box86/docs/CHANGELOG.md

v0.3.6

• Wrapping: More libs and function wrapping (gtk3, vulkan...)
• Reworked X11 Callback handling, for better stability
• Reworked exit and the load/unload of libs
• Some more profiles in box86rc
• More SSE3+ opcodes in dynarec
• Better way to rename executable (including wine ones) so driver like mesa can apply the correct profile
• Better handling of the Hardware Counter and TSC emulation
• Reworked memory managment in the Dynarec, limiting amount of dynamic allocation
• PageSize detection and handling dynamic. Larger than 4K pagesize will be handled automaticaly. Note that box64 does not emulate 4K page size, so some program might still refuse to work on larger page (like Wine for example) => Linux Games can now load even on a 16K pagesize machine like a mac M1, and games (including Unity3D ones) can be played with no issues.
• Lots of improvments in x87 handling (virtual stack, rounding, ffree, etc.) => should improve games stability
• Better handling of large block in the dynarec => should speedup dynarec, and allow use of BIGBLOCK 2 or 3 on more software
• Added suport for BOX86_DYNAREC_CALLRET optimisation. => backported from box64, can give 10% or more speed increase (but can also decrease speed in some cases). Still a bit crashy so use with care.

v0.3.4

• X86Libs: Updated libstdc++ & libgcc_s
• X86Libs: Use x86 vrsion of libunwind (it's needed by wine)
• Dynarec: Fixed some flags propagation issues inside blocks
• Dynarec: Improved Strong Memory Model emulation, introducing a 3rd level
• CPU: Remoworked how INT, priviliged opcodes and teh Trace flags works
• CPU: Added full support for SSE4.2
• ElfLoader: rework how elf memory is handled
• Emulation: Better handling of Signal (also handling SIGMAX correctly)
• Emulation: Better support for POKEUSER/PEEKUSER (helps Windows Unity games)
• Wrapping: More libs and some fixes in function wrapping (gtk3, vulkan...)
• Wrapping: Removed faked libunwind wrapping
• Hardware: Added more profile, with support for ADLink Ampere Altra
• OS: Added profile to build for Android and Termux. => Mostly a stability update with improved elfloader again, and added SSE 4.2 support (still need to work on the Dynarec part of this) => Some work also to reduce the memory footprint

v0.3.2

• Better syscall handling
• Fixed some wrapped functions, added some others
• Introduced another wrapper helper
• Added some more opcodes
• Added a cosimulation mode (to compare the behaviour of the dynarec against the interpreter)
• Added support of FASTNAN for some more opcodes
• Reduced memory footprint
• Added BOX86_NOSANDBOX (adds an argument to the command line)
• Added an ukrainian translation => Mostly a stability update with improved elfloader, fixed opcodes and refined profiles

v0.3.0

• Added rcfile handling: box86 now read /etc/box86.box86rc and ~/.box86rc and apply per process parameters => Every program can be finetuned, for speed or just to make them work
• Added BOX86_DYNAREC_FORWARD to allow bigger Dynarec block to be build
• Refactored Strong Memory Model emulation (faster and more accurate)
• Box86 now return a custom name for the CPU instal of P4, build with Box86 and the cpu name it's running on
• Improved memory protection tracking and signal handling, again
• More wrapped libs (especially on the gtk familly)
• More wrapped functions
• Added support for CreateDeviceEx in d3dadapter9, for better gallium nine support
• Improved dladdr/dladdr1 wrapped function
• Some fixes to flags handling in the Dynarec on some special cases
• Added specific suppport for RK3588 board (needed some hack in signal handling, probably due to the use of a non mainlined kernel)
• Lots of improvment in the Rounding of float & double (Dynarec and Interpretor), and proper handling of denormals when converting to/from 80 bits long double
• Added specific suppport for RK3588 board (needed some hack in signal handling, probably due to the use of a non mainlined kernel)

v0.2.8

• Wrapped more vulkan function, dxvk 2.0 now works
• Added support for overriden malloc/free functions
• Improved elf loader
• Improved dlsym handling with RTLD_NEXT
• Added BOX86_DYNAREC_SAFEFLAGS to allow finetuning Dynarec generated code handling of flags accross function calls and returns.
• Added BOX86_BASH to setup x86 bash binary, so shell script can be run in x86 world
• Added BOX86_ROLLING_LOG to have details log only on crash
• Improved TLS Size handling (Unity3D games now works)
• Improved execv family of function to have better box86 integration
• Added a few more wrapped libs, like FAudio
• Improved gtk, SDL2, GL, vulkan (and more) wrapping
• Improved Signal Handling and memory protection traking
• Added some basic support for statically linked program. Thread are not working yet, but memory allocation and file access does. => with the use of the new SafeFlags, some C# Windows program now runs fine (it's forced when the Vara family of software is detected) => With the basic support of statcaly linked program, old emulator like modeler for linux works. Program with threads like mugen for linux still doesn't => The bash integration is usefull for device with no binfmt integration or for script that check the machine it's running on

v0.2.6

• Added an option to get generated -NAN on SSE2 operation
• Many small fixes and improvement to get steam and SteamPlay working (along with box64)
• Added some workaround for program calling uname to mimic x86 system
• Added some more Vulkan extensions
• Added some granularity to mmap64, and generic memory protection tracking improvment, to mimic x86 system (for wine stagging and proton)
• Better clone syscall and libc implementation
• Improved wrapping of GTK libs
• More wrapped libs (more gtk libs, like gstreamer-1.0 among other non-gtk libs too)
• More wrapped functions(with some tricky one, like dladdr1)
• Some fixes and improvment to some wrapped functions
• Refactor Dynarec:
  • better handling of SSE/x87 registers
  • optimisation to limit float/double conversion
  • better handling of "internal" jump inside a dynablock
• Improved elfloader
• Improved some tests
• A few fixes in some Dynarec opcodes
• Don't quit on unsupported syscall, return -1 / ENOSYS error
• A bit more optimisation in some Dynarec opcodes

v0.2.4

• Some work on Dynarec to limit the number of mutex use, and also allow smaller block to be built (for JIT'd programs)
• Introduce BOX86_DYNAREC_STRONGMEM, like with box64 (not found any program that needs that yet)
• More vulkan wrapped function (so dkvk works, at least with RX550)
• Reworked Elfloader part, with better handling of versionned symbols
• Improve speed for x87 code (by avoiding many float<->double conversion)
• Improve speed of the custom allocator used by dynarec and Hash (speedup loading)
• Added a detection of box64 in uname call, to expose an x86_64 system instead of i386 one
• Added a fix for linking box86 on system using glibc 2.34+
• A few more wrapped libs
• More ARM hardware option in CMake (Phytium, SD845)
• Changed a bit struture of Dynarec, switching some operations from Pass1 to Pass0
• Small fixes to elfloader
• Some fixes and improvments on wrapped libs (mainly gtk2, gtk3 and d3dadpter)
• Better VSyscall implementation
• Fixed the "Alternate" handling (address shadowing on x86 side)
• A few opcodes border case fixes
• Improved wrapper helpers (from rajdakin)
• Added a mecanism to cancel a Dynarec block construction if it triggers a segfault (instead of a crash)
• Improvment to the handling of longjmp inside signal handlers

v0.2.2

• Reworked some elfloader relocation mecanism
• Removed old "smart linker" and replace with a simple "jump table"
• Also removed CALL/RET optomisation from Dynarec, simple Jump Table is faster
• Reworked all memory protection tracking
• A few more wrapped libs and wrapped functions
• A few more opcodes
• A few more dynarec opcodes
• Some optimisation in Dynarec around ZF and CF flags handlings, and LL/GE/LE/G conditionnal opcodes
• Some changes to the "cancel threads" handling
• Some changes to the "thread once" handling

v0.2.0

• Improvements on x86 Flags handling.
• A few more opcode has been added.
• A few potential BusError are now fixed.
• Added the BOX86_NOVULKAN en. var. . This is used to disable the wrapping of vulkan libraries.
• Improvments on libc O_XXXX flags handling.
• Box86 now uses a custom allocator for Dynarec and Hash tables.
• Improved the wrapping of pulse audio.
• Optimisation to a few Dynarec opcode (like SHRD/SHLD).
• Improved the tracking of memory protection.
• A few more wrapping of libraries (like libgssapi_krb5).
• More function wrapping on libturbojpeg
• Preliminary support for POWER9 (ppcle) build
• Many contributions to remove typos and rephrase the README, COMPILE and USAGE documents

v0.1.8

• Fixes on some float to int x86 convertions opcodes.
• Reworked all callback mecanisms.
• Added libturbojpeg wrapping (and a hack for zoom to force using native one).
• Added the BOX86_SAFEMMAP env. var.
• Reworked Dynarec's memory manager.
• Added a few opcodes.
• Improve elfloader to not force PltResolver all the time (fixing SuperHexagon and maybe other)
• Reworked Exet and Cancel Thread mecanism.
• Added wrapped libldap_r and liblber library (used by wine)
• Reworked Dynarec block handling, and remove the "AddMark" mecanism that wasn't efficient enough
• Added TokiTori 2+ detection and runtime patch on the Raspberry Pi platform
• Fixes on elfloader with TLS object.

v0.1.6

• Changes in Dynarec to make flags optimizations before CALL and RET opcode less aggressive.
• Added a Vulkan wrapper.
• Improved wrapping of SDL_mixer/ SDL2_mixer libraries.
• Improved wrapping of some GTK structures.
• Added a quick and dirty wrapping of GTK3 (based on current GTK2).
• Improved the signal handling, should be more stable now (the signal handler from syscall still need some works).
• Added the RK3399 profile, and some hints to build 32bits box86 on 64bits OS.
• Fixed some wrapped printf formating not handled correctly.
• Fixed some buserror with the new LOCK mecanism handling.
• A few more Dynarec opcodes added.
• If winedbg is tried to be launched, exit without launching it (it doesn't work anyways).

v0.1.4

• Change in Dynarec's memory handling, to simplify it (and hopefully optimized it).
• Even more opcodes added.
• And some more Dynarec opcodes.
• Fixed some issue were PltResolver was injected but should not be.
• Fixed many Dynarec and non dynarec opcodes.
• Improved Signal handling.
• Added a few more wrapped libraries (like curl).
• Gallium9 is now wrapped (thx @icecream95).
• Fixed and simplied many wrapped functions (especialy the one where a callback is involved).
• Fixed Dynarec "freeing" a Dynablock sometimes causing a corruption of the heap (generally happens in case of JIT code).
• Optimized the way LOCK prefix work when using Dynarec on ARM.
• improvements to the ARM opcode Printer (for dumping Dynarec blocks) improvement (thx @rajdakin).

v0.1.2

• The Dynarec now handle JIT code
• Added support for Unity games (not perfect yet).
• Added support for Wine (not perfect yet). You need an x86 build of Wine to use it.
• Added support for Steam (not perfect yet). Note that Steam have limited functionalities on 32bits (only mini-mode is available).
• More wrapped libs
• Added support for the "PltResolver". This makes the order of libraries less important and many symbols are now resolved at runtime.
• Added an option to build Box86 as a library (to wrap dynamic library).
• Better Signal handling (not perfect yet).
• More opcodes added, more opcode fixes.
• More Dynarec opcodes.
• Added support for FS:, and creating custom selector (needed by Wine).
• There is now 1 x86emu_t structure per thread (simplifying/optimising many callback handling).
• Box86 now has a logo!
• Added options handling (only version and help for now). Now it's much usefull exept for version printing.

v0.1.0

• Dynarec!!! Only for ARM (note that Dynarec doesn't support JITed code for now).
• Added real support for getcontext/set/context/makecontext/swapcontext.
• Preliminary signal handling.
• Fixes to SDL(1/2) Image and SDL1 Mixer, and to SDL1.2 RWops usage.
• Fixed numerous issues in opcodes (both interpretor and dynarec). FTL works fine now, among many others.
• Added wrapped GTK support (still ongoing, many libraries involved).
• Make loading of libraries more configurable.
• If a wrapped native library is not found, try to use an emulated one.
• Added an env. var. to force the use of emulated libraries for certain libraries.
• Added an env. var. to precise which libGL to use.
• Added Install / Uninstall target (using systemd binfmt).
• Added more hardware targets (RPis, GameShell...).
• Wrapped more libraries (including FreeType, smpeg, ncurses, sndfile...).

v0.0.4

• Improved the initialisation of dependent libraries. More things work now.
• Added a lot of wrapped functions.
• Added a few wrapped libraries (like libz or some other x11 related library).
• For trace enabled build, Trace can be enabled only after a certain amount of opcodes (still, a debugger would be better).
• Some fixes in a few opcodes, and implemented x87 rounding (SuperMeatBoy behaves better now).
• FTL 1.6.9 still has corrupted music, but older 1.5.13 seems fine (different set of libraries).

v0.0.2

• A full commercial games runs fine on the Pandora platform: Airline Tycoon Deluxe.
• Implemented all planned subparts of Box86 except JIT support.
• CPU Emulation is at roughly 75%. This includes x87 and SSE/SSE2. MMX is barely implemented (but barely used anyway).
• x87 emulation is simplified, no real x87 State handling (but should not be mandatory, as the native libm library is used)
• No Signal handling yet
• ELF Loader is crude and probably full of bugs. Also, the initialisation of libraries are defered after all symbols are resolved for now.
• Wrapped libraries include libc, libm, rt, pthread, libdl, dllinux, libasound, GL, GLU, SDL1/mixer/image, SDL2/mixer/image/smpeg, OpenAL/ALUT, libz, libpng16, vorbisfile, x11/xrandr/xxf86vm.
• Most wrapped libraries are still partially implemented ( the SDL1 & GL libraries should be complete).
• Implemented specific mecanism for SDL(1/2) RWops, to be able to used them both in Native and x86 world.
• WorldOfGoo works, but is painfully slow on the Pandora platform (there is too much double math, and lack of JIT).
• FTL works, but sound is broken (issue with thread? asound? or CPU core?)
• Limbo launches but crashes before main menu.