SmartGear Fix History

SmartGear 1.1.6.
The desktop PC version is now caught up to the mobile version in terms of its GUI.  Both now include a previously played games feature which allows you to see the last 10 games played as thumbnail images (any platform) and with a single click can be relaunched.  Also included is a fix for NES mapper 4/116 and GBC battery backup RAM.

SmartGear 1.0.3.
This build includes mostly fixes to the various CPU emulators.  The NES, GameGear and Genesis modules should all see improved game compatibility.  It also adds mapper #23 to the NES code.

SmartGear 1.0.1.
I've finally added a feature which many people have been asking for and I'm happy with the way it came out.  There are now unique settings (both keys and other settings) for each gaming system.  What this means is that you can have completely different settings for each gaming system and they can be edited in a reasonable way.  I've also added support for misbehaving hardware buttons.  I'm very pleased with the way the "odd" button handling works.  I recently picked up the T-Mobile Shadow and it's offhook and onhook buttons don't behave nicely.  They send both the key down and up messages when you release the key, but nothing while it's pressed.  My fix allows these keys to act decently as start/select buttons, but are probably not good for fire buttons since my program is only informed of the keypress when you release the key.  You will need to redefine the "odd" buttons in the key definition dialog to enable the new feature.  When you press the key to define, my software sees that it received a key down/up message, but the AsyncKeyState never showed any activity.  I mark these odd keys with a * in the list and when pressed, they are held for a simulated 10 frames worth of time (about 166ms).  This seems to work fine in the games.

SmartGear 1.0.0.
I've decided to start the version number at 1.0.0 since this is a shipping product.  An important fix included in the Desktop PC code is for DirectDraw; the older code only worked on a few video cards because of a missing lock/unlock sequence in the video memory handling.  This release also fixes more problems with the 6502 code (NES) and adds mapper #23.  I've also rewritten the SN76496 in ARM assembly language (more of an experiment than really necessary).  When speed throttling is turned off, the display will now show the current speed in frames per second (FPS).  The Desktop PC version has now got the SNES code in it.  I do not need bug reports at this time because it's in pretty sad shape (in other words, DON'T TELL ME ABOUT SNES PROBLEMS), but at least you can start to see if your favorite games will work.  When the ARM 65816 is done, I'll integrate the SNES code into the Windows Mobile build.SmartGear 0.40.
This release fixes problems with the display code on the Desktop PC version as well as saves/restores the volume level on the Windows Mobile version.  On the Desktop PC version there were various problems with scaling the window to maximized and running maximized.  All window display issues should now be resolved.  A user had informed me that the volume level on his Samsung Blackjack was being reset by running SmarGear, so this change should correct that issue.

SmartGear 0.39.
This release fixes a major bug in the ARM 6502 code which caused many NES games to run incorrectly.  I also started to add SG-1000 support (an early version of the MasterSystem), but changed my mind after seeing some SG-1000 games.  The lack of color depth and lack of truly unique titles makes it not worth the effort to add support.  If you try to open a SG-1000 game, it will load and should start to run, but the display will be incorrect.

SmartGear 0.38.
This release is all about fixes to the NES code.  I've made some structural changes to the 6502 which corrected a bunch of problems (e.g. Battletoads) and added a few mappers.  A bunch of the fixes are due to removing some unsafe speed optimizations.  The overall speed is still plenty fast, so it was worth doing. The new code now supports the following mappers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 19, 33, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 87, 93, 160, 180.  Mappers 64, 65, 66, 232, and 116 appear to be supported as well.  I've also fixed the NES load/save code, but the fix required that I change the SAV files.  Please delete all of your old SAV files (the BAK files haven't changed, you can still use the old ones).

SmartGear 0.37.
The released adds touchscreen control (by popular request).  Both buttons and directionals can now be simulated by touching the screen.  This release also fixes the volume control and adds it to the settings window.

SmartGear 0.35.
The important update to this release is a fix for the "clicking" sound problem.  It turns out that most of the newer WM devices don't like to use 8-bit audio streams.  I've added an option to the Settings dialog to allow you to choose 16-bit audio.  This seems to have eliminated the sound problem.  Please let me know if anyone finds a device which doesn't work well on either setting.  This release also includes a fix for the NES audio frequency (used to be too high pitched) as well as a fix for the Huc6280 which was causing some TG16 games to not run properly.  There are still some problems with the installation script which I'm trying to correct.

SmartGear 0.31.
This release includes two fixes for GameBoy problems.  One was a DMA timing issue and the other was caused by a bug in the C compiler.

SmartGear 0.28.
This release includes a fix for the sound "clicking" program.  The problem was the frame timing was not synchronized perfectly with the sound rate and over time would get out of sync.

SmartGear 0.27.
This release includes the long awaited Desktop PC version as well as the addition of the "Pause" button for MasterSystem.