ares v138 released

ares is a cross-platform, open source, multi-system emulator, focusing on accuracy and preservation.

Since v137, a total of 10 contributors have created 58 commits to the ares codebase.

If you wish to see the full changelog in a per-commit format along with their authors, similarly to how previous release notes were written, you can do so on GitHub here.

Atari 2600

Improved 6502 CPU emulation; all unofficial opcodes are now implemented
Improve handling of the HMOVE register
Refactor of TIA; fixes many emulation issues but still imperfect
Implement correct 6502 reset timing

Bandai - WonderSwan / WonderSwan Color

Minor fixes to v30mz CPU emulation
Emulate 32KB SRAM for '8KB' type cartridges
Implement Sound Test register bits 1,2 and 3

Nintendo - NES / Famicom

Improved 6502 CPU emulation; all unofficial opcodes are now supported
Fix APU frame counter emulation
Various improvements to APU emulation
Implement correct 6502 reset timing

Nintendo - Nintendo 64

Fix an issue where saved data from the current game could be duplicated into the next
Fix an issue where the Real Time Clock may not function correctly depending on the user's local time zone

Nintendo - Game Boy Advance

Implement that the last cycle of the prefetcher cannot be interrupted
Implement correct ROM mirroring for Famicom Mini / Classic NES series
Improve handling of SRAM/Flash bus
Fix the timing of initial DMA wait cycles

Sega Mega Drive / CD / 32X

Lower sync interval between MD and 32X: improves emulation accuracy but does reduce performance

Sony - PlayStation

Update the blitter to operate on a copy of the framebuffer; fixes potential threading issues

ruby (Audio/Video/Input abstraction layer)

Added a native Metal backend for macOS with VRR support
Implemented latency selection in SDL audio driver
Removed the built-in Blur shader, using the bilinear slang shader is preferred
Removed non-hardware accelerated video drivers (any platform capable of running ares should at least have OpenGL, D3D or Metal available)
Reduce CPU usage on the video thread by using a condition variable rather than a spinlock
Add support for connecting a Mouse on macOS (for emulating SNES mouse, etc)
Remove tight loops in SDL and OpenAL drivers, reducing CPU usage when using these drivers.

User Interface

Fix an issue where nested slang shaders were not available in the UI