Release Notes for openMSX 0.8.1 (2011-03-12)
============================================

This release builds on the previous one, in the sense that we worked out the
features a little more. We added a lot of scripts to help you with Tool
Assisted Speedruns (TAS), one of the reasons openMSX got officially approved as
a TAS capable emulator on TASvideos.org. The reverse feature also got some
updates while doing this.
For the rest, this release does a lot of smaller fixes and additions, see the
list below.

Here's the list with all highlights:

New or improved emulator features:
- Quite complete support for TAS (see http://www.tasvideos.org/)
  - TAS mode with many TAS widgets activated automatically
  - extended tools: keyboard view per frame, frame reverse/advance, robust
    frame counter, save slot mechanism, RAM watch, etc.
- Updates on reverse (and related features):
  - enabled by default now (except on Dingoo)
  - changed (default) extensions of replays and savestates to OMR and OMS
    respectively
  - added a view only mode to the reverse feature (watch replays without
    interrupting them)
  - replays now usually contain multiple snapshots, so you can quickly jump
    around in a just loaded replay (e.g. to the end!)
  - huge performance improvements when loading replays/savestates
  - added filepools to put your software files in; when loading a replay with a
    file which is not available, openMSX will scan the filepools: default
    location is share/software
  - added hover with time indicator on reverse bar
  - fixed bug when using DirAsDisk in combination with reverse
  - added step_back function: while debugging step back one instruction
- Added info topic to query VDP timing information
- Fixed saving of replays, screenshots, etc., when the directory wasn't
  available yet
- Fixed bug in per-soundchip-channel audio recording
- Fixed auto stereo recording for mbstereo-like configurations (was done in
  mono)
- OSD:
  - Show warning/error messages that were previously only shown on
    standard-output in an OSD text box
  - Added gradients for rectangles to make the OSD look more polished
  - Added border property to OSD rectangle
- Added script to find cases of too fast VDP access (of which the consequences
  are not emulated)
- Added setting to disable sprites and option to make screenshot without
  sprites (especially useful for map makers!)
- Added script to record movies in multiple files, especially useful for
  YouTube (record_chunks)
- Replaced automatic printing of ROM info (from the software database) with a
  command to get the info on demand (rom_info)
- Automatically plug in real joysticks into the MSX
- Several performance improvements to several toys scripts

MSX device support:
- Fixed accuracy of mouse emulation
- Fixed bug in sprite collision detection (sprites can't collide in the border)
- Better support for keyboard of Brazilian MSX machines
- Don't emulate Yes/No keys on machines that don't have them
- Accuracy improvements:
  - (minor) fixes in MSX-AUDIO, YM2413 (Okazaki) and R800 emulation
- Added emulation of the Mega Flash ROM SCC+ and ASCII Japanese MSX-DOS2
- Added emulation of seek delay, head-load and rotational delay on TC8566AF
  based disk drives
- Added Sony HB-F5 and CIEL Expert Turbo machine

Build system, packaging, documentation:
- Updates of libraries used in the static builds
- Windows binary built with Visual Studio 2010
- Basic (experimental) support for cross compilation of Windows 32 bit binaries
  from Linux (using MinGW)
- Updated C-BIOS to 0.25, with support for various localized machines

And of course the usual various bug fixes.