openMSX v0.5.0

posted in Emulator Release by spacetiger on Oct 18th, 2004

Today there was a massive update to openMSX, the MSX emulator that "aims at perfection." This release includes, among other things, a complete redesign of the hardware configuration XML files, a "ROM pool" feature for easy installation of system ROMs, and the option to save settings for later use. Here's what's new:

Old Configuration Options Converted to Settings:

Machine: the default machine (needs openMSX restart)
Frequency: the sound mixer frequency (needs openMSX restart)
Samples: the size of the sound mixing buffer (needs openMSX restart)
User_directories: directories that are searched for data files

Changes in the Video System:

Use of MMX to speed up video scaling considerably
Big speed up of scanline effect
Enabled blur effect in the SDLHi renderer
Scale2x and hq2x scalers now also work in hi-res modes
Made pixel accuracy the default
Removed 8bpp support
Fixed crash when making screenshot in 16bpp

New or Improved Emulator Features:

Added channel mode 'off' to mute individual sound devices
Added meta data of machines in config files
New "iomap" command lists the I/O ports and the devices connected to them
Added a debugger interface to all (S)RAM
Improvements in the 'type' command
Release key presses when the console becomes active
Improved geometry detection of disk images (MSX1Mania disks work)
Fixed crash in Win32 when dir-as-disk is used with files with weird dates

MSX Device Support:

MoonSound fixes
Added slotexpander extension
8kB BASIC ROMs now work correctly and are auto detected as well
Added simple DC filter for cassette images
Fixes for TC8566AF FDC
Fixed joystick and mouse reading in games that write illegal values to the PSG
Emulation of the Tetris II Special Edition dongle
Fixed high-frequency reads of low-frequency clocks (such as RTC)
Many bugs were fixed, including long-standing bugs

Build System, Packaging, Documentation:

Separated OS and CPU in the build system
Build support for x86-64 (Athlon64)
Fixed bug: new TCL was not detected by running "make probe" again
Added openMSX FAQ to documentation

This is available on our MSX Emulators page.

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