new emulation core in its alpha stages, as in the past this has resulted in lasting bad impressions of cores that have since improved greatly. For instance, the Game Boy Advance emulation offered today is easily the second most accurate around, yet it is still widely judged by its much older alpha implementation.

However, it's always been tradition with higan to not hold onto code in secret. Rather than delay future releases for another year or two, I'll put my faith in you all to understand that the emulation of these systems will improve over time.

I hope that by releasing things as they are now, I might be able to receive some much needed assistance in improving these cores, as the documentation for these new systems is very much less than ideal.

Also, please note that starting with this release, I am omitting the settings.bml file. This means that you will have to manually configure your gamepad input assignments, and select the appropriate devices from the system menu after loading games. You may also want to select a more conservative driver profile than the default (OpenGL, WASAPI.) If they cause you any troubles, a safer bet would be (Direct3D, DirectSound.)

The good news in omitting this file is that you'll only have to configure inputs once, and you won't lose any customizations by upgrading to future releases.

( Download )

Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis) emulation2016-08-21

On July 8th, I started on a Sega Mega Drive emulation core.

As of today, it's finally able to run its first game with no visible issues other than a lack of audio emulation. Yay!

Still, it's going to be a long haul to get this core to be of high quality: the Mega Drive is roughly on par with the SNES in terms of technical complexity when it comes to aiming for extreme accuracy.

I'm not sure when it will appear in official releases.