=========================================================================== 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 =========================================================================== 2.8.4 to 3.0: (September 11, 2009) * Huge updates to the TIA emulation system. Illegal HMOVEs are now handled correctly, resulting in improvements to many ROMs (thanks to Wilbert Pol for many ideas and code for these improvements). All HMOVE emulation 'cheats' were removed; the emulation is now cycle-exact in this area. * Improved emulation of the Cosmic Ark 'starfield effect', also used in Stay Frosty; the emulation now looks very accurate. * Many improvements to the normal TIA rendering code, fixing problems when disabling certain graphical objects (certain objects were being misdrawn when others were enabled/disabled). * Improved TIA collision handling in the non-displayable area of the screen; this fixes problems in RAMRacer ROM. * Improved TIA redraw problems/graphical garbage when ROMs generate many more scanlines than a real TV would allow; this fixes problems in Q-Bert and the recent Playaround demo. * Added 'Fixed Debug Colors' option similar to the no$26k emulator. This allows each graphical object to be drawn in a fixed color, more clearly showing how the objects interact. HMOVE blanks are also shown in a different color. The TIA now emulates a 7-color register model, allowing even shared objects to show different colors. This is toggled with the 'Alt Comma' key. * Related to 'Fixed Debug Colors', HMOVE blanks can now toggled during TIA display with the 'Alt-m' key. * Added rewind functionality to the debugger, where states are saved after each step/trace/scanline/frame advance. Pressing 'Alt-r' or clicking the new rewind button will undo up to 100 previous operations. * Added 'electron beam indicator' to the debugger TIA output. Basically, this is a visual pointer indicating the position of the electron gun when scanning the display. * Added ability to completely disable fullscreen mode, which fixes problems for some people where fullscreen mode was being entered even if it wasn't enabled. * Added '-joyallow4' commandline argument and associated UI item to allow all 4 directions to be pressed simultaneously on a joystick. * Improvements made to the ROM launcher: the backspace key now goes to the parent directory (this key can be remapped), and previously selected directories are now automatically selected. * Added support for 2IN1 bankswitching scheme, where two ROMs are present in one binary. Currently supported are 2, 4, 8, and 16K ROMs. * Added bankswitch support for the 6K version of Starpath/Supercharger ROMS. This allows the 6K version of Cubis to run. * Updated bankswitching schemes FASC and MB; they are now known as FA and F0, respectively. This naming brings Stella in line with other emulators and programming utilities. * Fixed editing of cheats in the Cheat Dialog; the old cheat wasn't being removed. -Have fun! 2.8.3 to 2.8.4: (July 4, 2009) * Fixed bug where Stella could lock up after running for ~71 minutes. Special thanks to Robert Tuccitto for bugtesting and feedback on this issue. * Updated UA bankswitch autodetection for Gingerbread Man ROM. * The smallest ROM that Stella can support is 64 bytes; this lower limit is now tested when loading Sub2K ROMs. 2.8.2 to 2.8.3: (June 25, 2009) * Fixed OpenGL bug which caused an immediate program crash if the available OpenGL version was less than 2.0. 2.8.1 to 2.8.2: (June 23, 2009) * Fixed OpenGL detection bug which could disable OpenGL support entirely if TV effects are not available (version < 2.0), when in fact only the effects should have been disabled. * The '\' character can now be entered in UI text fields again. Related to this, strings containing '\' are now properly loaded and saved to various config files. 2.8 to 2.8.1: (June 19, 2009) * NOTE: Windows users will have to reset their options or manually move their config folder in this release, since the location of the config files has changed. * Fixed OpenGL issue for some Windows users whereby the OpenGL TV effects weren't available, even if the available version of OpenGL was sufficient. Related to this, the OpenGL version found by Stella is now reported in the TV effects dialog. * Added fallback to software rendering when OpenGL rendering has been requested, but for whatever reason fails to initialize. * Added native support for 4in1, 8in1 and 32in1 multicart bankswitching schemes. When using these schemes, the 'Reload ROM' action (by default, Control-r) will switch between each game in the ROM. * Added bankswitch support for ROMs smaller than 2K in size. These will be treated as 2K ROMs natively, without having to manually 'pad' them to 2048 bytes. * Added preliminary suppport for autodetection of X07 bankswitching. * Tweaked PAL autodetection; it was marking some PAL ROMs as NTSC. * Changed default location for Stella config files in Windows to the users' APPDATA folder (for XP and Vista, this is '~/Application Data/Stella'). The '~' symbol now represents the users PROFILE/home directory, matching its usage in Linux and OSX. The ability to override this with 'basedir.txt' is still available, but not advised. * Changed '-exitlauncher' commandline argument to '-uselauncher'. This works as before except the launcher is never used at all if the option is set to false. * Fixed crash when launching Stella from the commandline and giving a directory name instead of a rom filename. 2.7.7 to 2.8: (June 9, 2009) * Added CRT simulation effects as described in the AtariAge posting 'CRT emulation for Stella'. For now, this requires OpenGL 2.0 or greater with support for GLSL (GL Shading Language). This code will be expanded on and optimized in future releases. * Adding editing of extended RAM in the debugger RAM UI. The RAM 'spreadsheet' now shows the entire address space of RAM in the system, in 128 byte increments. The first bank shown is zero-page, with the others following in consecutive order. The UI takes care of read vs. write port differences, so you don't have to worry about the offsets. For now, all SuperChip based ROMs (EFSC, F4SC, F6SC, F8SC) as well as 3E, CV, E7 and FASC are supported. * All ROMs which include SC extended RAM will now have memory erased if you attempt to read from the write port. Related to this, entering/exiting the debugger will no longer erase the extended RAM. * Patching of ROM for bankswitch types 0840, SB, UA and X07 is now implemented, but hasn't been extensively tested. * Visual improvements to the CPU register UI in the debugger; the SP/A/X/Y registers now have separate decimal and binary views. * Tweaked paddle control so that all positions are reachable in game 4 of Activision Casino in both NTSC and PAL versions. * SuperCharger/AR ROMs now start with a random value in the CPU accumulator. This should fix issues with Dragonstomper always starting in exactly the same state. * Auto-detection for '3F' bankswitching improved; several ROMs previously detected as 'F8' now work correctly. * Updated internal ROM properties database to ROM-Hunter version 5 (thanks go to RomHunter for his tireless research in this area). * Added '-exitlauncher' commandline argument and associated UI item, to specify what happens when you exit a ROM. Normally, exiting a ROM brings up the ROM launcher, but this can be disabled for those using an external frontend (in which case exiting a ROM also exits from Stella). * Re-added '-fastscbios' commandline argument, and added an associated UI item. When enabled, the SuperCharger load bars are now completely removed (and not just sped up as in previous releases). * The '-listrominfo' commandline argument now shows all ROM information built in to the internal database, taking into account any information in 'personal' stella.pro files. 2.7.6 to 2.7.7: (May 1, 2009) * Corrected emulation of CPU opcodes involving 'decimal' mode (ADC/RRA and SBC/ISB). Special thanks to SeaGtGruff and others on the Stella mailing list for in-depth discussion and creation of test ROMs. * Fixed bug in F4SC bankswitching mode; writes to bankswitch addresses weren't triggering a bank switch. * Changed internal sound frequency of Pitfall 2 from 15.75KHz to 20KHz, as this sounds much more authentic when compared to a real cartridge. 2.7.5 to 2.7.6: (April 14, 2009) * Added support for 'EF' bankswitching (Paul Slocum Homestar Runner), as well as auto-detection of this format. * Added support for 'EFSC' bankswitching, as well as auto-detection of this format. This is similar to the 'EF' scheme, but also includes 128 bytes SuperChip RAM. * Added autodetection for '0840' and 'SB' bankswitching formats. * Improved autodetection for 'UA' bankswitching format. * Fixed bug in selecting video modes larger than the current screen; the resulting video mode will now be the largest one...
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