Classic Home v5 beta 3 — same front-end, packaged properly

Classic Home v5 beta 3 — same front-end, packaged properly

Still a beta. Beta 3 is beta 2's front-end on current upstream firmware, packaged as an
SD-card structure rather than a loose file, and able to survive update_all. If you ran
beta 2, take this. If you want a quiet life, stay on v4.

Installing

ClassicHome-v5-beta3.zip unpacks to a folder called SD-CARD-ROOT whose contents mirror
your card. Copy that folder's contents into the card root and let it merge:

SD-CARD-ROOT/
  MiSTer                            replaces the firmware in the card root
  classicui/disctitles.txt          the disc name table - a new file, replaces nothing
  linux/classic-home/               the update_all boot hook's worker
  Scripts/classic_home_protect.sh   installs the hook
  Scripts/classic_home_unprotect.sh removes it again

MiSTer is the only file that overwrites anything, so back it up first — copy it beside
itself as MiSTer.backup. That is your way back, and it is one copy.

Then turn it on in MiSTer.ini, under [MiSTer]:

classicui=1

The section matters as much as the line. MiSTer.ini is divided into sections, and on a
card that has been in use a while the file usually ends inside a core or video section — so
adding classicui=1 at the bottom scopes it to that one core and it looks like the release
simply does not work. Put it under [MiSTer].

Surviving update_all

This is new, and it matters more than anything else in the release.

update_all replaces MiSTer with the official build and puts yours in .MiSTer.old,
silently reverting the front-end. That is not a bug in the updater: the MiSTer path belongs
to the official distribution database and no third-party database is permitted to supply it —
we checked the downloader's source rather than guessing.

Run this once:

/media/fat/Scripts/classic_home_protect.sh

It stores your firmware under linux/, which is on the downloader's forbidden list for every
database including the official one, and installs a boot hook that puts it back when
update_all has replaced it. It only acts when the installed firmware is not one of ours, so a
newer build you copied on by hand is left alone rather than quietly downgraded.
classic_home_unprotect.sh removes the hook and leaves the official firmware in place. Your
MiSTer.ini is never touched by update_all either — it is forbidden to every database.

What changed since beta 2

Current upstream firmware. 25 upstream commits, including the EDID/HDMI cold-boot fixes.
Both of this project's firmwares — this one and the SNAC-only build — now sit on the same
upstream base, so a bug report means the same thing whichever you run.

Packaged as a card structure. Beta 2's notes claimed "everything is one file", which was
never true: the release is the firmware and the disc title table, and now the two Scripts
entries as well.

Nothing else in the front-end changed. Everything in the
beta 2 notes
still applies — physical CDs, the lighter menu, the resized disc screen, artwork from
ScreenScraper, per-system core settings with Y. Read those for what the front-end does.

A custom font works, and always did. font=font/myfont.pf in MiSTer.ini changes every
glyph the shelf draws, because the front-end reads the same glyph table the stock OSD does.
Nobody knew because it was documented only in the generic ini block. The four arrow glyphs in
the button bar are the front-end's own and keep their shape. Note the stock 8x8 font is really
6 wide with two columns of bearing, so a font using all eight columns will read tighter.

Cross-folder title grouping — if you have a romset split into USA/ and Europe/ folders
and Batman (U).nes shows as a separate card from Batman (E).nes, you are on v4. Both v5
betas already group them. Grouping happens when the shelf is built rather than in the index
cache, so the new binary alone fixes it — no rescan needed.

PSX controllers over SNAC

This firmware carries SNAC support as well. If you want it, take
snac-psx-pad-wave3-cores.zip from the
wave 3 release —
that archive is the cores and menu.rbf, and it is the same download whichever firmware you
run. Read its install order before copying: six core fixes change only letter case, and a
card is case insensitive, so those files must be deleted before the merge or the fix does not
take.

You do not need the firmware from that release; this one already has SNAC in it.

Credit

Physical CD playback is Anime0t4ku's work, from
Main_MiSTer_Physical_Disc — the
streaming sector reader, the read-ahead worker, the drive-speed cap, the recovery when a USB
drive drops out, the disc swapping. Used here whole rather than rewritten, GPLv3 as this tree
is. None of the disc support would exist without that author; see
support/physical_disc/CREDITS.md.

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Known limitations — please do not report these

• On S-Video and composite the menu is black and white. Games keep their colour. The colour
  encoder in the shared FPGA framework sits only on the core's video path, not the one this menu
  goes out through, so it cannot be fixed in firmware. RGB SCART and YPbPr are in full
  colour.
• With an HDMI display attached the front-end deliberately leaves the analog output alone,
  so a CRT shows the game rather than the menu. Unplug HDMI to see the menu on a CRT.
• No still picture behind the in-game menu over a disc game — you get black. Mostly hidden
  by the disc screen now. File-launched games are fine.
• Everything above 240p is verified in the test harness only. There is no HDMI display here,
  so the 720p and 1080p layouts have never been seen on a real panel. Still the single most
  useful thing to report.
• Mega CD, PC Engine CD and Neo Geo CD disc playback is untested on hardware.

What was actually tested

On a real DE10-Nano over analog output, with this exact binary (md5 5526bbe1): the shelf with
cover art and badges, a carousel slide, and the disc screen showing a real disc's title from the
shipped table with its scanned artwork. The test harness runs 1457 checks with 0 failures, but
that is a host build — it has never caught an analog-output or device-lifecycle problem, which is
why the device pass matters.

Reporting a bug

Include your MiSTer.ini (remove your ScreenScraper password first), how your display is
connected and whether the set is PAL or NTSC, what you saw in your own words, and
/tmp/debug.txt after setting debug=2 and reproducing. Say whether it also happens with
classicui=0 — if it does, it is not this front-end.

If it goes wrong

Copy your MiSTer.backup over MiSTer. classicui/disctitles.txt can stay; nothing else
reads it. Or set classicui=0 for the stock menu with this firmware.