Regarding the upcoming Higan core

[SigmaVirus]

Thanks guys, that’s all I wanted to hear!

Looking forward to this a lot.

[DukeJP]

Is there a real improvement in this new Higan core, vs the “Mercury Accuracy”, in the Snes emulation?

[hunterk]

That really depends on your perspective. It’s not likely to be noticeable in casual use, but that’s also true for snes9x vs bsnes-balanced.

[James-F]

It’s not likely to be noticeable in casual use, but that’s also true for snes9x vs bsnes-balanced.

Snes9x and Genesis Plus GX are not cycle-accurate but the emulation is so close that one would not notice the difference aside from very few not so popular games.
I keep both bsnes-(mercury)-accuracy and Snes9X cores in retroarch but use Snes9x for gaming because it seems to run smoother and smoothness is a big factor for me for accurate emulation.

I use Bsnes/Higan for testing and comparison, but Snes9x is more than good enough for playing practically all popular and less popular games.

Cycle accurate emulation is not necessary for gaming, but in my understanding it’s a case of: “If we can and have the power, then why not?”.
It is also important for future preservation because physical material deteriorates like it or not.

[SigmaVirus]

Here’s a WIP core for the courageous and brave!

There are things missing, certainly, some in the libretro implementation, some in Emulator::Interface.

Something to note for this version:

• Loading *.bml manifest files should work. In this case, save files and special chip ROMs will go to the game folder. I asked for MSU-1 tests on IRC, but noone provided it, so I’ll just assume it works

• For regular ROMs, the save file will be redirected to either SAVE_DIRECTORY in frontend, or alongside the ROM. The extension will be different than normal however.

• I haven’t tested or hooked up SGB/Sufami/BSX. I don’t think it will work.

• NTSC is always assumed.

• Image output will be either 512x448 or 512x480 depending on overscan option.

Source

So there you have it folks, it’s really happening!

[Flooder]

Wait… so it’s gonna be SNES only? Or has the rest not been implemented yet?

higan is a multi-system emulator that began development on 2004-10-14. It currently supports the following systems:

Nintendo Famicom

Nintendo Super Famicom

Super Game Boy

BS-X Satellaview

Sufami Turbo

Nintendo Game Boy

Nintendo Game Boy Color

Nintendo Game Boy Advance

Sega Master System

Sega Game Gear

Sega Mega Drive

NEC PC Engine

NEC SuperGrafx

Bandai WonderSwan

Bandai WonderSwan Color

https://byuu.org/emulation/higan/

[hunterk]

it’s snes-only for now. Each core will have to be handled differently, so maister is getting SNES going first. The rest will be added later, probably by others.

[Flooder]

Oh okay… is there an reason why “Performance”, “Balanced” and “Accuracy” aren’t core options in bsnes-mercury? It would really simplify things…

[hunterk]

They use entirely different codepaths that need to be hardcoded at compile time.

[SigmaVirus]

I have read most of the discussion here and from the looks of it I’ll definitely keep an eye out for when the bsnes v094 cores will be expired so I can grab one before it’s to late because I don’t really like what I’m reading at all.

I don’t like the way bsnes went to higan with all kind of cartridge folders and files and if it’s gonna be the same with the higan Libretro core then I don’t want anything to do with it.

I’ll be watching this but if this is going to be final then I stay with bsnes v094 Accuracy which is dead simple to use.

[hunterk]

It’ll still load regular ROMs. The manifest stuff all happens behind the scenes.

[Fergdog]

What’s the plan regarding nSides balanced profile? Is that going to be added at the sametime as the updated accuracy core as a separate core?

[hunterk]

i believe that’s the plan, yes.

[SigmaVirus]

OK so I finally got the chance of trying out the released version of the higan (Super Famicom Accuracy) 105 core and it worked out perfectly.

And by perfectly I mean no need to use folders or put system files in the game folders etc. like standalone higan does.

Thank you all for a wonderful experience that ended happily, oh yeah and this guy wishes to say something also!

[GemaH]

I can load regular ROMs even with the standalone Higan if i use any frontend like LaunchBox.

And SNES9x is inferior to BSNES balanced. I already bumped into some compatibility issues with it while BSNES is perfect so far except the one known issue that requires 100% accuracy (the Air Strike Patrol shadow).

[SigmaVirus]

I haven’t used Snes9x for years except on RetroPie so basically my SNES experience have evolved like this:

ZSNES -> Snes9x -> bsnes (can’t remember which I started with) -> bsnes v073 -> bsnes v094 Accuracy core -> higan (Super Famicom Accuracy) 105 core

[Awakened]

I kind of hate how it puts higan and icarus folders in AppData/Local. I guess they can be used for MSU1 or ROM folder stuff going by some messages in the log, but I’d rather they go in the RetroArch system folder to keep things portable.

[Arviel]

Using the HIgan core gives me pretty bad audio stuttering ingame. I didn’t experience this even with the accuracy bsnes core. I tried a few settings like lowering the internal resolution and switching the video driver but it doesn’t help. This is with and without shaders.

EDIT: I managed to fix it. Updated RA and the stuttering seems to be gone now. Great job on the core by the way!

[MarcoForce]

Nice! All special-chip BIOS, included the SGB, is working. Only 3 things:

• The over-clock bug of the original Super GameBoy 1 is present in the SGB1 and SGB2 modes. In the real SuperGameBoy 2, this is fixed.

• The soft-reset is gone. The reset option in the Quick Menu only do a hard-reset, like if I turned off the SNES and turned on again.

• Is there anyway to auto-detect the resolution like the bsnes/bsnes-mercury 0.94 cores? The shaders are looking ugly with manual 512x448 internal resolution in the games that are 256x224.

I think this are present in Higan v105 itself but I report this issues here anyway.

Thanks!

[Flooder]

I really like the idea of renaming bnes-mercury to just “mercury”! It would make the Online Updater less overwhelming. When I first started using RetroArch for Windows ( I was only aware of the 3DS version back then lol ) I didn’t know what SNES core I should use!