Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
I am proud to announce the official release of FCEUX
Latest version: FCEUX2.0.3.
FCEUX is the newest update to the old FCE Ultra 0.98.x. It offers extensive new tools, features, and bug fixes.
Most importantly it merges the TAS tools of FCEU.28 and the debugging tools of FCEUXDSP1.07.
For us TASers it offers a huge list of features/fixes. Obviously I recommend everyone download and use FCEUX for TASing purposes.
WIN32 Changes over FCEU.28:
* A FCEU help menu! Compiled and/or written by me. This is up to date information about various fceux features & tools and a how to guide for various emulator related functions.
* Advanced debugger from FCEUXD
* Cheat search from FCEUXD (much simpler to use compared to FCEU.28)
* RAM Filter - new tool for finding RAM addreses (from FCEUXDSP1.07)
* New movie file format: .fm2 (see details.
* file format is text based for easy movie editing/splicing
* Soft reset removed from record movie options
* Power-on movies have no redundant savestate imbedded
* Mouse input can be captured allowing Zapper and Arkanoid Paddle input in movies.
* Convert FCM tool that will convert old .fcm formats into .fm2. Most every .fcm from .12 or later will convert properly. Details on conversion here
* GUID imbedded into all .fm2 files. This prevents wrong savestate loading.
* Many movie related bug fixes
* Supports the inclusion of metadata, using this one can imbed lots of info about their movie. All info is viewable with the Metadata button on the movie replay dialog.
* Savestate naming system includes the fm2 filename (like GENS). Prevents accidental wrong savestate loading.
* New savestate format. NOTE: Savestates from previous FCEU version are NOT compatible with FCEUX2.0
* .cfg is now text rather than a compressed format (easy editing)
* FCEUX as well as many dialogs remember x,y coordinates
* new set of command line features including pause, readonly, loadstate (see help .chm for more details).
* Many core fixes, including sound. FCEUX runs with much less processing power (quite evident when turboing)
* Numerous core related bug fixes (FCEUX will crash much less often)
* Turbo toggle hotkey (pressing once will turn on turbo and leave it on)
* Many new hotkey assignable options, including the opening most dialog tools
* Lag Counter (operates similar to the GENS version)
* Autofire settings are remembered when closing FCEUX
* Autofire takes lag into account (autofiring in a laggy area or 30fps game still skip frames where input is not polled).
* Memory watch: Uses a fraction of the processing power (multiple fceu + memory watch dialogs open at once will not hog CPU power)
* Memory watch: remembers x,y coordinates
* Memory watch: Menu added, with hotkeys
* Memory watch: Both save and save as features as well as a recent files menu.
* Memory watch: Load on startup feature, will automatically load MW when FCEUX is opened
* Memory watch: Load last file, will automatically load the last watch file used when MW is opened.
* Edit boxes are now tabbable
* Edit boxes can hold up to 64 characters (nice for longer descriptions of ram values)
* Cheat search: from FCEUXDSP (complete overhaul to FCEU.28)
* Cheat search: double clicking a cheat possibility will send it to memory watch
* Cheat search: minimize button and remembers x,y position
* RAM Filter: double clicking possibilities will send to Memory watch
* Many Lua scripting ehancements including the ability to create Dialog boxes and GUI functions! (One can create their own TAS tools)
* Basic bot replaces with a much more extensive LuaBot. LuaBot is loaded from the Luabot lua script (see .chm for help).
*7z support.
*Archive files with more than 1 file will open a dialog to choose a file (useful for goodsets).
*Input presets (more info in the .chm help file).
*New Directory override for a ROMs folder (can be different from base directory now)
NOTE: To use lua requires downloading the luapack available here. The lua pack also includes luabot as well as many example lua scripts.
Bug reports and feature requests can be made here
[Edited by AngerFist: Stickyfied]
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Wow! I've only been fooling around with this for 10-15 minutes, but already I like what I see. I do have some small comments:
1. First of all, where did memory viewer go? To me, memory viewer is an invaluable tool, both with its memory poke and memory dump features. Are these available from some other tool now?
2. Memory watch is a lot better now, But I kinda miss the buttons below the text fields.
3. Lag counter was one the most exciting new features, but it was a little hard for me to find. I think you should add this tool too the "Tools" menu. Right now the only way to open it is by assigning a hotkey to it, right?
4. One feature that would be super awesome would be to be able to save the current RAM addresses in search mode. Sometimes you want to keep the RAM addresses you have but at the same time perform another search for something else. I guess this wouldn't be that hard to implement. Just an idea.
Well, I'll be back with more comments later on. Thanks for making my day. :D
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Randil wrote:
4. One feature that would be super awesome would be to be able to save the current RAM addresses in search mode. Sometimes you want to keep the RAM addresses you have but at the same time perform another search for something else. I guess this wouldn't be that hard to implement. Just an idea.
2 possibilities here, if you just want to hold on to the address to see what it does, double click them to send them to ram watch. If you are talking about keeping a list of ram address to research later, that is what the RAM Filter is for.
You perform the same searches but by using "rules". The advantages are 1) it keeps a list of ram addresses that were narrowed down in each rule, so you can go back to a previous search state (like you mentioned) and try again.
2) It saves which searches you performed so you can easily recreate the process for other ram values.
As far as lag counter, I didnt' find it useful enough to be a menu item. If you want it, you know where it is :P Perhaps I will add a menu item in a 2.1 release, but it is low priority.
Joined: 4/20/2005
Posts: 2161
Location: Norrköping, Sweden
Thanks, I can see how it obsoletes memory viewer in most aspects. Memory poking is a whole lot easier now for example, and the possibility to see inside the ROM data is pretty cool too.
But I still can't find a possibility to use memory file dump like before (I managed to dump the RAM using "Dump to file", but I can't seem load it). And there seems to be no way to choose what RAM addresses to dump, like you could in normal FCEU. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong. :P
Oh, and nothing seems to happen when I click "Save ROM" or "Save ROM as..."
Hehe, seems like I'm just complaining about stuff, but don't get me wrong, FCEUX looks awesome, I'm just concerned about my good ol' memory viewer. ;) Thanks for the cheat search tips, adelikat.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Randil wrote:
But I still can't find a possibility to use memory file dump like before (I managed to dump the RAM using "Dump to file", but I can't seem load it). And there seems to be no way to choose what RAM addresses to dump, like you could in normal FCEU. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong. :P
Oh, and nothing seems to happen when I click "Save ROM" or "Save ROM as..."
You may be right about all this. Most of us developing FCEUX have little to no knowledge of the Hex Editor, therefore potential bugs were not spotted. I am sorry if Hex Editor fails to give you all the functionality off the memory viewer. Talk to me more specifically in PM after you try yourself some more, to give me a good bug list (and feature request). I'll put it on the to do for a future release.
Yay, an update. But without -videolog I assume (will try gfceu soon, gotta go right now) :(
First of all, I had to tell scons to check for liblua instead of liblua5.1 (which distribution has a version number for directories unter /usr/include? Never seen that before). However, this is the linking command:
g++ -o src/fceux [way too many files] -lz -llua -lGL -lSDL -lpthread -llua5.1
Why link lua twice? If I omit the last parameter, it compiles fine.
Another thing: The documentation lists the parameters with -, the console lists them with --. Are both methods feasible?
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Currently we don't have an official release of the SDL version. So download the svn version at your own risk :P
as far as command line, where are you reading this?
win32 command line options use "-"
sdl uses "--" (Absolutely no potential confusion whatsoever there)
Yay! Great job guys.
I wanted to peek at the new Lua/BasicBot front end but failed... I downloaded the "Lua Pack" and unzipped in the FCEUX folder. The documentation first says to run LuaBot.lua and later it says to run LuaBot_front.lua. I can't find either, though I may just be slow...
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Warning a few bugs:
Some lua related crashing problems
Autofire isn't working at first (you have to set it to something in the menu then it will work just fine).
Expect a 2.0.1 release that fixes these.
Also I forgot to mention, to use lua you will need a luapack that includes various lua related .dll's. http://fceux.com/luapack
Cool, got it working, looks good. Those scripts should really come with the "Lua package" or it should explain how to get them in the help doc (also the help doc refers to luabot_back.lua which appears to be luabot_framework.lua on sourceforge.)
Also, was the impetus behind not including these by default a matter of size or something? For something that is supposed to help people who are not as programming "savvy", getting BB running seems quite complicated. Just a thought.
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands
Yeah, we're working on putting them in the luapack :)
And there is no getting around programming for the bot. I took care of the logic behind a bot, but there's no way of actually creating a all-game-generic bot, except perhaps random-button-mashing bot...
I have no problem with programming it (not really any more complicated than the old BasicBot)... I just think it's quite hidden and complicated to get working. Which isn't horrible, but it's such a great tool...
Joined: 4/25/2004
Posts: 615
Location: The Netherlands
It's a bit further away from the old menu item, but I think people will get used to it :)
The downside compared to the old bot is that you now have to code in Lua (which can also be a plus, since that also allows you to code other stuff yourself).
I believe that the pro's of this bot outweight the cons of it :)
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
The major advantage of the bot being outsourced as a lua script is that it is not hardcoded into the emulator. This means bug fixes don't require a new release of FCEUX, changes are easy and can be made by anyone, new versions can be created.
Yes, it's fabulous for those who know about it.
I guess my point was that there's no mention of any BasicBot/LuaBot except buried in the documentation.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
Phil wrote:
There is just that high pitched sound that is annoying. Maybe it could be muted when turboing at max speed like that. Only at max speed because I think the sound might be good at 150% in case someone forgot he is turboing.
Might be a newb question but I don't know how to write the author info when starting to record a movie or after. Why was it removed first of all?
It is not suprising that you couldn't figure this out because I realize now that it is very undocumented. But the author line is replaced with a metadata button. This will display a ton of infomation that the author puts in (including his name :P)
To add thsi info, open the .fm2 with a text editor and do this at the beginning of the file:
comment Author Phil
It was my intention to provide a nice example of metadata use with a couple of completed submissions I have. But unofortunately Bisqwit was unable to get the site ready for .fm2 in time for this release.
One extra question. Is the "*Fix the "freezing upon load state" problem in Legend of Zelda, Bionic Commando, Guerilla War and some other games. (It seems to happen when there is lag in the game. It was happening in Double Dragon and Nitsuja fixed it(Maybe some hack!??) but I think they are all related.) It happens while recording but as well as playing the movie in read only mode(High priority)
" been fixed in this version?
Yes, this is fixed. It was also fixed in FCEU.28 btw.
Emulator Coder, Site Developer, Site Owner, Expert player
(3571)
Joined: 11/3/2004
Posts: 4754
Location: Tennessee
alden wrote:
except buried in the documentation.
It is in the .chm! And the whole point of the .chm is for information to not be buried. I recommend everyone read it. It will answer a lot of questions.
Right, buried in the help file under "Lua Scripting". Anyone curious enough about that has less need for the premade bot. Perhaps a menu item by the other Lua stuff that says "Run LuaBot" that would point to the front end script (you could still modify the script, so the only hard coded part would be the file path)
OK, sorry to belabor the point :S
Joined: 11/22/2004
Posts: 1468
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
It's been a long time since I did anything TAS-related, but I'd just like to give my congrats for releasing these improvements. FCEU is a really neat emulator, and I'm glad it's still being developed despite the fact it already works really well.
There is just that high pitched sound that is annoying. Maybe it could be muted when turboing at max speed like that. Only at max speed because I think the sound might be good at 150% in case someone forgot he is turboing.
Funny, I much prefer it to the old turbo sound.
While it's true that it looks like Alvin And the chipmunks, which is kinda cool for some people, I think muted is less annoying.
Ok, it might be the converter after all because editing the movie file and replacing the wrong characters with Côté was a success.
adelikat wrote:
Might be a newb question but I don't know how to write the author info when starting to record a movie or after. Why was it removed first of all?
It is not suprising that you couldn't figure this out because I realize now that it is very undocumented. But the author line is replaced with a metadata button. This will display a ton of infomation that the author puts in (including his name :P)
To add thsi info, open the .fm2 with a text editor and do this at the beginning of the file:
comment Author Phil
It was my intention to provide a nice example of metadata use with a couple of completed submissions I have. But unofortunately Bisqwit was unable to get the site ready for .fm2 in time for this release.
I think being editable within FCEU would be the best.
adelikat wrote:
One extra question. Is the "*Fix the "freezing upon load state" problem in Legend of Zelda, Bionic Commando, Guerilla War and some other games. (It seems to happen when there is lag in the game. It was happening in Double Dragon and Nitsuja fixed it(Maybe some hack!??) but I think they are all related.) It happens while recording but as well as playing the movie in read only mode(High priority)
" been fixed in this version?
Yes, this is fixed. It was also fixed in FCEU.28 btw.
I think being editable within FCEU would be the best.
but think about it. When would you add this? In the movie replay dialog? How would it look? Whatever system we thought of just amounts to doing the same thing that notepad would do.
If you have some nice GUI idea, I'm all ears.
