Azahar 2127.0 Alpha 1

[OpenSauce04]

⚠️Important Alpha Information⚠️

As an alpha release, this build is not yet considered stable.

This prerelease is intended for users to test upcoming features, allowing the community to provide feedback before they are distributed in a stable release.
Users interested in testing bleeding-edge software are encouraged to test out this build to help us catch any issues we may have missed during development.

If you are unwilling to tolerate potential issues, it may be better to wait for the next stable release.

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Note

To allow public testing of the new interpreter, which allows fantastic performance on iPhones all the way back to the iPhone XS with no JIT, we plan to distribute all of our 2127.0 prereleases on RetroArch with 2-3 days of delay as a one-off exception to our typical release scheduling.
We hope our iOS users look forward to testing out the new version and experiencing the improved performance it brings.

Note

This release invalidates any existing generated shader cache, so performance may temporarily be impared after updating.
Performance will improve again after playing for a while.

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Azahar 2127.0-alpha1 Changelog

License

• Azahar's license has been changed from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+. All downstream projects exposed to Azahar's source code must ensure that they follow the license terms and correctly update any license metadata as necessary. | @OpenSauce04 Update project license to GPLv3+, was GPLv2+ #2626 Include GPLv2 text and reference it in relevant headers #2635

All

• Implemented a significantly faster new interpreter for JIT-less environments, named FastInterp, which replaces the old DynCom interpreter. | @warmenhoven Implement new 'FastInterp' interpreter #2376
  • This new interpreter allows greatly improved performance on iOS and tvOS devices, allowing devices as old as the iPhone XS to play games, even with playback speeds of over 200%.
• Fixed inaccurate color blending behaviour in the Vulkan renderer, fixing an issue in Shin Megami Tensei IV where a black box would appear around enemies when killed. | @quickstraw video_core: fix color blend min/max mode in Vulkan #2427
• Corrected misuses of linear filtering in the video core where nearest neighbour should be used. | @OpenSauce04 video_core: Use nearest neighbor scaling in Surface::BlitScale and TextureRuntime::BlitTextures #2554
  • Fixes texture rendering issues in Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition, and likely other games as well.
• Implemented a previously missing audio delay/echo effect in the HLE DSP implementation. | @PabloMK7 audio_core: hle: Implement delay effect #2473
  • Restores previously missing echo effects to many games, such as New Super Mario Bros. 2, when using HLE audio.
  • Fixes a stuttering music issue in Shinobi 3D.
• Implemented improvements for Azahar's texture codec, resulting in greatly improved texture handling performance and general performance improvements in many games. | @PabloMK7 video_core: Improve texture codec #2564
• Zero-area render passes are now skipped. | @Wunkolo renderer_vulkan: Skip zero-area renderpasses #2510 video_core: Skip zero-area renderpasses #2544
  • This addresses certain graphical issues in 3D Thunder Blade.
• Implemented null descriptors for null surfaces. | @Wunkolo renderer_vulkan: Implement null descriptors for null surfaces #2545
• Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition now force-disables the "Disable Right Eye Rendering" setting while running due to causing rapidly flashing rendering issues. | @OpenSauce04 hack_list: Force-disable Disable Right Eye Rendering for Minecraft #2555
• Due to ongoing issues, the Anime4K texture filter has been limited to only be selectable when using the OpenGL renderer. | @OpenSauce04 Limit the Anime4K texture filter to OpenGL only #2654

Windows

• In line with our previous deprecation, the MSYS2 build of Azahar has now been removed, with the MXE build replacing it. | @OpenSauce04 Drop MSYS2 CI jobs in line with previous deprecation #2582
• Implemented a custom scrollbar style in Azahar's Qt frontend with improved visibility. | @OpenSauce04 windows: Implement more visible custom Qt scrollbar style #2642

Desktop

• Azahar now contains its own copy of FFmpeg, meaning that downloading and installing FFmpeg manually before using the Dump Video feature is no longer necessary. | @OpenSauce04 Link FFmpeg into Azahar directly rather than using Common::DynamicLibrary #2584

libretro

• Fixed an issue with touchscreen devices where, when pressing a blank area outside of the touchscreen area, the last selected location on the touchscreen would become activated. | @OpenSauce04 libretro: Fix tapping a blank area outside of the touchscreen causing touch inputs #2563

Desktop

• Fixed an issue where Azahar's .ini files could contain non-human-readable values. | @Wunkolo config: Promote config integer-types to 64-bit integers #2534

Technical

• Added additional logging when an attempted pixel format reinterpretation is unimplemented. | @Wunkolo video_core: Display unimplemented reinterpretation underlying formats #2508
• Added new CMake options to newly allow compiling with certain system libraries. | @kreinholz Add options to build with additional system libraries - faad2, spirv-tools, and xxhash #1987
• Added new CMake option ENABLE_CCACHE. | @crueter cmake: Add ENABLE_CCACHE option #2219
• Added a missing include which allows Azahar to be compiled for Android with NDK r30. | @rtiangha android_common.h: Include vector library #2622
• Fixed an issue which prevented building Azahar with openal-soft version 1.25.2 and newer. | @rtiangha CMakeLists.txt: Set ALSOFT_EMBED_HRTF_DATA to ON #2617
• Cleaned up various instances of deprecated code in the Android codebase. | @OpenSauce04 android: Deprecation cleanup #2637
• Removed Doxyfile due to lack of use, maintenance and interest. | @OpenSauce04 Remove Doxyfile #2636

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This discussion was created from the release Azahar 2127.0 Alpha 1.

[TaamoX]

The MXE version does not work on my computer but MSYS2 versions did. Will this be fixed in future updates or am I just locked out of them from now on? I use Windows 11 btw.

[TaamoX]

Sorry, I meant the new MSVC versions don't work. (Neither does MXE) on my device, but previous MSVC versions did.