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NEWS.md

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v1.3 - The Internationalization Release (released 2018/06/02)

  • New features:

    • Most strings are now localizable. The gettext utilities and libintl library are used to provide localization support.
    • All builds now use UTF-8 for text encoding. This increases overhead slightly on Windows due to required UTF-8 to UTF-16 conversion, but it reduces the DLL size. (The Qt build doesn't have much overhead difference, since it has to copy char16_t data into QString before using it anyway.)
      • The rp_char and rp_string typedefs have been removed.
    • The 16-bit and 32-bit array byteswapping functions have been optimized using MMX, SSE2, and SSSE3.

  • New texture formats:

  • New systems:

    • ELF: Executable and Linkable Format. Used by Linux, most Unix systems, and many other platforms, including GameCube and Wii. A modified version, RPX/RPL, is used on Wii U and is also supported.
    • game.com: Tiger game.com ROM images. Supports properties and icons.

  • New system features:

    • Super NES: Satellaview BS-X ROM headers are now decoded properly.
    • Wii: Added support for unencrypted images from debug systems and GCM images with SDK headers.
    • NES: Improved publisher lookup for FDS titles.
    • Wii U: Display game publishers; added support for .wux disc images.
    • DMG: Added more entry point formats.
    • DirectDrawSurface: Untested support for Xbox One textures.
    • NintendoDS: Improved DSi flag decoding; added key index decoding.
    • N64: Fix CRC fields; added Release field.

  • New compressed texture formats:

    • Ericsson ETC1 and ETC2
    • Variations of S3TC compression in different texture formats, including support for both RGTC and LATC in Khronos KTX files.
    • Support for DXT1 with and without 1-bit alpha. Alpha selection is supported by Khronos KTX and Valve VTF. For other texture file formats, the DXT1_A1 algorithm is selected for maximum compatibility.

  • Bug fixes:

    • EXE: "Product Version" was showing the same value as "File Version". It's usually the same, but there are cases where these version numbers are different, e.g. wrapper EXEs for interpreted programs.
    • rp-config: If a key is present in keys.conf but has no value, it was previously listed as invalid. It's now listed as empty.
    • KhronosKTX: Copy sBIT if the image needs to be vertically flipped.
    • Win32: The Properties tab sometimes didn't show up if another program claimed ownership of the file extension, e.g. VS2017 handling .dds files. The tab is now registered to handle all files, though it will only show up if the file is actually supported by rom-properties.
    • DreamcastSave: Trim spaces from the end of text fields.
    • KDE frontends: Enabled the "ROM Properties" tab on files located on the desktop.
    • MegaDrive: Fixed detection of some unlicensed ROMs that have extra text in the "System" field.
    • GameCube: Fixed a crash when reading a Wii disc image that has no game partition.
    • GTK+: Fixed a potential crash if running on a system that doesn't support SSSE3 instructions.
    • Win32: rp-config's option to clear the rom-properties cache didn't do anything. It now clears the rom-properties cache directory.

  • Other changes:

    • libromdata/ has been reorganized to use subdirectories for type of system. This currently includes "Console", "Handheld", "Texture", and "Other".
    • rpcli no longer supports BMP output. Use PNG output instead.

v1.2 - The Dreamcast Release (released 2017/11/12)

  • New features:

    • rpcli, rp-stub, rp-thumbnailer-dbus: PNG images now have an sBIT chunk, which indicates the number of bits per channel that were present in the original image. In addition, RGB images that don't have an alpha channel are now saved as RGB PNGs instead of ARGB PNGs, which usually results in a smaller file.
    • Some functions are now optimized using SIMD instructions if supported by the host system's CPU:
      • Sega Mega Drive: SMD format decoding (SSE2)
      • 15/16-bit linear RGB decoding (SSE2)
      • 24-bit linear RGB image decoding (SSSE3)
      • 32-bit linear ARGB/xRGB image decoding (SSSE3)

  • New systems:

    • Sega PVR and GVR decoding. These are texture files used in Sega games on Dreamcast, GameCube, and various PC ports.
    • Microsoft DirectDraw Surface decoding. These are texture files used in various PC games. Supports several uncompressed RGB and ARGB formats, DXTn, BC4, and BC5.
    • Nintendo Badge Arcade decoding. Supports both PRBS (badge) and CABS (badge set) files. PRBS decoding supports mega badges as well.
    • Sega Dreamcast disc images. Currently supports raw track 03 disc images in 2048-byte and 2352-byte sector formats, and GD-ROM cuesheets (*.gdi).
    • Sega Saturn disc images. Currently supports raw track 01 disc images in 2048-byte and 2352-byte sector formats.
    • Atari Lynx ROM images. Currently only supports headered images.

  • New system features:

    • Nintendo DS: Detect "Mask ROM" separately from Secure Area encryption. This indicates if the $1000-$3FFF area is blank. This area cannot be read on hardware (or the method to read it is unknown), so it's always 0 bytes in dumped ROMs. The official SDK puts unknown pseudo-random data here, so DSiWare and Wii U VC SRLs will have non-zero data here.
    • Game Boy: "Game Boy Color" will now only be shown for GBC-exclusive ROMs instead of both GBC-exclusive and GBC-enhanced.
    • Nintendo 3DS: Display the game title that most closely matches the system language. This was already done for Nintendo DS titles, and is also being done for Nintendo Badge Arcade files, which use a language setup similar to Nintendo 3DS.

  • Bug fixes:

    • Fixed decoding of BGR555 images. The lower part of the R channel was shifted the wrong amount, resulting in an incorrect Red value expansion.
    • (KDE4) rp_create_thumbnail(): Set the MIME type in the thumbnail file.
    • Wii U: Make sure GameCube and Wii magic numbers aren't present in the disc header. This ensures that a GCN/Wii disc image with the game ID "WUP-" doesn't get detected as a Wii U disc image.
    • Fixed CIAReader failing to compile in no-crytpto builds.
    • (Windows) The icon in the property sheet page is now scaled instead of vertically cropped if it's larger than 32x32.
    • (Windows) The first text field on the properties page is no longer automatically selected when the page is first selected.
    • Nintendo 3DS:
      • Fixed detection of certain truncated CIA files.
      • Detect NDHT and NARC CIAs correctly.

  • Other changes:

    • The PNG compression level is now set to the default value instead of 5. This corresponds to 6 with libpng-1.6.31 and zlib-1.2.11.
    • The system text conversion functions are now used for handling Latin-1 (ISO-8859-1) encoding instead of our own conversion function. In particular, this means the C1 control characters (0x80-0x9F) are no longer invalid and will be converted to the corresponding Unicode code points.
    • When comparing byteswapped data to a constant, the byteswapping macro is now used on the constant instead of the variable. This is needed in order to byteswap the constant at compile time in MSVC builds. (gcc does this even if the byteswap is on the variable.)
    • Updated MiniZip to an unofficial fork: https://github.com/nmoinvaz/minizip
    • rp-config: Added an "About" tab.
    • Symbolic links are now resolved when searching for related files, e.g. pairs of .VMI/.VMS files for Dreamcast saves. For example, if you have /dir/main.vmi and /dir/main.vms, and a symlink /save.vmi -> /dir/main.vmi, the symlink will now be resolved and the VMS file will be loaded. This feature is supported on Linux and Windows (Vista or later).
      • Note that Windows Explorer appears to automatically dereference symlinks when using IExtractImage, which is what ends up being used anyway because IThumbnailProvider doesn't provide a full path.
    • rp-config: The key manager can now import keys from Wii U otp.bin files.

v1.1 (released 2017/07/04)

  • New features:

    • (KDE) rp-config is now available in both the KDE4 and KDE5 frontends. This is based on the rp-thumbnail stub that was previously used for the GNOME frontend. Both of them are now part of a new executable, rp-stub.
    • (KDE, Windows) rp-config now has a Key Manager tab, which allows you to edit and verify encryption keys. There is also a key import function, which allows you to import keys from certain types of key files.
    • (XFCE) Thumbnailing is now supported using tumblerd's D-Bus specialized thumbnailer interface. (#39)

  • New systems:

    • Nintendo 3DS firmware binaries are now supported. For official FIRM binaries, the CRC32 is compared against an internal database of known versions. This currently includes 1.0 through 11.4. For unofficial FIRM, various heuristics are used to determine if it's a well-known homebrew title.
    • Sega 8-bit: Initial reader for Sega 8-bit ROM images. Currently supports Sega Master System and Game Gear ROMs that have the "TMR SEGA" header, as well as Codemasters and SDSC extra headers.

  • New system features:

    • Encrypted DSiWare CIAs are now supported, provided you have the keys set up in keys.conf. (Slot0x3D, KeyX, KeyY-0 through KeyY-5; or, Slot0x3D KeyNormal-0 through KeyNormal-5)
    • Nintendo 3DS: The logo section is now checked and displayed. Official Nintendo logos and a few Homebrew logos are supported. Anything else is listed as "Custom".
    • Mega Drive: A new "Vector Table" tab has been added. This tab shows the Initial SP and Entry Point, plus several other vectors.
    • Mega Drive: A second ROM Header tab for locked-on ROMs has been added. This shows the ROM header information for locked-on ROMs for e.g. "Sonic 3 & Knuckles".
    • PlayStation Saves: Save formats other than PSV (*.mcb, *.mcx, *.pda, *.psx, *.mcs, *.ps1, and raw saves) are now supported.
    • Nintendo 3DS: Application permissions are now listed for CIAs and CCIs. (Requires decrypted images or the appropriate encryption keys.)
    • EXE: MS-DOS executables now show more information.

  • Bug fixes:

    • (GNOME) The .thumbnailer file was not packaged in the Ubuntu pre-built packages, which prevented thumbnailing from working.
    • Fixed issues with Shift-JIS titles in some PS1 save files. The title fields had garbage characters after the main title, with NULLs before and after the garbage characters. (#83)
    • (Windows) Property page: Fixed icon resizing for icons smaller than 32x32. This only affects PS1 save files at the moment.
    • (GTK+) In the file properties dialog, animated icons are now paused when the tab isn't visible. This reduces CPU usage.

v1.0 (released 2017/05/20)

  • New systems supported:

    • Windows/DOS: Executables, dynamic link libraries, and other types of executable files are supported. Includes parsing of version and manifest resources. Icon thumbnailing on non-Windows systems will be added in a future release.
    • Nintendo Wii U: Full disc images (*.wud) are supported, with image downloads for disc, cover, 3D cover, and full cover scans.
    • Nintendo 3DS: SMDH, 3DSX, CCI (*.3ds), CIA, and NCCH files are supported. Parts of some formats (CCI, CIA, NCCH) may require decryption keys. If the keys are not available, then some information will not be available.

  • New features:

    • Property page viewers now support subtabs. This is used for Windows executables that contain version and manifest resources.
    • JPEG is now supported for image downloads from external image databases. GameTDB uses JPEG for certain image types, including Nintendo DS covers.
    • Added support for downloading Nintendo DS, GameCube, and Wii cover scans. This includes cover and full cover scans for all three, and 3D cover scans for GameCube and Wii.
    • Multiple image sizes are now supported for external image downloads. GameTDB has higher-resolution scans for certain image types, including Nintendo DS cover scans. These high-resolution scans are used if a larger thumbnail size is requested by the file browser. An option to disable downloading of high-resolution images is available in the user config file.
    • (Windows) Physical block devices are now supported. This allows viewing ROM Properties for certain types of physical media, e.g. Wii DVD-R backups. Currently only the property page is supported. Thumbnails (and icons) are not supported for block devices.
    • Nintendo DS: Slot-2 PassMe ROM images are now recognized.
    • (rpcli) New option "-k". This option will verify all known keys in keys.conf. Verification is done by decrypting a string that was encrypted with the original key and checking if the decrypted string is correct.
    • GameCube: Added partial support for WIA disc images. A copy of the disc header is stored in plaintext in WIA format, so disc header fields and external images are supported. Region code, age ratings, and the internal GCN banner are not supported.
    • (Windows) A configuration program, rp-config.exe, is now included. This allows you to configure the image type priority for thumbnails as well as download options. Linux versions will be added in a future release, though the underlying rom-properties.conf functionality is implemented and works on all platforms.
    • (Windows) A new installation program, svrplus, is provided. This program supercedes install.cmd and uninstall.cmd.
    • (rpcli) New option "-c". This option prints the system region codes. This is mostly useful for debugging.

  • Bug fixes:

    • Fixed an inverted "Copy Protected" condition for Dreamcast VMI files.
    • Fixed age ratings not showing up for Japanese Nintendo DSi and Wii games.
    • Fixed access to files on Wii partitions located past 4 GB. This applies to logical addresses in sparse formats, e.g. WBFS.
    • Wii: The "Game Info" field may be two separate lines.
    • (GNOME) The libnautilus-extension path is no longer hard-coded to /usr/lib64/. This prevented it from working correctly on anything but 64-bit Linux systems that used the older multilib path, which means the Ubuntu GNOME packages did not work.
    • (Windows) Fixed a crash if tinyxml2.dll is missing and a Windows EXE with an embedded manifest resource is selected. Also improved the Delay-Load function to use architecture-specific subdirectories.

  • Other changes:

    • (Windows) The 32-bit EXEs have been moved out of the i386/ subdirectory and into the base directory. The 64-bit EXEs are still in the amd64/ subdirectory.

v0.9-beta2 (released 2017/02/07)

  • New features:

    • New GTK+ frontends for XFCE's Thunar file manager (using GTK+ 2.x) and GNOME's Nautilus file manager (using GTK+ 3.x). These currently only implement the property page. Thumbnailing for Nautilus has been implemented. Thumbnailing for Thunar will be added later.
      • While the GTK+ frontends share code, they are packaged separately in order to reduce dependencies on GNOME-only and XFCE-only systems.
    • Negative image caching for online databases (that is, caching the "this image does not exist" result) now expires after one week. This allows the image to be retrieved if it has since been uploaded to the database without manually clearing the local cache.
    • New command line frontend rpcli. This frontend lists the ROM information that would normally be displayed on the property page. It also has options for extracting internal images and downloading external images.
    • The Windows version now registers for "common" file extensions, e.g. ".bin" and ".iso". The previous handlers are saved as fallbacks. If rom-properties cannot handle one of these files, the fallback handler is used.

  • New systems supported:

    • Nintendo 64 ROM images: Z64, V64, swap2, and LE32 byteswap formats. Currently only supports text fields.
    • Super NES ROM images: Headered and non-headered images. Currently only supports text fields.
    • Sega Dreamcast save files: .VMS, .VMI, .VMS+.VMI, and .DCI formats. Supports text fields, icons, and the graphic eyecatch (as the banner). ICONDATA_VMS files are also supported.
    • Nintendo Virtual Boy ROM images: .VB format.
    • Nintendo amiibo NFC dumps: 540-byte .bin files. (On Windows, the .bin extension is not currently registered; alternatives are .nfc and .nfp)
    • Nintendo Entertainment System: iNES, FDS, QD, and TNES/TDS (3DS Virtual Console) formats are supported.

  • Changes to existing systems:

    • GameCube: Fixed accidental swapping of Triforce and Wii system names.
    • GameCube: Some save files have an embedded NULL byte in the description field. This caused the description to get truncated. This case is now handled. (Example: "Baten Kaitos Origins" save files.)
    • Wii: Added support for RVT-R debug discs. The encryption key used for each partition is now displayed in the partition listing.
    • Wii: Show the used size of each partition in addition to the total size.
    • Wii: Show the game title from opening.bnr.
    • Game Boy Advance: Some ROM images that are intended for use as expansion packs for Nintendo DS games weren't recognized because they don't have the Nintendo logo data. These ROM images are now detected and marked as non-bootable Nintendo DS expansions.
    • Game Boy Advance: Fixed the entry point. The value was off by 8 bytes due to the way branches are handled in the ARM pipeline. The branch offset is also signed, so it could be negative (though this is unlikely).
    • Nintendo DS: Fixed an issue where the first frame of DSi animated icons was not selected correctly. (Example: "Four Swords Anniversary Edition".)
    • Nintendo DS: Show age ratings for DSi-enhanced and DSi-exclusive games.

  • Other changes:

    • (Windows) Fixed anti-aliasing issues with monospaced fonts on the properties page.
    • (Windows) Fixed an incorrect half-pixel offset with some resized thumbnails, which resulted in the thumbnails "shifting" when Explorer switched from icons to thumbnails.
    • libpng is now used on all platforms. Previously, GDI+'s PNG loader was used on Windows, and it had some odd quirks like loading grayscale images as 32-bit ARGB instead of paletted.
    • (Windows) zlib and libpng are now compiled as DLLs instead of being statically linked. The DLLs are linked using delay-load, so they're not loaded until they're needed.
    • pngcheck: Fixed a race condition that could result in crashes if more than one thread attempted to load a PNG image at the same time.
    • Age ratings for CERO, ESRB, and AGCB are now converted to their official names instead of being displayed as numbers.

v0.8.1 (Windows only) (released 2016/10/24)

  • RP_ExtractIcon: Disabled icon caching. This was causing issues where all icons for supported ROM images were showing up as whichever file was the first to be processed.

v0.8-winfix (Windows only) (released 2016/10/23)

  • Fixed the working directory in the install.cmd and uninstall.cmd scripts. Windows switches to C:\Windows\System32 by default when running a program or batch file as Administrator, which prevented the installation scripts from finding the DLLs.

v0.8-beta1 (released 2016/10/23)

  • First beta release.

  • Host platforms: Windows XP and later, KDE 4.x, KDE 5.x

  • Target systems: Mega Drive (and add-ons), Nintendo DS(i), Nintendo GameCube (discs and save files), Nintendo Wii, Game Boy (Color), Game Boy Advance.

  • Internal images supported for GameCube discs and save files, and Nintendo DS ROMs.

  • Animated icons supported for GameCube save files and Nintendo DSi ROMs. Note that file browsers generally don't support animated icons, so they're only animated on the file properties page.

  • External image downloads supported for GameCube and Wii discs via GameTDB.com.

  • Decryption subsystem for Wii discs. Currently only used to determine the System Update version if a Wii disc has a System Update partition. Keys are not included; you must manually add the encryption keys to keys.conf. (See README.md for more information.)