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===========================================================================
SSSS tt lll lll
SS SS tt ll ll
SS tttttt eeee ll ll aaaa
SSSS tt ee ee ll ll aa
SS tt eeeeee ll ll aaaaa -- "An Atari 2600 VCS Emulator"
SS SS tt ee ll ll aa aa
SSSS ttt eeeee llll llll aaaaa
===========================================================================
Release History
===========================================================================
6.2.1 to 6.3 (XXXX XX, 2020)
* Added adjustable autofire.
* Added 'Dark' UI theme.
* Extended global hotkeys for debug options.
* Added option to playback a game using the Time Machine.
* Allow taking snapshots from within the Time Machine dialog.
* Added the ability to access most files that Stella uses from within a
ZIP file. This includes the following:
- Per-ROM properties file (so one can distribute a ROM and its
associated properties).
- Debugger symbol (.sym) and list (.lst) files, etc.
- Several others, as we extend the support.
Basically, you are now able to put many files that Stella uses inside
one ZIP file, and distribute just that file.
* Extended AtariVox support to handle flow control, so that long phrases
are no longer corrupted/cut off. This includes properly supporting the
2600-daptor II, which is flashable to an AVox-USB converter.
* Added QuadTari controller support.
* Added option to select the audio device.
* Added support for CDFJ+ bankswitching type.
* Further enhanced UA bankswitching to support more Brazilian carts.
* Added option to display detected settings info when a ROM is loaded.
* Added another oddball TIA glitch option for delayed background color.
* Replaced "Re-disassemble" with "Disassemble @ current line" in debugger.
* Fixed bug when taking fullscreen snapshots; the dimensions were
sometimes cut off.
-Have fun!
6.2.1 to 6.2.2 (August 25, 2020)
* Fixed a bug in initial controller mapping.
6.2 to 6.2.1: (June 20, 2020)
* Fixed Pitfall II ROM not working correctly.
* Fixed crashes when using some combinations of bankswitching schemes on
incorrect ROMs, or when using invalid ROM file sizes, etc.
* Fixed RIOT timer behaviour on reading/writing at the wraparound cycle.
* Fixed incorrectly setting D6 bit on TIA reads in some cases. Related
to this, improve 'tiadriven' option to randomize only D5..D0 bits.
* Fixed custom palette and TV effects adjustable slider rounding issue.
* Fixed some bugs in 3E+ scheme when using non-standard ROM sizes.
* Fixed crash in Audio & Video dialog when opened from debugger, and the
debugger window sometimes being resized when using the Options dialog.
* Make NTSC custom phase shift not affect Yellow anymore.
* Fixed '1x' snapshot mode; TV effects are now disabled. This mode
now generates a clean, pixel-exact image.
* Fixed mappings sometimes not being saved in the Retron77 port.
* A ROM properties file may now be placed next to the ROM (with the same
name as the ROM, except ending in .pro), and Stella will automatically
apply the properties to the ROM. [NOTE: this was present in 6.2, but
was mistakenly left out of the changelog]
* Added button to Game Info dialog to save properties of the currently
loaded ROM to a separate properties file (in the default save directory).
This is useful in conjunction with the previous item.
* Allow changing custom palette and TV effects adjustables in 1% steps
again.
* Updated documentation for changes in ROM properties key names.
* The codebase now compiles under gcc6 again. Future versions will
require gcc7, though.
6.1.2 to 6.2: (June 7, 2020)
* Added interactive palette to Video & Audio settings.
* Added 'Custom' palette, generated from user controlled phase shifts.
* Added that adjustable audio & video settings are displayed as gauge bars.
* Added four global hotkeys which allow selecting and changing numerous
audio & video settings without having to remember the dedicated hotkeys.
* Added 'Turbo' mode, runs the game as fast as the computer allows.
* Added that paddle centering (per ROM) and sensitivity can be adjusted.
* Added that mouse sensitivity for Driving controller can be adjusted.
* Added paddle filtering in UI to avoid unwanted navigation events.
* Added selectable dialog fonts.
* Added separate positioning of launcher, emulator and debugger.
* Added optional display to game refresh rate adaption in fullscreen mode.
* Added option which lets default ROM path follow launcher navigation.
* Added debugger 'saveaccess' function, which saves memory access counts to
a CSV file.
* Added displaying last write address in the debugger.
* Added debugger pseudo-register '_scanend', which gives the number of
scanlines at the end of the last frame.
* Added detection of color and audio data in DiStella.
* Restored 'cfg' directory for Distella config files.
* Added TV Boy and 3EX bank switching types.
* Removed unused CV+ and DASH bank switching types.
* Added support for loading grayscale PNG images in the ROM launcher.
6.1.1 to 6.1.2: (April 25, 2020)
* Fixed bug with remapped events not being reloaded in certain cases.
* Fixed bug in debugger for 3E scheme when displaying active RAM bank.
* Fixed bug in "Dragon Defender" ROM being misconfigured for Mindlink
controller.
6.1 to 6.1.1: (April 4, 2020)
* Fixed crash in 3E bankswitching scheme when writing to ROM addresses.
* Fix snapshots on Retina HiDPI displays capturing only the top-left
corner.
* Fixed wrong color for BK (background) swatch in the debugger.
* Fixed 'Right Diff' button in Command menu changing left difficulty
instead.
* Fixed compilation of libretro port on Debian Buster.
6.0.2 to 6.1: (March 22, 2020)
* IMPORTANT NOTES:
- Because of major event remapping changes, all remappings will be reset
to defaults; if you had custom mappings, they will need to be
re-entered again.
- Because of major internal changes, all state files are now invalid.
- Support for Windows XP has been discontinued as of this version. WinXP
is now completely out of support from Microsoft, so we are doing the
same.
* Major improvements to display mode handling in NTSC vs. PAL. The window
is now the same size for both modes, and scaling is applied to simulate
the height of scanlines (in PAL mode, there are more scanlines and hence
each is narrower). This more properly emulates how the display would look
on a real TV.
* Removed the 'Display_Height' property, changing it to 'Display_VCenter'.
This new feature, along with the display mode changes above, almost
completely eliminate having to manually tweak each ROM so that it will
not have part of the image cut off.
* Removed the 'Display_YStart' property and all automatic detection of
ystart. It caused problems on some ROMs, and was not the way a real
console would work anyway. Related to this, ROMs now load much faster.
* Major improvements to event remapping:
- Allow mapping of modifier-key and button-direction combinations
- Physical controllers can map the same action to different events on
different virtual controllers
- Many more events can be remapped
- Events can be filtered by type in UI
* Paths have been simplified:
- The following file/directory locations are no longer configurable
(statedir, nvramdir, cheatfile, palettefile, propsfile); they are
now all under the base directory
- Removed cfgdir; Distella config files are now placed with their
associated ROMs
- Added 'basedir' commandline argument, which allows to change the
base directory where almost all config-related items are stored;
related to this, discontinued the 'basedir.txt' functionality
- Added 'baseinappdir' commandline argument, which sets the base
directory to the application folder (Windows only for now); this
replaces the functionality of 'basedir.txt'
* Added automatic controller detection.
* Controllers can be changed during emulation (no ROM reload required
anymore).
* Added support for Light Gun controller.
* Added limited KidVid support (8, 9 and 0 start the games).
* Removed superfluous controller option 'PADDLES_IDIR'.
* Added configurable paddle dejittering.
* Key-repeat mode improved; entering Time Machine by holding down a key
combo continues to send events (previously, you had to release and then
press the combo again).
* Certain buttons in the UI can now be activated repeatedly by holding
down the mouse button (Time Machine, debugger step/trace/frame advance,
etc.)
* Added option to configure mouse double click speed.
* Added option to configure controller input repeat speed.
* Added high quality scaling.
* Made scanlines better aligned to scaling.
* Added 'HiDPI' mode, which scales the UI by 2x when enabled. This is
meant for 4k and above monitors, but can actually be used at any
lower resolution that is large enough to display the scaled UI.
* Fixed TIA 'Center' option, Stella now remembers the last windowed position.
* Added fractional (25% increments) TIA zooms.
* Removed 'tia.fsfill' option, replacing it with 'tia.fs_stretch'. This
new option allows to preserve TIA image aspect ratio in fullscreen
mode, or stretch to fill the entire screen.
* Added configurable 'Overscan' option for fullscreen modes.
* Fullscreen TIA modes no longer assume that desktop taskbars, etc
are present, hence they are scaled to the proper fullscreen size.
* Added option to display dialogs in screen corners.
* Added hotkey for sound on/off.
* Enhanced 'Command' menu to display current state and more commands.
* Added option to save and load all TimeMachine states at once.
* Added option to automatically load/save states when entering/exiting
emulation.
* Added option to change pitch of Pitfall II music.
* ROM Info Viewer size is not limited to fixed zoom steps anymore.
* ROM Info Viewer can now display multiple lines per property and the
bank switching type.
* In file listings, you can now select directories by holding 'Shift' on
the first character entered. Entering characters in lowercase still
selects files, as before.
* Fixed bug when starting ROMs via MacOS finder.
* Added various developer options for oddball TIAs:
- stuffed player, missiles and ball move
- delayed playfield bits and color
- delayed players and ball VDEL swap
* Disabled some developer options for 'Player settings'.
* Writes to RAM read ports are ignored now.
* Added Developer setting, which breaks on writes to read ports.
* Improved breakpoints to now consider the banks.
* Improved debugger's TIA display and zoom windows.
* Improved hotkeys, now many emulation keys work in debugger too.
* Fixed display of negative values in debugger; sometimes they were
shown as positive.
* Reworked ROM properties database, making it load faster in certain cases.
* Updated internal ROM properties database to ROM-Hunter version 16
(thanks go to RomHunter for his tireless research in this area).
Related to this, updated the snapshot collection.
* Fixed 'Dancing Plate (Unknown) (PAL)' to use joystick.
* Fixed cheatcode handling in 2K and 4K ROMs.
* Fixed bug where ROMs smaller than 64 bytes were not recognized.
* Fixed bug where frying one ROM was continued with the next ROM.
* Fixed not working 7800 pause key.
* Enhanced UA bankswitching to support certain Brazilian carts.
* Fixed WD bankswitching.
* Added FC bankswitching for Amiga's Power Play Arcade Video Game Album.
* Added auto-detection of display format based on filename.
* Auto-detection of bankswitch scheme by file extension now includes
more human-readable formats (not restricted to DOS 3-char length).
See the documentation for the new names.
* Fixed bug in DPC+ scheme; 'fast fetch mode' was enabled at startup,
when it should be disabled by default.
* Some more work on DPC+ playfield 'jitter' effect for certain older DPC+
driver versions; more ROMs are now detected properly. Special thanks
to SpiceWare for his research in this area.
* Added proper Retron77 port.
* Added proper libretro port, and fixed display for OpenGLES renderers.
* PNG/ZIP image support is now conditionally compiled into Stella.
All major ports (Linux/macOS/Windows) have it enabled by default.
* SDL/GUI support is now conditionally compiled into Stella. All major
ports (Linux/macOS/Windows) have it enabled by default. This is
currently needed by the libretro port.
* Updated included PNG library to latest stable version.
* Updated UNIX configure script to work with the gcc version 10 and
above.
6.0.1 to 6.0.2: (October 11, 2019)
* Updated properties database for Pink Panther ROM.
6.0 to 6.0.1: (June 5, 2019)
* Added support for CDFJ bankswitching type (Galaga, Wizard of War, etc).
* Allow the DPC+ scheme to not enable playfield 'jitter' effect for
certain older DPC+ driver versions; this allows 'Epic Adventure' ROM
to finally work in Stella.
5.1.3 to 6.0: (December 23, 2018)
* Note: because of major TIA sound changes, the state file format has
changed, and old state files will not work with this release.
* New cycle exact audio core based on work by Chris Brenner (crispy);
greatly improved audio emulation accuracy (i.e. E.T., Ms. Pacman).
* Full rewrite of the audio subsystem; resample TIA output to target
sample rate directly in Stella.
* Added option to force stereo sound for all ROMs, or to use the
setting on a per-ROM basis.
* Threading: decouple emulation from frame rendering.
* Main loop rewritten; emulating speed and timing is now much more
faithful (i.e. speed in Pick'n'Pile).
* Added preliminary support for 'CTY' bankswitching scheme and recently
released 'Chetiry' ROMs. Special thanks to SpiceWare for adding music
support to this scheme.
* UI modernization (new widget look, dialog titles added, dialogs
refactored).
* The bankswitch scheme can now be forced by naming the ROM with a
specific extension (ie: .f8s for F8SC, .fe for FE, etc). The
supported extensions are the same as the ones from HarmonyCart and
UnoCart.
* Audio settings replaced with new 'audio.xxx' settings.
* FPS setting replaced with speed setting for adjusting emulation speed.
* Extra functionality for Time Machine dialog (start/stop recording;
minor fixes).
* When logging messages to the System Logger, condense similar messages
that arrive in batches into fewer messages (including timestamps).
* Fixes for collision corner cases (during HBlank).
* Fixed excessive CPU usage while in UI modes (ROM launcher, debugger,
etc).
* The 'launcherexts' option has been replaced by a true/false option
named 'launcherroms', which specifies to show only ROMs or all files
in the ROM launcher.
* Changes in 'Game Properties' dialog
- 'Default' button now affects only current tab like in all other
dialogs.
- 'Display' and 'Console' tab changes are now immediate.
- Fixed bug when selecting 'Auto-detect' format for 50Hz ROMs
* Fixed bug in autodetecting Genesis controllers.
* Fixed bug with 'thumb.trapfatal' commandline argument; sometimes Stella
would lock up when encountering a fatal error instead of entering the
debugger and displaying a message.
* Fixed bug in reading from settings file with entries that were empty;
the parsing was failing. This affected the 'cpurandom' argument; when
all options in it were turned off, they were all turned on again during
the next program run.
* Fixed bug with 'hold' events; they are now released a short time after
starting a ROM.
* When starting Stella for the first time, the first ROM selected will
determine which path to use by default for subsequent runs.
* Fixed emulator crash when starting SaveKey ROMs from commandline with
SaveKey messages enabled.
* Fixed missing TV format update in frame stats dialog when switching
display type.
* Fixed missing debug color update when switching display type.
* 'Fill to scanline' now works for scanlines above current scanline too.
* The debugger 'uhex' command is now honoured in CDF and BUS schemes.
* When switching screenmodes, the sound is now paused and later resumed.
This fixes popping and cracking sounds apparent on some systems, notably
OSX when toggling windowed/fullscreen mode.
* State file format has been optimized to be smaller, and faster loading
and saving. This affects both the files saved to your computer as well
as Time Machine functionality.
* The ROM name saved in a PNG tEXt chunk now honours the 'snapname'
setting.
* Improved snapshots when phosphor is enabled.
* Updated PAL palette.
* Added 'Cartridge.StartBank' ROM property, to force a ROM to use a
specific bank for its reset vector.
* Added Developer setting, which breaks on reads from write ports. It
now detects such conditions in many more cases. This new way of
detecting RWP errors obsoletes the old '_rwport' debugger command,
which has now been removed.
* Added recently released 'Arkyology' prototype ROM to the database.
* Added 'Amoeba Jump' and 'Flappy' ROMs (from the Retron77) to the
database.
* Fixed 'Street Racer' and 'Video Olympics' ROMs to use paddles in both
ports.
* If using SDL 2.0.5 or above, the calculated desktop size now takes
the taskbar/dock into account (so windows should no longer overlap
those areas).
* For UNIX systems: in the ROM launcher, when using symlinks use the
symlink pathname instead of the underlying filesystem pathname.
* The UNIX builds now use the system-installed PNG and ZLIB libraries
by default.
* The Macintosh builds are now named 'macOS' throughout the codebase to
reflect the new naming from Apple.
* For better compatibility, the Windows 32-bit version does not require
SSE2 anymore.
* Updated included PNG library to latest stable version.
5.1.2 to 5.1.3: (June 10, 2018)
* Fixed crash in OpenBSD when quitting the app, which can also be
happening on other systems (no reports yet, but the problem is now
fixed for good).
* Fixed configure/build scripts to work natively under OpenBSD.
5.1.1 to 5.1.2: (May 20, 2018)
* Fixed bug with SaveKey autodetection; some ROMs were not correctly
detecting that a virtual SaveKey device was plugged in. This notably
fixes issues in "Super Cobra" and "Scramble" ROMs.
* Make previously mentioned ROMs use the SaveKey device by default.
* Fixed bug in UI navigation with joystick hat movement.
5.1 to 5.1.1: (February 21, 2018)
* Fixed bug in Stargunner ROM starting with a blank screen.
5.0.2 to 5.1: (February 4, 2018)
* Added "Time Machine" mode, which automatically creates save states
in user-defined intervals. The user can navigate back and forth within
these states inside the emulator and the debugger.
* Huge improvements to the disassembly view in the debugger and
disassembly files created:
- reformatting in debugger for better space utilization
- much improved code and data detection
- access tracking and indicators for TIA/IO/RAM adresses in disassembly
- break vector is tracked (if used)
- improved cycle count (page penalties, sums created in disassembly)
- improved handling of instruction masking opcodes (e.g. BIT)
* Fixed change tracking bug during rewind; changes were accumulated
instead of being displayed only for the last rewind step.
* Extended 'rewind' to take a second parameter which allows rewinding
multiple states.
* Added 'unwind' command, which undoes the latest rewind(s)
* Added '<' (unwind) button to debugger.
* Thumbulator support is not conditional any more.
* Moved various developer related settings in new Developer Settings
dialog. These settings now come in two groups (player/developer) and
allow switching all settings at once.
* Don't trap write accesses to the datastream pointers in CDF and BUS.
This fixes -dev.thumb.trapfatal 1.
* Complete rework of TV mode and ystart autodetection. The new
implementation is more robust and reduces startup time.
* Add two "grace lines" of black to the top of the frame when
autodetecting ystart.
* Fixed Genesis controller autodetect (Stay Frosty 2, Scramble, etc).
* Fixed a bug in ystart autodetection that could cause screen jumps.
* Fixed several bugs in holdselect, holdreset and holdjoyX commandline
arguments; these now work as expected.
* Fixed bug in TIA collision handling; it is now disabled in VBlank.
* Improve TIA PF collision handling during hblank; this fixes a bug in
Thrust ROM.
* Fixed wrong display of HM values in debugger after 'HMCLR' has been
executed.
* Fixed bug with the debugger 'savedis' command in Windows; it wasn't
actually saving the files at all. This has never been reported
before, so I guess it shows how many people use that functionality.
* The debugger 'savedis', 'saverom' and 'saveses' now save files in
a default, user-visible directory (see the documentation for more
information). In the case of 'saveses', the filename is now named
based on the date and time of when the command was entered.
* Fixed bug with saving snapshots in 1x mode; there was graphical
corruption in some cases. Such snapshots also now include any TV
effects / phosphor blending currently in use.
* Fixed regular-sized snapshots when phosphor effect was enabled;
sometimes the image was 'double-blended', resulting in a snapshot that
was too dark.
* Fixed crash when selecting 'CompuMate' as a controller type for a non-
CompuMate ROM; this controller type can no longer be manually
selected, and will be used automatically used for CompuMate ROMs.
* Fixed cheat codes, so 7 digits codes are now accepted as described in
the doc.
* Fixed swapped ports being displayed wrong in System Logs and debugger.
* Added options to erase the AtariVox/Savekey flash memory, either for
all ROMs or only the current one. Also added a message (configurable)
when the flash memory is accessed.
* Access to the AtariVox/SaveKey can be signaled with a message.
* Added new interface palette 'Light'.
* Frame stats display made transparent. Also it now displays the real
frame rate and if the developer settings group is enabled.
* Improved tab auto-complete in debugger.
* Added conditional traps and savestate creation to debugger.
* Added 'Options...' button to debugger which gives access to the options
menu during debugging.
* Added debugger pseudo-register '_cyclesLo' and '_cyclesHi', which give
the number of CPU cycles that have occurred since emulation started.
* Added debugger pseudo-register '_fcycles', which gives the number of
CPU cycles that have occurred since the frame started.
* Added debugger pseudo-register '_icycles', which gives the number of
CPU cycles of the last instruction.
* Extended debugger 'dump' command to take a second argument, indicating
the end of the range to dump data.
* Improved change tracking; more values are tracked and change tracking
now works in case of a break too.
* Added widgets for trackball and SaveKey/AtariVox controllers.
* Improved emulation of 'FE' bankswitch scheme (no user-visible changes,
but internally the emulation is much more accurate compared to the
real thing). Related to this, improved the debugger support for this
scheme (you can now switch banks in the debugger view).
* Added emulation of 7800 initial RAM values and Pause key.
* Added ROM properties for 'Scramble' ROMs, and updated info for all
"Champ Games" ROMs.
* Added ROM properties for 'Zippy the Porcupine' ROMs, and updated
info for all "Chris Spry (Sprybug)" ROMs.
* Support UNIX style builds (configure / make) on OSX with both
XCode / clang and g++.
* Fixed error when building with uClibc-ng for ARM (thanks to Sergio
Prado).
* Updated included PNG library to latest stable version.
5.0.1 to 5.0.2: (August 20, 2017)
* Improved emulation of Trakball controller, eliminating bias in left/
right directions. Thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for the idea and code.
Related to this, added 'tsense' commandline argument and associated
UI item, to allow changing sensitivity of mouse trackball emulation.
* Added preliminary support for multi-threading in the Blargg TV effects
code. This is still a WIP; more improvements are coming. Related to
this, further optimized the TIA rendering code. Also added 'threads'
commandline argument and associated UI item to enable/disable
multi-threading. Thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for the bulk of the work
in this area.
* Blargg TV effects now no longer cut off the right side of the image
(by several pixels) in certain cases.
* Updated CDF scheme to latest version from Spiceware. In addition,
this scheme now supports versioning, so older and newer ROMs will
continue to work.
* Fixed an annoying bug in Linux, where Alt-Tab'ing out of a window and
then back again would pass a 'Tab' key event to the app, which in
most cases would navigate to the next UI element.
* Fixed potential issue with state file saving and the debugger; under
certain circumstances a rewind would give a different state than
before (note that the state file format has changed because of this).
* Fixed lockups when entering the debugger under certain circumstances.
* The debugger 'listtraps' command now shows all traps set, not just
the first one(s).
* Reverted joystick changes for Decathlon ROMs from last release, as
it was added by mistake.
5.0 to 5.0.1: (July 23, 2017)
* Fixed issues in keypad, Genesis and various other controllers that use
INPTx registers; the emulation is now much more accurate in this area.
* Various 'Bumper Bash' and 'Decathlon' ROMs are marked as always having
all 4 directions on a joystick enabled, since they can't be played
properly otherwise.
* Added 'Hunchy II' from Chris Walton (cd-w) to ROM properties database.
* Codebase now uses C++14 features.
4.7.3 to 5.0: (July 16, 2017)
* Note: because of major TIA/6502/RIOT changes, the state file format
has changed, and old state files will not work with this release.
* Stella has moved from Sourceforge to Github.
* Completely new TIA core is now available, ported from 6502ts by
Christian Speckner (DirtyHairy). This new core is extremely accurate,
and matches real hardware in almost every test we've performed.
New features include:
- Meltdown emulates correct
- The lap number in Pole Positions displays correctly
- Artifacts in the mountains on Snoopy and the Red baron are gone
- Line artifacts in Title Match Pro Wrestling and Realsports Boxing
are fixed
- The spurious line at the left border of Video Chess now displays
correctly
- All 32 char text demos from AtariAge now work perfectly (Stella 4
shows artifacts on several of these)
- Stella is now the only emulator to display the "Mega Bitmap Demo"
(atext.bin) from AtariAge correctly
- Improved starfield effect for missiles (still TODO for ball and
players)
- RSYNC emulation has improved, all testcases now match real
hardware
- Several other ROMs that have never worked in any emulator are now
emulated correctly
- RDY behavior with respect to write cycles is accurate
- Optional YStart autodetect and more robust frame handling
- NUSIZ during player draw matches hardware
- RESMx during missile draw matches hardware
- Paddle emulation is slightly more accurate. As a consequence, the
"paddle feel" may be slightly different from Stella 4
- Fixed debug colors can now be set for each graphical object, from
a choice of 'red', 'orange', 'yellow', 'green', 'blue' and
'purple'. This is accessible through the new 'tia.dbgcolors'
commandline argument and within the UI.
* Implemented new phosphor emulation mode, which is much closer to real
TV output. Related to this, added ability to change the default
phosphor blend level in the UI and through the new 'tv.phosblend'
commandline argument. Special thanks to Thomas Jentzsch for the idea
and implementation.
* TV phosphor effect can now be force-enabled for all ROMs, instead
of manually setting ROM properties for each ROM. This is accessible
in the UI and through the 'tv.phosphor' commandline argument, and
defaults to being off (or enabled per-ROM).
* PAL color-loss and Blargg TV effects can now be enabled at the same
time. Previously, when Blargg effects were enabled, PAL color-loss
couldn't be shown. Related to this, the Blargg effects now use much
less memory and in some cases run faster than before.
* Much improved RIOT timer emulation never before seen in any emulator.
Special thanks to Christian Speckner (DirtyHairy) for the
implementation, and alex_79 for finding documentation that finally
describes in more detail how the M6532 chip actually works.
* Added BUS (experimental) and CDF bankswitching schemes, and also
ARM Timer 1 support; special thanks to SpiceWare for the code.
* Fixed bug with SaveKey and AtariVox not properly closing their memory
files before starting another instance of the same ROM, when the ROM
was opened in the ROM launcher.
* Various improvements to the debugger and command prompt:
- The 'cls' command now only clears the screen, not the history
- The 'help' command now accepts other commands, and gives extra
information about the command (ie, 'help breakif' prints extended
information about the breakif command)
- Added 'palette' command, which shows a color swatch of the
currently active TIA palette
- Added 'debugcolors' command, which shows a legend for 'fixed debug
colors' mode
- The previous trap'm' commands now work when setting TIA read
addresses; previously they only worked for write addresses
- The previous trap'm' commands are now renamed 'trap', 'trapread'
and 'trapwrite'
- The TIA tab now shows 'old' contents of player and ball registers
- Various UI items are crossed out when disabled, to more clearly
indicate their current state
- Various UI items that previously required a double-click to toggle
(pixel and bit widgets) now require only a single-click.
- Command completion now works with internal functions and pseudo-ops
(basically, anything starting with the '_' character)
- System labels (aka, register names, etc) can now be typed in lower-
case. Previously, these labels always had to be uppercase.
- In general, input error checking is much more strictly enforced
- Read-only UI items now have a different background color, to
clearly indicate if an item can be modified.
- Debugger '.lst' and '.sym' files are now searched based on the name
of the ROM file, and not on the internal properties name.
- Snapshots can now be saved by pressing the F12 key (the various
other ways to save snapshots still exist).
* Mouse grabbing is now enabled in windowed mode only when the ROM is
using a virtual analog controller (paddles, trakball, etc).
* Renamed various trakball-like controllers more accurately: AmigaMouse,
AtariMouse (previously CX80) and Trakball (previously CX22). Related
to this, reduced the resolution of the Trakball by half, to properly
match real hardware.
* The stack pointer (SP) is now initialized to $FD instead of $FF, to
match research done in other 6502 projects.
* Fixed bug in debugger tracing and displaying the partial TIA image;
the first time entering the debugger and starting to trace, the image
was blanked out (black) instead of being drawn in greyscale. Also, the
image is now synchronized, instead of being two frames behind.
* Fixed crash with zipped ROMs that are less than 4K in size; so far
this bug has only ever occurred in Windows XP, but it's been there
since Stella 4.1.
* Fixed bug in 'Rom Audit' functionality; sometimes ROMs without a
valid properties entry were being renamed as "Untitled.bin".
* For the entire UI, removed colons and generally made the UI items
easier to read.
* When in 'ROM launcher mode', Stella now uses slightly less CPU time.
More work is required in this area, though.
* Added ROM properties for D.K. VCS homebrew ROM, thanks to Andreas
Dietrich.
* Added slight improvement for auto-detecting Superchip bankswitching;
the new implementation now works for the NTSC 'Dig Dug' ROM. Special
thanks for SpiceWare for the idea and modified implementation.
* Fixed long-standing bug in 3-voice music in DPC+ bankswitching scheme;
the music now sounds much more like the real thing.
* For the Linux/UNIX port:
- The settings directory now uses the XDG Base Directory Specification.
In most cases, this means that your files will now be stored in
'~/.config/stella' instead of '~/.stella'. To keep your old settings,
run the following commands from the terminal:
cd ~
mv .stella .config/stella
You will probably need to edit '~/.config/stella/stellarc' and change
some paths accordingly.
* For the OSX port:
- Always use the built-in png and zlib libraries instead of the system
versions.
- The preferences file has changed from 'net.sourceforge.Stella.plist'
to 'Stella-emu.plist'. To keep your old settings, run the following
commands from the terminal:
cd ~/Library/Preferences
mv net.sourceforge.Stella.plist Stella-emu.plist
* Updated internal ROM properties database to ROM-Hunter version 13
(thanks go to RomHunter for his tireless research in this area).
Related to this, updated the snapshot collection.
* Updated included PNG and ZLIB libraries to latest stable version. Also,
both libraries are now compiled into the app whenever one is selected.
This fixes issues with a newer ZLIB not working with an older PNG, etc.
* Updated build scripts for Visual Studio 2017 (Windows) and MacOS
Sierra (latest version of Xcode), and make these the minimum supported
versions for building Stella.
* Updated UNIX configure script to work with the clang 5+ and gcc 7+
compiler versions, and fixed compile issues on AArch64 and ppc64le
architectures.
4.7.2 to 4.7.3: (Nov. 21, 2016)
* Added preliminary support for the 3E+ bankswitching scheme, developed
by Thomas Jentzsch.
* Fixed HMOVE positioning bug that occurred under certain circumstances.
Thanks to Omegamatrix of AtariAge for the bug report and patch to fix
the issue.
* Added 'trapm', 'trapreadm', 'trapwritem' commands to debugger prompt.
These are similar to the non-'m' versions, except that they also trap
on all mirrors of the given address.
* Fixed bug in debugger 'reset' command; it wasn't resetting the
bankswitching, so after a reset the banks were in an undefined state.
* Updated UNIX configure script to fix a bug where it fails in
cross-compilation under certain circumstances. Thanks to Vlad
Zakharov for providing a patch to fix this issue.
4.7.1 to 4.7.2: (Mar. 25, 2016)
* Fixed bug when entering and exiting the debugger; sometimes the
character corresponding to the '`' key would be output in the
prompt area.
* Updated DPC+ Thumb ARM emulation code to latest from David Welch.
In particular, this fixes incorrect handling of the V flag when
adding and subtracting, but also fixes compile-time warnings that
I couldn't get rid of before.
* Updated UNIX configure script to work with GCC 6.x compilers, and to
remove references to obsolete compiler versions that can no longer
be used to compile Stella.
4.7 to 4.7.1: (Feb. 13, 2016)
* Improved TV 'jitter' emulation; the recovery time can now be spread
over multiple frame, to simulate a real TV taking multiple frames to
recover. Related to this, added new commandline argument
'tv.jitter_recovery' to set the recovery time. Finally, enabling
the jitter effect and the recovery time are now accessible through
the UI. Special thanks to SpiceWare of AtariAge for the initial idea
and implementation.
* Fixed bug with 'Medieval Mayhem' ROMs; the paddle range was set too
low, and as a result the number of players couldn't be selected.
* Fixed bug when using more than two input controllers with the same
name; each controller after the second one was named the same as the
second one. This caused the joystick mappings to be lost, since there
was only information about two controllers being saved.
* Indirectly fixed issues with Stelladaptor/2600-daptor devices and
paddles having too large of a deadzone in Linux. Currently, this
involves running an external application to set the deadzone,
since SDL2 does not yet expose this information. The program is
called 'evdev-joystick', and will be released separately from Stella.
* Updated internal ROM properties database to ROM-Hunter version 11
(thanks go to RomHunter for his tireless research in this area).
Related to this, updated the snapshot collection.
4.6.7 to 4.7: (January 25, 2016)
* Improved paddle emulation in several ways:
- Added ability to specify the maximum range of movement for paddles
when using a mouse or digital device to emulate the paddle. This is
useful since on a real console most paddle games use very little of
the paddle range, and could result in moving the mouse onscreen with
nothing appearing to happen (when in effect it was as if you turned
a real paddle all the way to the end of the range). This eliminates
issues in (for example) Kaboom, where there was a huge 'deadzone'
when moving to the left. All applicable ROMS in the internal
database have been updated.
- The range for paddle emulation now takes an integer from 1 - 20,
indicating how much to scale movement (ie, how fast the onscreen
paddle will move when you move the mouse). The movement itself
is now also smoother than before.
* Fixed bug in 'Score mode' in TIA emulation; the TIA object colours
were correct, but the associated priority was sometimes incorrect.
* Fixed bug in ROM launcher; selecting 'Options -> Game Properties' after
loading a ROM would always point to the last opened ROM, not to the one
currently selected.
* Fixed bug in storing ROM properties; in some cases, a copy of the