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BlastEm 0.5.0

Description

BlastEm has the goal of being an extremely accurate Genesis emulator while still running on relatively modest hardware by using advanced techniques.

 

Currently it meets neither my accuracy nor performance goals, but those goals are pretty high. Speed and accuracy should be sufficient for most purposes. It runs at full speed on an old first generation Intel Atom and can run Sonic 2 at around 600 fps on a Haswell desktop using a single core. To my knowledge, it is the only emulator besides Genesis Plus GX that can properly display the "TITAN 512C FOREVER" portion of Titan's Overdrive demo, and the only emulator besides Exodus that passes all 122 of the tests in Nemesis' VDP FIFO Testing ROM and can properly display "Direct Color DMA" demos.

 

Requirements

 

BlastEm requires a computer with an x86 processor running Linux, OSX or Windows. There is experimental support for x86 Android devices like the Nexus Player, but due to the rough state of that port I am not providing pre-built binaries at this time. The current version depends on SDL 2, GLEW and OpenGL 2. On systems without OpenGL 2 support, BlastEm will fallback to using SDL 2's render API. You may be able to use it on other Unix-like systems if you're willing to compile it yourself.

 

Features

  • savestates
  • integrated debugger
  • GDB remote debugging
  • joystick/gamepad support
  • Mega/Sega Mouse support
  • save RAM and EEPROM support
  • Sonic & Knuckles lock-on
  • turbo and slow modes
  • configurable low pass filter
  • single pass GLSL shaders (though there are no interesting ones presently)

Changelog

0.5.0

Released June 2nd, 2017

New Features

  • SMS emulation in the form of the Gensis/MD's backwards compatibility mode
  • Added support for SMS controllers
  • Support for the mapper used by Realtec games
  • Support for carts with fixed value registers
  • Support for enough of the XBAND cartridge hardware to allow the menu to boot
  • Basic XBAND keyboard emulation
  • Configurable display overscan
  • Fullscreen mode can now be toggled at runtime
  • Window can now be resized at runtime
  • Support for "semantic" controller button names in the gamepad mapping using SDL2's game controller API
  • Analog axes can now be mapped to emulated gamepad buttons or UI actions
  • System soft reset
  • Keyboard can now be captured when a Saturn or XBAND keyboard is connected to the emulated system
  • Internal screenshots that bypass all output filtering/overscan
  • Homebrew using the "SSF2 Mapper" is now supported via header detection like on the Mega Everdrive
  • Directory used for SRAM, EEPROM and savestates is now configurable
  • Path configuration values can now contain both BlastEm-specific and environment variable references
  • Open GL based rendering can be disabled in favor of the SDL2 render API fallback

Bugfixes

  • Fixed a bug that would cause a crash in certain games that have SRAM and ROM at the same address
  • Fixed some issues with Z80 interrupts that caused issues with sound/music in Sonic 2 and Puyo Puyo 2
  • Z80 debugger no longer crashes when resuming execution
  • Undocumented Z80 instruction "out (c), 0" now decodes properly
  • GDB remote debugging should now work with more recent versions of GDB
  • GDB remote debugging should now work on more recent versions of Windows
  • Overlapping instructions in self-modifying code no longer causes incorrect behavior
  • Z80 instructions "in c" and "out c" now work correclty on 32-bit builds
  • Specifying an output audio frequency higher than the FM frequency no longer deadlocks the emulator
  • Fixed memory map generation for games with 3MB ROM and SRAM at the 3MB mark

Accuracy/Completeness Improvements

  • YM2612 SSG-EG and CSM modes are now implemented
  • VDP Mode 4 is now implemented in both Genesis and SMS mode
  • Basic emulation of refresh delays has been added
  • 68K interrupt latency has been made more accurate
  • CRAM contention artifacts (aka CRAM dots) are now emulated
  • DIVU/DIVS and MULU/MULS are now cycle accurate
  • MOVEM now performs the extra ignored read and has correct timing
  • The timing of serveral other 68K instructions has been fixed
  • Implemented 68K trace mode
  • SBCD flag calculation now matches hardware in 100% of cases
  • 68K -> VDP DMA now properly has a delay at DMA start rather than at the end of the transfer
  • A number of illegal effective address mode/operation combinations now properly decode as illegal instructions
  • Added emulation of the slow rise time of an IO pin that was changed to an input when it was previously outputting 0
  • Partial support for the VDP test register
  • Partial support for the 128KB VRAM mode bit
  • Improved accuracy of low level sprite rendering details
  • Fixed handling of active/passive display transitions so that border extension tricks work
  • Fixed handling of horizontal interrupts in extended display areas
  • More accurate correspondance between horizontal counter and raster beam
  • Partial emulation of serial IO registers

Other Changes

  • Added Japanese version of Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers to ROM DB
  • Added the following EEPROM games to the ROM DB:
    • Ninja Burai Densetsu
    • Rockman Mega World
  • Added ROM DB entries for the following games with incorrect region headers:
    • Another World (E)
    • Alien Soldier (J)
    • Light Crusader (J)
    • Castle of Illusion - Fushigi no Oshiro Daibouken (J)
    • Atomic Robo-Kid (J)
  • Added ROM DB entries for the following games which are incompatible with 6-button controllers:
    • King of Monsters
    • Combat Cars
    • Second Samurai
    • Dungeons & Dragons - Warriors of the Eternal Sun
  • Added ROM DB entries for the following games with fixed value registers:
    • Ya Se Chuan Sho
    • 16 Zhang Ma Jiang
    • Elf Wor
    • Huan Le Tao Qi Shu: Smart Mouse
    • Mighty Morphin' Power Ranges: The Fighting Edition
    • Super Bubble Bobble MD
    • Thunderbolt II
  • Added ROM DBentries for teh following games that have bad/missing SRAM headers:
    • Hardball III
    • Might and Magic - Gates to Another World
    • Might and Magic III - Isles of Terra

Links

BlastEm - The fast and accurate Genesis emulator

Downloads

Gallery


 
 

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