Utilities: bsnes v0.051 debugger

[DarknessSavior]

He does have one, dummy.

Well, then, he needs to use them more. Or get more of them or something. That way we don't have to test out his new features, find something we want changed, or have him want to change something, and need to download a new version.

I haven't even used the one he just released!

~DS

[I.S.T.]

He does have one, dummy.

Well, then, he needs to use them more. Or get more of them or something. That way we don't have to test out his new features, find something we want changed, or have him want to change something, and need to download a new version.

I haven't even used the one he just released!

~DS

*shrug* It's a small team, and not everybody can test each feature. There aren't any SNES hackers on it as far as I know, so the debugger didn't get much testing.

[DaMarsMan]

Seems useful but it doesn't surpass geiger for me yet. Maybe I just can't find all the features but geiger seems to have other things I like such as loading tables to view memory.

[tomaitheous]

I really hope these first two releases are just the beginning of things to come. Given how popular the SNES is, I *really* don't understand how long the scene has gone on without a real debugger. I must confess though, I'm not going to do any rom hacking with this debugger - it'll be all new development, etc. So maybe it's not as important to the rom hacking scene? The PCE's got a kickass debugger, the NES has one, now the SNES is getting one. Fiiiiinally.

[KaioShin]

Given how popular the SNES is, I *really* don't understand how long the scene has gone on without a real debugger.

There really aren't that many high-skilled SNES hackers around who could make full use of a debugger. And those that are got used to work with Geiger over the years. There needs to be a new generation of skilled hackers who start learning with this to make it popular and widespread. But considering how many good games are left untranslated, this seems unlikely to happen. We'll be stuck with the same old farts after all And I bet most of them won't be willing to relearn with another program. Look at the patch format situation. You can't even get those guys to stop using IPS. No community is slower to accept anything new than the romhacking one. And before they accept anything from new from someone else they rather reinvent the wheel

[smkd]

this release might not have as many features as gieger's but it's got a few major perks that make it worth using in conjuction with it (until bsnes obsoletes it anyway).

I mean for SPC stuff for example it's so much more useful than gieger's cause you can actually step thru code in the tool itself, not have to do a trace log and examine it later.  breakpoints on APU end is real useful, you can even do conditional breakpoint on $00F2 which is almost as good as having breakpoints for the S-DSP itself.

[creaothceann]

Look at the patch format situation. You can't even get those guys to stop using IPS.

Because ZSNES and SNES9x support only IPS.

[Nightcrawler]

I really hope these first two releases are just the beginning of things to come. Given how popular the SNES is, I *really* don't understand how long the scene has gone on without a real debugger. I must confess though, I'm not going to do any rom hacking with this debugger - it'll be all new development, etc. So maybe it's not as important to the rom hacking scene? The PCE's got a kickass debugger, the NES has one, now the SNES is getting one. Fiiiiinally.

Emulator authors really drive the debuggers on most platforms. Mainstream SNES emulation has been stagnated for many years now outside BSNES. Download the source to ZSNES. Nobody's going to be adding any modern debugger to that archaic framework as it stands. That was the most popular emulator.

SNES9x already had a decent one with Geiger, and he refused to release the source for those wanting to improve upon it. That leaves making a new competing one from scratch. However SNES9x 1.51 doesn't even run Emerald Dragon anymore. I know I had no interest in SNES9x debugging as a result beyond further enhancing Geiger's, which was not possible.

So, really, we've had our hands tied for years now. Hopefully the BSNES debugger will mature over time and fill in the holes sorely needed. It's probably our last hope for the foreseeable future. I know I'd like to see something that finally allows me to see the DSP registers during SPC debugging.

As far as UPS and SNES hacking goes, it failed to address the biggest problem with SNES patches which is the header issue. It doesn't do anything for that other than not allow you to patch wrong. But that really doesn't do anything for the issue itself. There's no real incentive for me to use it. NINJA was much better as far as addressing these issues. I ended up making a custom patcher instead.

[Kronus_Arm]

NINJA was much better as far as addressing these issues.

Agreed, but there a few hacks and translations that use the NINJA format.

 

[Kernigh]

[...] to my knowledge, there is no SNES debugger that is compatible with my computer.

And what computer might that be? Windows, Linux and Mac OS are supported as far as I see from the bsnes page. Or are you talking about hardware compatibility?

Details are in this forum thread => Core dump - BSNES v0.052 - OpenBSD - PowerPC

With some help, I ported some PowerPC assembly code so that BSNES would work. Then I learned that my computer is too slow to run BSNES at full speed. I have not yet tried the debugger.

[Ryusui]

Could someone please tell Byuu to use a real file dialogue, though? This damn thing with its "we don't need no stinkin' file or path memory" is driving me nuts. T_T;

[I.S.T.]

Path memory?

There's a path setting option somewhere in it(I haven't used a recent version in a while), try looking for it in options.

[creaothceann]

You can also define a hotkey for the dialog.

[Kitsune Sniper]

Slightly offtopic, is there a reason why the sound begins to distort and crack after a while? I'm not sure if it's my PC sucking, or my audio card, or what.

[creaothceann]

What OS and driver? Have you synced to audio/video/both? Does the fps drop below 50/60?

There's currently a poll about Linux audio...

[Kitsune Sniper]

What OS and driver? Have you synced to audio/video/both? Does the fps drop below 50/60?

There's currently a poll about Linux audio...

Windows XP, latest official Audigy 4 drivers, synced audio. Synced Video just makes everything look slow and jumpy.

And the FPS never go below 60.

[creaothceann]

Try different settings in the audio configuration dialog, mainly Latency and Input Frequency. Apart from that I don't know either...

[Panzer88]

you could always go to board.byuu.org and ask byuu himself, he is always open to helping people get bsnes to work properly on their systems.

[Kitsune Sniper]

you could always go to board.byuu.org and ask byuu himself, he is always open to helping people get bsnes to work properly on their systems.

I'm thinking it may just be my audio card's drivers. But I'll go bug him later.

[Next gen Cowboy]

[As far as UPS and SNES hacking goes, it failed to address the biggest problem with SNES patches which is the header issue. It doesn't do anything for that other than not allow you to patch wrong. But that really doesn't do anything for the issue itself. There's no real incentive for me to use it. NINJA was much better as far as addressing these issues. I ended up making a custom patcher instead.

Not to beat a dead horse, but as Kaio already said we are slow to adopt new methods, even if it comes from people we know are skilled. From a skilled programming aspect I cannot really comment, but we know how good NINJA works, and yet it's still ips all the way =(

The possibility than arises that it could be a public awareness issue? Spread the word people!

As for the issue at hand, I truly hope: like many others that bsnes this becomes an excellent debugging tool, so that some new life may be breathed into snes emulation. That said, I have been hoping for years that bsnes becomes the epitome of snes emulators, because unlike some things, we know the source will always be available.