303 lines
17 KiB
Markdown
303 lines
17 KiB
Markdown
+++
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date = "2018-09-20T22:00:00+05:30"
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title = "Citra Progress Report - 2018 Q2"
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tags = [ "progress-report" ]
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author = "anodium"
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coauthor = "CaptV0rt3x"
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forum = 49673
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+++
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Hello everyone to the summer (or winter, for those on the southern half of this
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Earth) edition of Citra's progress reports. Although not very many large changes
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have been made, many fixes have focused on accuracy improvements and implementing
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some of the sorely needed user experience features.
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Before we go further into this, our [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/citraemu/posts)
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poll results are out.
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We asked our patrons, which feature they would like to see us work on next and
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they delivered. Here are the results and as you will see, some of these have
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been considered and already implemented.
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{{< figure src="patreon.png"
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title="Patreon Poll Results" >}}
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To get access to such exclusives in the future and to support this project,
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consider becoming a patron. Now, enough appetizing, have your entrée:
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## [Add pause, speed limit hotkeys](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3594) by [valentinvanelslande](https://github.com/valentinvanelslande)
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Let's start with a simple but sweet one — you can now assign hotkeys to
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pausing, unpausing, and toggling speed limiting. By default, you can pause with
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<kbd>F4</kbd> and toggle speed limiting with <kbd><kbd>Ctrl</kbd>+<kbd>Z</kbd></kbd>.
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But, of course, you can bind these actions to other keys in Citra's `qt-config.ini`.
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The property for pausing is `Shortcuts\Main%20Window\Continue\Pause\KeySeq` and
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for speed toggling it is `Shortcuts\Main%20Window\Toggle%20Speed%20Limit\KeySeq`.
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## [Add support for multiple game directories](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3617) by [BreadFish64](https://github.com/BreadFish64)
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You can now configure Citra to search multiple directories for games and apps!
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This allow you to keep titles across different folders, and if you have any
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launchable titles installed into Citra's virtual SD card or NAND, they'll also
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show up in their own section so you can boot them from the game list.
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{{< figure src="multiple_gamedirs.png"
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title="Multiple Game Directories" >}}
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## [Add support for stereoscopic 3D](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3632) by [N00byKing](https://github.com/N00byKing)
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If you are one of the lucky few with a 3D TV or monitor attached to your
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computer, stereoscopic 3D support has just been added to Citra! You can enable
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it by heading to <kbd><samp>Emulation</samp> → <samp>Configure...</samp> → <samp>Graphics</samp> → <samp>Layout</samp></kbd>,
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ticking the <samp>Enable Stereoscopic 3D</samp> checkbox, and changing the
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screen layout to <samp>Side by Side</samp>.
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{{< figure src="3d-sxs.png"
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title="Although you can't see this in 3D, try crossing your eyes or using a mirror!" >}}
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## [Software Keyboard Implementation](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3850) by [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779) and [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy)
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For the longest time, many games were unplayable or needed workarounds on Citra
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due to them needing the software keyboard applet. The reason being that whenever
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they would try to open it, Citra didn't implement it, and so would simply tell
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the game that the user entered "Citra" and tapped OK, without actually prompting.
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But now, thanks to zhaowenlan1779 and jroweboy, it now has fully functional
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software keyboard emulation!
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Whenever a game requests it, Citra will pause the game and pull up a text box that
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you can fill in like any other prompt.
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{{< gifv src="swkbd.mp4"
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title="Now you can change your name to anything!" >}}
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## Open Source System Archives ([#3977](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3977), [#3881](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3881)) by [B3n30](https://github.com/B3n30)
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Many Nintendo 3DS games require the use of system archives, which contain things
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like fonts, a bad word list, and assets for Miis. Because these are copyrighted,
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Citra could not include them, and users had to dump a copy from their consoles,
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which was a generally tedious and error-prone process.
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Now, [B3n30](https://github.com/B3n30) has created open source alternative fonts
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and a bad word list that can be used in games instead of the official archives.
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And, because these are open source, they are now included with Citra. If a game
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requires either archive, and you haven't dumped them yet, it'll automatically give
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the game the alternative archives. This is a step forward to Citra becoming
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a full-fledged HLE 3DS emulator.
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## [Implement shadow map](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3778) by [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele)
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Shadow mapping is a way to quickly apply shadows to 3D scenes. It first renders
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the scene without any lighting, texture, or colour information, with a virtual
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camera from where the light source begins. Then, from that rendering the depth
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map is extracted. That is then applied as a texture to the darkened scene, making
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areas of it directly visible from the light source appear more brightly lit.
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The PICA200 (the GPU inside the 3DS) and OpenGL both implement this in different
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ways, particularly in two important areas:
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* The first is that PICA200 supports a variant called "soft shadows", where the
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depth map is blurred before being applied to the scene. This results in shadows
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that seem less jagged and sharp, making the light source feel more diffuse and
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evenly spread out throughout the scene. OpenGL doesn't support this at all.
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* The second is that the PICA200 stores depth maps intended for shadow mapping as
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plain textures in the RGBA8 format. A lot of games exploit this in order to quickly
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convert other types of textures from an internal format to RGBA8. But, OpenGL
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stores these maps in a format internal to that graphics card, like any other map.
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(RGBA8 or 8bit RGBA is a texture format, which is the combination of an RGB
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(red green blue) color model with an extra 4th alpha channel.)
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The first point isn't as significant, since the softness can be ignored on OpenGL,
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resulting in a very fast (but inaccurate) shadow mapping. Because games rarely
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use soft shadows, this can be ignored relatively safely.
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The second point though, because games use it very often, it has to be implemented
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accurately. The naïve way would be to simply convert internal textures to RGBA8
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manually, but this would slow rendering down to a crawl. The smart way would be
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to try and trick the graphics card driver into performing a similar conversion,
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but such an attempt exposed a lot of issues, leading to instability.
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After some very hard work by [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele), both problems
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were solved with a single solution. OpenGL supports an extension called
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Image Load/Store, which allows shaders to read and write to any texture
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directly. Using this, he created a shader that could accurately implement both
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soft shadows, and convert the depth map from its internal format to RGBA8 very
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quickly.
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{{< sidebyside "image" ""
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"shadowmap-before.png=Before Shadow Mapping"
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"shadowmap-after.png=After Shadow Mapping" >}}
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Unfortunately, because Image Load/Store is an optional extension, not every
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OpenGL 3.3 graphics card will support it. In these cases, Citra will simply ignore
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shadow maps, making the rendering inaccurate but usable. Image Load/Store became
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a mandatory part of OpenGL in version 4.2, so every graphics card that complies
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with OpenGL 4.2 is guaranteed to work correctly.
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**Citra only requires a minimum
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compliance to OpenGL 3.3, but OpenGL 4.2 compliance may lead to more accurate
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rendering.**
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## [Implement cubeb audio backend](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3776) by [darkf](https://github.com/darkf)
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[`cubeb`](https://github.com/kinetiknz/cubeb/) is an audio library (developed by
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the Mozilla Foundation) that's cross-platform, and most importantly ***fast***.
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Reports from [Dolphin's blog](https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2017/06/03/dolphin-progress-report-may-2017/#50-3937-add-cubeb-audio-backend-by-ligfx)
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showed that it ran at a *third* of the latency of their OpenAL backend. And now,
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thanks to the work done by [darkf](https://github.com/darkf) and some fixes
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from [MerryMage](https://github.com/MerryMage), Citra can now benefit from that
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same low latency audio that Dolphin and Mozilla Firefox have. This will lead to
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significantly less distortion and stuttering in your games. Just remember to
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enable it in the configuration menu by setting `Output Engine` as `cubeb`.
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## [Volume Slider](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3831) by [Fearlesstobi](https://github.com/fearlesstobi)
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You can now configure the volume level of Citra directly from the configuration
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window. This allows you to set an individual volume level for Citra without
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having to manually set it in your operating system settings.
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{{< figure src="volume-slider.png"
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title="Volume Slider" >}}
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## [Discord Rich Presence](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3883) by [CaptV0rt3x](https://github.com/CaptV0rt3x)
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Rich Presence allows you to leverage the totally boring "Now Playing" section
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in a Discord user's profile. This feature lets users show off when they are
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playing their favorite games on Citra. This has been a common feature request
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from many users, and since many other emulators have already implemented this,
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it made sense to implement it here as well.
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{{< figure src="rpc.png"
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title="Discord Rich Presence" >}}
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Discord Rich Presence works by creating a local connection with Citra and your
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Discord App. It ***does not*** connect to (or) send any data to Discord servers.
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This option is user configurable, so you can choose to show or not to show rich
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presence in your discord status. Just head out to <kbd><samp>Emulation</samp>
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→ <samp>Configure...</samp> → <samp>Web</samp> → <samp>Discord
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Presence</samp></kbd> and check / uncheck "Show current game in your Discord
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status".
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## [Set Default values for settings](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3924) by [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779)
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The majority of support requests we get are mostly due to users accidentally
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enabling or disabling some settings. But now with this feature, we have
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default values for all our settings. This ensures that in case of any new
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settings changes, majority of the users (who haven't customized those settings)
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will now have the new default value automatically.
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## [Add support for encrypted games](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4020) by [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele)
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You can now directly use your encrypted game dumps in Citra, without having to
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decrypt them. This requires that the user provide their keys via a text file
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in `sysdata/aes_keys.txt`.
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Currently all known encryption methods are implemented except for the Seed
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crypto. Seed crypto is used in newer eshop games, which essentially uses an
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additional title-unique key that is stored outside of the ROM.
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## [Scripting support](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4016) by [EverOddish](https://github.com/EverOddish)
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Scripting is an extremely useful feature which allows us to do things like
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debugging emulator internals, reverse engineering 3DS game internals,
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Tool-Assisted-Speedrunning (TAS), and the ability to manipulate memory in
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games. A cheat-like interface could be implemented through this (though, not
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specifically Gameshark / AR codes).
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Users can make their own scripts or use publicly available scripts to gain
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power over things like game screen display, inputs, and memory. Scripts can
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also be used to read or modify the internal game state. EverOddish wrote some
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scripts that can read internal stats of the Pokémon and automatically
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update image files for your current party. This feature is very useful for
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streamers who might want to display game information on their streams.
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## Movie - game input recording and playback ([#2882](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/2882), [#3922](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3922)) by [danzel](https://github.com/danzel) and [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779)
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This feature, not to be confused with video/audio recording, implements a way
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to record game inputs and play them back. Every time the hardware reads an
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input device (buttons, touch screen, accelerometer, gyroscope, c-stick) the
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emulator copies (when recording) or replaces (when playing) the values. Once
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playback has finished, we release control of inputs so that the user can take
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control.
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{{< figure src="movie.png"
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title="UI options to record" >}}
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For this, danzel heavily took inspiration from dolphin's system and zhaowenlan1779
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wrote the UI for this feature. This method results in `.ctm` (Citra TAS movie)
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files which are playble in Citra. To play a game's `.ctm` file you would need
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to have the game and also manually set Citra's system time to the same starting
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value as in the `.ctm`. This feature makes debugging bugs in games much easier,
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as it doesn't require us to go through the whole process again.
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## [Add system time configuration](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4043) by [B3N30](https://github.com/b3n30)
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Whenever a game requested time information, Citra always used your PC's system
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time. This method had a couple of issues - for example, if you were playing a game
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at 200% speed for 2 hours. As its running at twice the max speed, playing for
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2 hours in real-time should reflect 4 hours simulated time. But, due to Citra
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sending your PC's time to games, it wasn't happening.
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{{< figure src="system-clock.png"
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title="System Time setting (edited to show both options)" >}}
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Also, players might want to set Citra's time to a specific value to ensure
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consistency with TAS or with RNG(random number generator) or for getting
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time specific game events. Earlier you had to modify your PC's system time
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to achieve this but thanks to B3N30, you can now just set it in Citra's
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configuration window.
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## [Joystick Hot-plugging](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4141) by [B3N30](https://github.com/b3n30)
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For a long time, Citra didn't support controller hot plugging. This meant that
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if by chance your controller disconnected Citra would fail to detect it after
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re-connection, unless you restarted the emulator. This caused a lot of
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frustration among users who preferred playing with controllers.
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Hot plugging (also called hot swapping) is the ability to add and remove
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devices to a computer system while the computer is running and have the
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operating system automatically recognize the change.
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Thanks to the efforts of B3N30 and [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy)
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(who researched SDL controller configuration), Citra now doesn't fail to detect
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your controllers in case of a disconnection. However, due to heavy rework of
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the existing input configuration code, this requires users to reconfigure their
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controllers after updating Citra.
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## UDP client to provide motion & touch controls ([#4049](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4049), [#4059](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/4059)) by [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy) and [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779)
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Citra's previous motion controls were a bit uncomfortable to use. You had to
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use your mouse's right-click and drag to tilt the screen, but it was often
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hard to figure out where to move the cursor to get the kind of tilt we want.
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Using a real device for motion controls is simply much more intuitive and will
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be an all around better experience for users. As such, jroweboy set out to
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implement cemuhook motion/touch protocol which adds the ability for users to
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connect several different devices to citra to send direct motion and touch
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data to citra.
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{{< figure src="cemuhookudp.png"
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title="Motion/Touch Configuration Window" >}}
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[Cemuhook](https://cemuhook.sshnuke.net/) is a very popular plugin developed by [rajkosto](https://github.com/rajkosto)
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for Cemu - the Wii U emulator. This protocol was chosen simply because of the
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fact that there aren't many alternatives and this already has good device
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support. Moreover, as it uses UDP, it works on just about anything with a
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network stack and allows the server to even be a remote network device (useful
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for Android motion support). zhaowenlan1779 wrote the UI for this feature,
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to make it easily accessible and configurable by all users.
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## Et. al.
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Apart from the above mentioned ones, we have also had a lot of minor optimizations
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and bug fixes ported from yuzu. We've made changes to our authentication system
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to use JWT (JSON web tokens), added a background color selector, made GDB stub
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improvements, and many more.
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Thank you to [everyone](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/graphs/contributors?from=2018-05-20&to=2018-08-31&type=c)
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for pouring your blood and sweat into this project. Citra needs contributors
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like you to stay alive and become the best it can be.
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<h4 style="text-align:center;">
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<b>Please consider supporting us on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/citraemu)!<br>
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If you would like to contribute to this project, checkout our [GitHub](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra)!</b>
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</h4> |