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Firmware history and/or official site?

Started by nitro322, 04/Sep/2018 02:08:57 AM

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nitro322

Hello, all.  Been away for a while and just checked in to find a wealth of new activity and features in the latest firmware thanks to skaman and others.  Great news!

I'm trying to catch up on what I've missed, but I'm having some trouble finding all the information I'm looking for because of how the updates are being released now.  Hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

1. I see skaman has been posting new firmware details as separate threads in this forum with download links to mediafire, but the official firmware page still shows 0.19 beta as the latest release.  Is there any new central location to track these newer updates, or are they all being handled just through the forum posts?  If it's the latter, that's obviously fine, just want to make sure I'm not missing something.  I tend to find things easier to track when there's one comprehensive changelog you can check or download source.

2. Following from the above, I see skaman's four sticky posts covering firmwares 0.22 - 0.25a, but I can't find any details about firmware releases between 0.19 beta on the official site and skaman's 0.22.  I've seen references to 0.20 but can't find the changelog, and I can't find anything at all about 0.21.  Can anyone either point me to some reference for this or provide some details about what was included or changed in those releases?

Thanks!  And to be clear, I'm very appreciate of the updates, so please don't take any of the above as criticism.  Just excited to jump back into this with some recent pickups and want to make sure I have a good grasp on what's new.

skaman

All of my firmware releases will be posted only on the forum.  I don't have the ability to update the Retrode website.

v0.20 beta and v0.21 beta were releases by Wannado.  The files are most likely posted somewhere on the forum.

v0.21 beta (2017-01-21)
- Changes by Wannado:
-- Another attempt to get MD SRAM size detection right.
   This includes changing the hard-coded parameters for
   "Sonic 3 & Knuckles" (to 512 bytes, lower byte mode).
   For other games, if the SRAM parameters do not meet
   the conditions that the firmware's code relies on, then
   no SRAM file will be created.
-- To select the format of the MD SRAM file, the following
   values are now allowed for [segaSram16bit]:
   0 = 8 bits per word address if that's useful according
       to the game's header/SRAM mode; 16 bits otherwise.
       (Changed to take the SRAM mode into account.)
   1 = Always 16 bits per word address.
   2 = Always 16 bits, file bloated to 64 kiB. (New.)
   Note: This setting does not override the detected SRAM
   size or mode. It only causes the SRAM file to be padded
   as necessary for the selected format.
-- Slightly changed MD ROM size detection, hopefully
   improving it: Previously, if the game's header indicated
   64 Mbits, the value was rejected, and 32 Mbits was used
   instead. Now 64 Mbits is accepted, too.
-- Two more games are now recognized by their header
   checksums to prevent overdumping:
   SNES: 9F27: ALL_STARS + WORLD (US)
   MD:   95C9: Zero Wing (EU, at least)
-- Minor internal changes that should not affect behavior.

v0.20 beta (2016-09-09)
- This release is provided in two variants:
  "...-v0.20-beta.hex" was built as usual.
  "...-v0.20-beta-log.hex" has the logfile enabled. This
  is intended for analysis of particular issues only, as
  it degrades performance and might cause timing issues.
- Changes by Wannado:
-- Raised the maximum forceable size for SMS and GG games
   to 8 Mbits (overdump level 4 or [forceSize] 8).
-- Added support for GB SRAM sizes 64 kiB and 128 kiB.
   This will hopefully enable access to GB Camera saves.
-- Removed arbitrary limit that prevented writing SRAM
   beyond 32 kiB.
-- Attempt to fix suspected bug in MD SRAM size detection.

Nori

Somebody should set up a new site of their own with the updates from Skaman and Wanadoo cause I think Matthias seems to be too absent to be able to keep people up to date unfortunately.

Phoenix

Quote from: Nori on 25/Sep/2018 06:38:22 PM
Somebody should set up a new site of their own with the updates from Skaman and Wanadoo cause I think Matthias seems to be too absent to be able to keep people up to date unfortunately.
Maybe a single sticky topic that is only about current firmware instead of the several topics listed about new firmware?