BananaOS 0.3.0 (alpha)

BananaOS 0.3.0 (alpha) for the Anbernic RG DS Plus. Fixes for the menu's sound, SuperDrastic's audio and frame pacing and the menu's frame rate; a bottom screen for RetroArch games, separate settings per DS emulator, shared DS saves, a box-art download and an experimental Carts theme.

RG DS (non-Plus): 0.3.0 is not released for it yet. It has to be tested on real hardware first; until then the RG DS stays on 0.2.0.

Install or update

• New card: write banana-rgds-plus.img.gz to a microSD card with balenaEtcher. The first boot makes the data partition from the rest of the card.
• From 0.2.0: put banana-rgds-plus-0.3.0.update.tar in banana/updates on the card (file sharing, or the card in a computer), then Settings > System > Update, A on the package and A again to confirm. It is written to the card's other system slot and runs from the next restart; 0.2.0 stays one restart away (Settings > System > Previous version). Your games, saves and settings stay.

Fixed

• Menu sound: it no longer cuts out after a setting is changed, and both speakers play at the same volume. The speaker amplifiers failed to start on short clicks; the menu now keeps its sound stream running and closes it after 20 s of quiet.
• SuperDrastic audio: the crackling is gone. The speakers run at 48 kHz, and SuperDrastic now resamples to it (0 underruns, was about 2 a second).
• SuperDrastic smoothness: the game is paced to the panels' refresh with a two-frame queue (about one repeated frame a minute, no dropped ones).
• The menu runs at 60 fps (it fell to about 30): frames that change nothing no longer spin the loop, and the CPU clock is held up while something moves.
• BananaDS: RetroAchievements pop-ups are drawn on top of the shader instead of through it.
• SuperDrastic: RetroAchievements pop-ups show again (they found no font on BananaOS).
• RetroArch: A confirms in its menu, one press of Quit is enough, N64 renders on a thread, SNES runs at full speed.
• Touch: a tap at exactly the spot of the previous tap sometimes did nothing.

Added

• Bottom screen for RetroArch games: the game plays on one screen; the other shows its latest RetroAchievements and tiles for Save, Load, Menu, Fast-forward and Quit (tap, or hold F with the button shown). Settings > Other systems > Second screen.
• BananaDS's in-game menu (L3) shows the game's latest achievements on the top screen, also when it was opened before RetroAchievements had finished logging in.
• Settings per DS emulator (Settings > Nintendo DS): BananaDS has shader, 3D resolution, edge marking, fog, frame pacing, CPU clock, timing and microphone; SuperDrastic has shader, 3D resolution, CPU clock and frame pacing. The renderer option is gone: both use the Gengis Engine.
• Shared DS saves: BananaDS and SuperDrastic read each other's saves (the newer one is copied over, the older kept as a backup).
• Box art: covers, title screens, genres and years from libretro's free collections (no account), as the setup's third step and in Settings > System > Box art, with a progress bar.
• Achievement progress in the library ("12 / 72 achievements").
• Carts theme (experimental): the games as DS cards on a shelf, in a clean typeface. Settings > Display & sound > Theme.
• The iris transition plays when you leave a game, and the Settings lists scroll smoothly.

Known issues

• BananaDS: the two screens can update slightly out of step. A kernel fix is written but not yet tested, so it is not in this release.
• The first menu click after 20 s of quiet can play on one speaker for a moment.
• With a slow DNS server, the bottom screen can show "no connection" for a few seconds before RetroAchievements answers; it recovers by itself.
• Some SuperDrastic pop-ups about the RetroAchievements account say "ES" (they come from ROCKNIX); on BananaOS the account is in Settings > System > First-time setup.

Tested on an RG DS Plus: updated from 0.2.0 with Settings > System > Update, then BananaDS, SuperDrastic and RetroArch with the bottom screen played and quit, and the themes and settings checked.