BSNES

v0.6.9 (March 10th, 2018)

http://www.bannister.org/software/

This document contains information specific to BSNES. For general

information about emulators and the program interface, please see the
"About the Shell" document.

What is it?

BSNES is a Super Nintendo Entertainment System emulator.

BSNES has a somewhat different purpose to most emulators; it

focuses on accuracy over performance. To that end, it does not include
any game specific hacks, or idle-loop skipping optimizations commonly
found in other emulators. To add to the fun, it uses a cycle accurate
hardware emulation. The net result of all this is the highest system
requirements of any software I've released to date.

License

(This text is copied from the license.txt file included with the PC
release).

You are free to redistribute this software, and its source code;
provided there is no charge for the software, nor any charge for the
medium used to distribute the software. You are also free to use and
modify the source code as you desire for personal use only. No
publically-released derivative works of this source code are permitted
without my permission, though I will likely grant you permission if you
ask me. You must also abide by the terms of any additional source
code licenses contained within this program.

Richard Bannister has asked for and received my permission to

distribute a binary-only port of bsnes on the Mac OS X platform.
Version History

v0.6.9 - March 10th, 2018

- Rebuilt using 64-bit Cocoa APIs and shell version 3.0.

Please note that this release is functionally identical to the v0.6.8

release from 2010. It has not been synchronised with “higan”, the
multi-system emulator that bsnes developed into over the last decade.
That may or may not happen in the future.

v0.6.8 - August 26th, 2010

This release officially introduces the accuracy and performance cores,

alongside the previously-existing compatibility core. The accuracy
core allows the most accurate SNES emulation ever seen, with every
last processor running at the lowest possible clock synchronization
level. The performance core allows slower computers the chance to
finally use BSNES. It is capable of attaining full frame rate on all
official Intel Macs.

The accuracy core is absolutely not meant for casual gaming at all. It
is meant solely for getting as close to 100% perfection as possible, no
matter the cost to speed. It should only be used for testing,
development or debugging.

The compatibility core is identical to previous releases of BSNES, but

is now roughly 10% faster. This is the default and recommended core
for casual gaming.

The performance core contains an entirely new S-CPU core, with

range-tested IRQs; and uses blargg's heavily-optimized S-DSP core
directly. Although there are very minor accuracy tradeoffs to increase
speed, I am confident that the performance core is still more accurate
and compatible than any other SNES emulator. The S-CPU, S-SMP, S-
DSP, SuperFX and SA-1 processors are all clock-based, just as in the
accuracy and compatibility cores; and as always, there are zero game-
specific hacks. Its compatibility is still well above 99%, running even
the most challenging games flawlessly.
A future release will embed all three emulation cores into one binary,
but that will involve some code refactoring that would have delayed
this update for several weeks. Please note that saved states are not
transportable between emulation cores, and in the current release
attempting to load a state in the wrong core will give a generic error
message.

v0.6.4 - June 20th, 2010

Note that support for the PowerPC platform has been dropped from
this release. Those using PowerPC should continue to use v0.5.0.

- In sync with the latest version for PC, bringing the following major
changes:
* Support for Super Gameboy titles.
* Saved state support for SuperFX and SA-1 titles.
* Decryption of SPC7110 games.
* Various accuracy improvements.

- Added cheat support to the Mac version. This is somewhat

rudimentary at the moment, but it does work. Cheat codes survive an
emulator reset, but will be wiped when you open a new ROM.

v0.5.0 - August 26th, 2009

- In sync with the latest version for PC. This version is approximately
10% faster than v0.4.8.

- Removed a number of configuration options from the Preferences

dialog that have not worked in a number of releases.

v0.4.8 - July 15th, 2009

- In sync with the latest version for PC. The major change in this
release is support for saved states (standard games only).
v0.4.7 - June 6th, 2009

- In sync with the latest version for PC (again!). The major change in
this release is support for the SuperFX chip (Yoshi's Island, Starfox,
etc).

- Began using profile directed optimization in Xcode, which gives

roughly a 10% speed up.

v0.4.6 - June 6th, 2009

- In sync with the latest version for PC. The most visible change is
support for the SA-1 chip (Super Mario RPG, Kirby's Dreamland 3, etc).

v0.3.8 - December 25th, 2008

- In sync with the latest version for PC.

- Added warning messages for games that use hardware that BSNES
does not support (*cough* SuperFX *cough*).

- Added support for BS-X and Sufami Turbo games. BIOS images should
be placed in ~/Library/Application Support/Bannister/BSNES/BIOS
ROMs/.

v0.3.6 - September 27th, 2008

- In sync with the latest version for PC.

- Updated to shell version 2.3. See "About the Shell" for changes.

v0.3.4 - August 18th, 2008

- In sync with the latest release for Windows/Linux. The major new
feature is SPC7110 emulation, which means that Far East of Eden Zero,
FEoEZ: Shounen Jump Edition, Momotarou Dentetsu Happy, and Super
Power League 4 are now all fully playable.

v0.2.9 - March 3rd, 2008

- Fixed an unfortunate bug in the previous release that caused sound

to go badly off kilter after about fifteen minutes of play.

- Updated to shell version 2.2.2. See "About the Shell" for changes.

v0.2.8 - February 17th, 2008

- Brought the mac port into sync with the latest version for PC. Due to
more accurate emulation the core code has become roughly 30%
slower than the last version I ported (v0.1.5). However, I've been able
to gain most of that back thanks to some aggressive optimization in
the Mac-specific code. Full speed in this version requires a fast
machine; 2.5GHz PowerPC or 2.16GHz Intel.

v0.1.8 - June 10th, 2007

- Resolved an issue where certain compressed ROMs would crash the

emulator on Intel machines.

- Note that this will probably be the last version of BSNES to be

compatible with PowerPC Macs. I'm going to sync up with the latest
code following this release, which will almost certainly be Intel only.

- Updated to shell version 2.2. See "About the Shell" for changes.

v0.1.7 - September 16th, 2006

- Updated to shell version 2.1. See "About the Shell" for changes.

- In sync with the latest code for PC.

v0.1.6 - April 15th, 2006

- Ported to Xcode and recompiled as Universal Binary.

- In sync with the latest code for PC.

- Added "Quick Quit" key.

v0.1.5 - December 4th, 2005

- In sync with v0.1.5 for PC.

v0.1.4 - November 13th, 2005

- Initial Release