RetroRecomp v1.5.4 — Super FX games, one base of paths beside the converter, rewards for every conversion

RetroRecomp v1.5.4 — Super FX games, one base of paths beside the converter, rewards for every conversion

• Super FX cartridges convert. Star Fox, Star Fox 2, Stunt Race FX,
  Vortex, Yoshi's Island, Doom, Dirt Trax FX and Dirt Racer are qualified at
  the Extended level: native 65816 and SPC700 code on the final routes, the
  GSU chip itself running as a counted interpreted device, shown on its own
  line like the CX4. Their paths are qualified in the base shipped beside the
  converter, so these nine cartridges are rebuilt from them with the quick
  check. Known limits: battery saves are proven in play for Star Fox 2 only, Doom's frame pacing differs from MAME's, and Stunt Race FX's
  two-player mode still meets some interpreted code. Nothing was checked on a
  real console.
• One base of paths, beside the converter. Retro-Recomp.exe no longer
  contains any path. The base sits beside it as Retro-Recomp-base.zip, laid
  down by the installer and the built-in update, and is kept current by small
  differences downloaded before a conversion (at most once a day) or on demand
  (Knowledge › Sync with the shared base, which also sends your
  discoveries once signed in). It works without an account; sending your
  discoveries still needs one. Without a base and without a
  connection, the converter discovers everything itself, as before, and says so.
• Qualified and pending paths. A path is qualified once a successful
  conversion by another player received it, reached it and matched the
  reference; the qualification holds for one engine revision. The maintainer's
  campaigns are qualified from the start. Pending paths still guide
  conversions, and every conversion checks them. A game whose paths are
  qualified is rebuilt with the quick check, as before. Players' discoveries
  reach other players within a day, without waiting for a release.
• Neo Geo joins the shared base. Discoveries made with a given cartridge
  and BIOS travel to players with the same pair. They guide the conversion,
  which is still checked against the reference and converts again without them
  if they make it fail. Neo Geo games also show in Compiled games and
  Games to explore.
• Update check at startup. An option in Options › Common, on by
  default, looks at most every 6 hours for a new version or a new base,
  without downloading anything, and puts a dot on the update button. A click
  offers what changed: the software, the base, or both.
• Faster and fixed Super Nintendo games. Frames take 44 to 58 % less
  time to compute. The controller strobe is delivered to the ports (Star Fox 2
  prototype, Madden NFL 95, Bill Walsh College Football). SNES conversions take
  3 to 35 % longer (profile-guided build).
• SNES exports are converted again. The SNES engine changes what games do
  (controller strobe, Super FX bus), so SNES games converted by 1.4.1, 1.5.1 or
  1.5.2 are converted again in full (a game whose paths are qualified in the
  base starts from them with the quick check). Games converted by 1.5.2 on the Master
  System, Game Gear, Game Boy, NES, Mega Drive, Neo Geo and CPS-1 are only
  rebuilt with the current tools and rechecked; X68000 exports are converted
  again once. F8/F9 quick states saved by 1.5.2 Mega Drive and Super Nintendo
  games are refused; those of the other consoles keep loading.
• CPS-1 and X68000 convert again at the Standard level. In 1.5.2 the
  check that looks a game up in the bundled knowledge, run before every
  Standard conversion, stopped every CPS-1 and X68000 game before it started
  (KeyError). These two machines have no shared knowledge yet: the check
  now simply finds nothing.
• Safer shared paths. A path offered by other players still guides your
  conversion, but your library keeps it, and your uploads send it, only once
  your own conversion has reached it. A Game Boy path that pointed into
  padding could become an empty native block that froze the game: such a
  block now runs RST 38 on 0xFF or goes through the interpreter. A Mega
  Drive path listed twice no longer makes the build fail, and one bad shared
  row is set aside alone. With the plain (not Extended) Master System and Game
  Gear backend, a divergence from the reference now fails the conversion
  instead of passing unnoticed.
• Rewards for converting. The first conversion of a game the shared base
  already knows earns 10 RR coins (once per game, when your upload is
  checked); finishing it at the Extended level earns 20 more, Thorough 40 more,
  and the first player to finish a game at Thorough earns 60. Beyond 50 games a
  day, rewards arrive on the following days. Free titles mark collections
  (Collector at 10 games, Archivist 50, Curator 100, Living Museum 500) and
  depth (Caver at 10 Thorough games, Abyssal 50, Deep Cartographer 200).
  Compiled games shows one to three stars per game, Go further in its
  right-click menu, and a Games to explore filter.
• Rewards for reports. A problem report the maintainer marks useful earns
  150 RR coins, one that leads to a fix 400, and the first fixed report the
  free title Bug Hunter.
• A pseudonym from the start. Signing in from the converter (or the site)
  asks for a pseudonym, with an editable suggestion; accounts without one get
  a generated name until they choose.
• Your corner follows the site. What you buy or equip on retro-recomp.com
  shows in the converter within minutes (when its window comes back to the
  front), with your console badge (the n°1 player of a console wears its badge
  by default). Manage my items opens your account page.
• Discoveries leave every 15 minutes, also between short batches; a send
  still waiting leaves when the window closes or at the next start.
• A tidier leaderboard and credits. The podium shows the three gems in
  fixed columns; the credits window is smaller and gains a Made by
  Retro-Recomp part. A duplicate ROM now names the file that was converted.
• The players' discoveries are in the base. The base shipped with 1.5.4
  holds 275 more games sent by players, each rechecked here first (native
  code compared with the reference CPU on the quick routes): 236 Super
  Nintendo, 20 NES, 16 Mega Drive and 3 Game Boy games, 19.8 million paths.
  The fallback interpreter ran no sound-CPU opcode in any of them, and no
  main-CPU opcode except about a thousand in Exertainment Mountain Bike Rally,
  Al Unser Jr.'s Road to the Top and Bebe's Kids. Games whose exact ROM could
  not be checked yet wait for a later release; their players keep their
  points.
• On retro-recomp.com: the site in the converter's eight languages, a
  leaderboard computed in the background every 15 minutes (pages never wait),
  player cards, and the rewards above. The shop page shows its items as
  compact cards coloured by price, and a fitting room tries them on your own
  portrait before you buy (a preview: nothing is bought or equipped).