project sd2snes

Firmware 0.1.7e is out. Download here! This is mainly a long overdue maintenance release.

What’s new:

• Fixed a long standing critical DAC timing quirk causing audio distortion with MSU1 on any revision except Rev.G
• Fixed a clock glitch on SD card access from FPGA that could lead to audio/video distortion with MSU1
• Properly map SRAM to Banks f0-ff instead of f0-fb in Mode 20 (“LoROM”) memory map
• Added support for headered bsxbios.bin too
• Slight SD card read performance optimization for MSU1 (avoid unaligned reads)
• Change initial SRAM fill value (courtesy of devinacker) – fixes Ken Griffey Jr., Ou-Chan, and possibly other games that don’t perform a proper SRAM content sanity check
• Always start game on PPU2 field 0. This doesn’t fix any known issue but is put in for compatibility’s sake.

Firmware 0.1.7c is out. Get it here!

What’s new:

• major overhaul of the in-game hook code, with more help from the FPGA, to significantly reduce CPU footprint. This improves hook compatibility with a variety of games.
• in-game hook: avoid disruption of manual controller reads (fixes controls in Super Star Wars games)
• new option: “Hide file extensions” (effective after next directory change)
• do not silently fail to load saved games when the sd2snes/saves folder does not exist (create the folder instead)
• do not silently fail to load/save cheat files when the sd2snes/cheats folder does not exist (create the folder instead)
• Cx4 core now runs at exactly 20MHz
• fixes:
  • MSU1: avoid missed control register status changes on rapid rewrites (fixes FF3 Dancing Mad, Zelda FMV missing audio)
  • fix auto region patch timing (hopefully)
  • fix DSP1 header detection (fixes Ballz 3D JPN)
  • add reset hook to boot games on start of frame only (fixes Boogerman PAL)
  • clear entire SPC700 RAM (do not spare IPL area) – fixes echo artifacts in many games
• minor cosmetic changes:
  • resize SPC player loading window
  • prevent flickering letters on System Information screen

The in-game hook compatibility chart will be updated shortly.

Firmware 0.1.7b is out with a number of fixes. Get it here!

• BS-X boots correctly again after a soft reset.
• OBC1 works again (accidentally was permanently disabled)
• Fixed garbled time on initial clock setting (new unit or battery replacement)
• fixed a firmware crash when saving after using the serial command line
• sd2snes folder is always hidden again

Obligatory service announcement! A bug snuck into the firmware where the ROM file could get overwritten with your save data when saving or resetting. On the bright side you’d never lose your save data… ;)
I just replaced the download with the fixed version. If you already downloaded v0.1.7, please re-download and replace it on your card. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Preview 4 of the notorious 0.1.7 firmware is available. Download here!

Changes in no particular order:

• Prevent software from using uninitialized DMA ch.0 transfer to corrupt the stack (fixes Nightmare Busters)
• Disable PPU region patching during the menu
• MSU1: Stop audio playback on reset (fixes static buzzing noise in games after soft-resetting out of an MSU1 game)
• Cx4: Add a switch for original/fast mode. “Original” mimics the Cx4 timing better (Megaman doesn’t die in MMX2 attract mode) whereas “Fast” uses a single CPU cycle for every instruction, improving frame rate when drawing polygons (rotating head in MMX2 intro).
• Hide dot files and directories again (Regression in 0.1.7).
• “Stealth Mode” for in-game hook memory area hides the memory region used by in-game routines from games. (Fixes Equinox, Lion King)
• In-game hooks are a bit less intrusive in terms of CPU time, hopefully reducing glitches a bit with problematic games.
• System Information screen shows file system usage on card.
• Slow down DSPx a bit to better match original speed (should have no noticeable effect)
• Font height is reduced by one pixel to increase readability (lines of text are more distinguishable). This has an effect on the font style so some might not like it…? ;)
• Background is greyed out when a window is active in foreground
• Menu now uses the dynamic hierarchical menu system, with automatic calculation of window dimensions, etc. Not much of it can be seen at the moment due to the lack of menu entries.
• Experimental SRAM mapping for Cx4
• FPGA: adjust address sampling time for “end-of-cycle” events. Should help primarily with DSP1 glitches.
• MSU1: initial volume now adheres to the latest spec (initial volume = 0) so it must be initialized by software to the desired level. This actually breaks my own example player :D I will post an updated version of it shortly.
• Text file based configuration. Allows you to change some settings while I procrastinate writing the config GUI :P The following options are currently implemented (taken directly from the config file, sd2snes\config.yml, as generated by sd2snes, along with their default values):

  # Allow SuperCIC Pair Mode (required for video mode setting)
  PairModeAllowed: false
  
  # Video mode (0 = 60Hz, 1 = 50Hz, 2 = Auto (game only))
  VideoModeMenu: 0
  VideoModeGame: 2
  
  # Satellaview Settings
  #  BSXUseUsertime: use user defined time instead of real time
  #  BSXTime: user defined Satellaview broadcast time (format: YYYYMMDDhhmmss)
  BSXUseUsertime: true
  BSXTime: 19970301180530
  
  # Enable PPU region flag patching
  R213fOverride: true
  
  # IRQ hook related settings
  #  EnableIRQHook: Overall enable IRQ hooks (required for in-game buttons & WRAM cheats)
  #  EnableIRQButtons: Enable in-game buttons (en/disable cheats, reset sd2snes...)
  #  EnableIRQHoldoff: Enable 10s grace period after reset before enabling in-game hooks
  EnableIRQHook: true
  EnableIRQButtons: true
  EnableIRQHoldoff: true
  
  # Screensaver settings
  #  EnableScreensaver: Enable screensaver
  EnableScreensaver: true
  
  # UI related settings
  #  SortDirectories: Sort directories (slower but files are guaranteed to be in order)
  SortDirectories: true
  
  # Enhancement chip settings
  #  Cx4Speed: Cx4 core speed (0: original, 1: fast, all instructions are single cycle)
  Cx4Speed: 0

• Text file based cheat support. Cheat files are expected in YAML format with the filename “sd2snes\Cheats\<romname>.yml“. Multiple codes per cheat are supported. The expected data structure is as shown in this example:

  ---
  - Name: Invincibility
     Code: "AAAA-AAAA" # this is an example GG code
    Enabled: True
  - Name: Infinite Money
    Code:
      - "7E0345AA" # this is an example PAR code
      - "809AB001" # and another one
    Enabled: False
  

  Cheats are applied immediately after loading a ROM (if they are enabled). 6 ROM patches and 26 RAM patches can be active simultaneously. Currently there is no sanity check so things probably won’t work correctly if you exceed these limits ;) At the moment sd2snes will re-write the cheat file every time it is loaded so its look will change after the first run. GameHacking can now export cheats in sd2snes format. Awesome!

• Minor cosmetic changes.