Release Notes for openMSX 0.6.3 (2007-12-09)
============================================

This release contains several new features and improvements related to sound.
All sound chips are emulated at their native frequency and resampled using
advanced resampling techniques to the desired output frequency (typically
44.1 kHz). The advanced resamplers improve the sound quality a lot, because
they are free of aliasing distortions.

There are three resamplers you can choose from: "fast", which produces
approximately the same results as previous openMSX releases, "blip", which
produces better sound and is still quite fast and "hq", which produces the best
sound but takes a lot of CPU power. Since the quality difference between "blip"
and "hq" is very small and the speed difference quite large, "blip" is the
recommended resampler and the new default. Many thanks to Blargg, the author of
Blip_Buffer, not only for the code but also for explaining the principles
behind it.

More sound related improvements include stereo balance settings for each sound
chip and the ability to record individual channels of sound chips. For PSG we
even introduced some sound effects: vibrato and detune can be enabled to get a
fatter sound. Try this in Penguin Adventure!

Thanks to the blueMSX Team, we were able to quickly bring some new features:
emulation of the VLM5030, the sample chip used in the unreleased Konami game
Keyboard Master and emulation of the synthesis part of the Yamaha SFG-05 sound
module (keyboard and MIDI support is still missing).

Also on the non-sound department, the code of the blueMSX Team enabled us to
add some new features: Gouda SCSI, MEGA-SCSI, ESE RAM, ESE SCC and WAVE SCSI.
Note that the SCSI emulation is still experimental, so make sure you don't use
it to store data of which you don't have recent backups.

Last but not least: a lock-up bug was removed from the Windows version, which
could occur on dual core and hyperthreading CPU's.

New or improved emulator features:
- SDLGL-PP renderer (OpenGL 2.0) can now do RGBTriplet scaling in hardware.
- Several resampling algorithms now available: hq, blip and fast; the first two
  eliminate aliasing.
- Channels of sound chips can be individually recorded and muted.
- Sound chips now have a stereo balance setting instead of a mode (left, right,
  mono). Because of this, the <sounddevice>_mode settings have been replaced by
  <sounddevice>_balance settings.
- PSG sound effects: vibrato and detune.
  You can use the new "psg_profile" command to select known good combinations,
  or experiment wiht the PSG_vibrato_percent, PSG_vibrato_frequency,
  PSG_detune_percent and PSG_detune_frequency settings directly.
  Thanks to Wolf for the idea and his feedback on experiments.
- Several small optimizations, mostly in SDLGL-PP renderer and CPU emulation.

MSX device support:
- Partial support for Yamaha SFG-05 (only the YM2151, no keyboard and MIDI).
- Support for the VLM5030 in Konami's Keyboard Master.
- Improved accuracy in SCC emulation.
- Support for ESE devices: MEGA SCSI, ESE RAM, ESE SCC, WAVE-SCSI.
- Support for Gouda/Novaxis SCSI.
- Support for password cartridge.
- Support for the Super Lode Runner mapper.
- Real support for the Halnote mapper. Thanks to the blueMSX team.

Build system, packaging, documentation:
- Added support for building a statically linked executable on Windows.
- Added support for building a backwards compatible executable on Mac OS X
  10.5 (Leopard). Thanks to BouKiCHi.
- Added support for DESTDIR, which should help packagers.

And of course the usual various bug fixes.

In "doc/manual/index.html" you can find a set of HTML manuals for openMSX.
Make sure you read this if you haven't used openMSX before, but also to learn
more about the new and changed features.

Known issues / caveats:
- Emulation is not perfect yet.
  See the bug tracker on sourceforge.net for known bugs.
- Until we reach version 1.0.0, file formats can change in an incompatible way
  without backwards compatibility. This happened between 0.4.0 and 0.5.0, for
  example. Keep this in mind if you create machine descriptions, ROM database
  entries etc. We do try to be backwards compatible for at least one release,
  though. Keep in mind that openMSX is still evolving at a considerable speed.
- openMSX is confirmed to run on the following operating systems: Linux, Win32,
  Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD; on x86, x86-64, PPC, ARM and Sparc
  CPU's. Running on other operating systems (wherever SDL runs) or CPU's should
  be possible, but may require some modifications to the build system. If you
  are compiling on a new platform, please share your experiences (see below for
  contact info), so we can make openMSX more portable.
- CPU and graphics performance varies a lot, depending on the openMSX settings
  and the MSX hardware and software you're emulating. Some things run fine on a
  200 MHz machine, others are slow on a 2 GHz machine. For performance tuning
  tips, see the Setup Guide.

openMSX Home Page:
  http://www.openmsx.org/
Project page on SourceForge:
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/openmsx/
Contact options:
- Send a message to the openmsx-user mailing list.
  Go to the SourceForge project page and look under "Lists".
- Post on our forum: http://forum.openmsx.org/
- Talk to us on #openmsx on irc.freenode.net.

Have fun with your emulated MSX!
                                        the openMSX developers
