citra-progress-report-2018-q1 (#84)

Citra Progress Report 2018 Q1

site/content/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1.md

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+date = "2018-05-30T19:30:00+05:30"
+title = "Citra Progress Report 2018 Q1"
+tags = [ "progress-report" ]
+author = "CaptV0rt3x"
+forum = 23597
++++
+
+It's been a while folks - since the last report, we have had many new features come to Citra. Some
+notable ones include multiplayer improvements, hardware shader improvements (post GLvtx), a logging
+system rewrite, and the highly coveted camera support. Our continuous integration (CI) systems were
+optimized as well. Apart from these, we have had many more minor features, improvements, and bug fixes.
+So, without further ado let's get right into it:
+
+## citra-qt: Multiplayer Improvements ([here](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3444), [there](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3481), [this](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3489), and [that](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3676)) by [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy) and [B3n30](https://github.com/B3n30)
+
+Citra has been able to run many games at playable speeds for a while now. However, it was always lacking
+something which the 3DS has: the ability to play with friends. In order to make it a reality, our developers [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy), [B3n30](https://github.com/B3N30), [Subv](https://github.com/subv),
+and [JayFoxRox](https://github.com/jayfoxrox) worked tirelessly for months to reverse engineer workings
+of the 3DS local wireless system. Thanks to their efforts, Citra now emulates _local wireless multiplayer_
+over the internet. This allows you to play your favorite games with your virtual friends across the world.
+Later [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy), [B3n30](https://github.com/B3n30), and few others
+worked on various feature improvements and bug fixes.
+
+### Features
+Currently, the multiplayer features include:
+
+* We now have multiple servers, maintained by our very own [FlameSage](https://community.citra-emu.org/u/flamesage/summary)
+and many other community members at various locations around the globe, so that you can meet others
+online.
+* You can now create rooms which can hold up to 16 players and even secure them with a password.
+* You can now set a preferred game for your room.
+* You can also filter the servers to suit your needs.
+
+{{< figure src="/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/server-list.png"
+    title="Sooo many servers to choose from!" >}}
+
+Since its initial release in Canary, developers have listened to the community and have been trying
+very hard to fix bugs causing games to be incompatible. They have also added other features to make
+the multiplayer experience richer.
+
+### Compatible Titles
+We are proud to announce that multiplayer currently works in the following list of titles:
+
+* Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 3 Professional
+* Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon
+* Mario Party: The Top 100
+* Monster Hunter 3G & 3 Ultimate
+* Monster Hunter 4, 4G & 4 Ultimate
+* Monster Hunter X
+* Monster Hunter XX
+* New Super Mario Bros. 2
+* Pokémon Omega Ruby / Alpha Sapphire
+* Pokémon Sun / Moon
+* Pokémon Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon
+* Pokémon Virtual Console
+* Super Smash Bros.
+* The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
+* And many more.
+
+### Incompatible Titles
+For various reasons, the following games were tested and do not work:
+
+* Asphalt Assault 3D
+* Code of Princess (*a fix is in works*)
+* Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland 3D
+* F1 2011
+* Kirby Fighters Deluxe
+* Kirby Triple Deluxe
+* Mario Party Island Tour
+* Mario Party Star Rush
+* Mario Kart 7
+* Planet Crashers
+* Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D
+* Ridge Racer 3D
+* Sonic Generations
+* Street Fighter IV
+* Tetris Ultimate
+
+***Note that this list isn't absolute, and multiplayer may or may not work in games not listed here.  
+Also note that Download Play and Spotpass titles do not work as they are beyond the scope of current
+local multiplayer***.
+
+Although multiplayer is supported, some games might still experience issues with it. Since the servers
+are located in various locations, latency will play a major role in your gameplay experience, so always
+choose a server that is nearby (geographically). Please use our [support forums](https://community.citra-emu.org/),
+[IRC](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=citra), or [Discord](https://citra-emu.org/discord/) for
+help regarding issues with multiplayer.
+
+Read more about the multiplayer feature update [here](https://citra-emu.org/entry/announcing-networking-support/).
+
+## citra-qt: Hardware Shader Improvements (post GLvtx) by [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele) and [degasus](https://github.com/degasus)
+
+Citra has come a long way from just being able to render graphics in 2015, to being able to run games
+at a playable state. Still, Citra was only fast for users who had better hardware. Users with slower
+processors suffered from lag and stuttering during gameplay.
+
+Now, thanks to the combined efforts of [phantom](https://github.com/phanto-m), [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy), [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele), [MerryMage](https://github.com/MerryMage), and many more, we
+now have a near-complete hardware renderer with huge improvements. Citra now uses the host GPU to its
+fullest to render graphics. [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele) and [MerryMage](https://github.com/MerryMage)
+took it upon themselves to simplify the humongous heap of code into smaller parts, fixing, and testing
+them.
+
+Thanks to [degasus](https://github.com/degasus) from the Dolphin community, who imparted his valuable
+knowledge and understanding of GPUs and OpenGL, we were able to optimize the _streaming storage buffer_
+support added by [phantom](https://github.com/phanto-m). This was done entirely by [degasus](https://github.com/degasus)
+himself ([here](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3504), [there](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3666),
+and [that](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3711)). The old way to upload the data (both vertex
+and constants) was a simple `glBufferData` call. Keep in mind, however, that the GPU has a huge execution
+latency, so you can't just copy the new content over the existing buffer. The driver has to choose
+between different ways to deal with this issue, with different drawbacks:
+
+1. Wait for the GPU to finish and copy to the destination buffer. Usually this method is the fastest
+for big uploads, fine on common gaming, but terrible for emulators.
+2. Allocate a new buffer and tell the GPU which new buffer shall be used now. You also need to care
+about freeing the old buffer once it isn't in use any more. This tends to have a huge CPU overhead and
+isn't available on partial buffer updates such as lighting LUTs.
+3. Copy the data to an internal staging buffer and ask the GPU to copy it again to the destination
+when it is ready. This uses twice the memory bandwidth, and switching between rendering and copying also
+takes a while for the GPU. This proves to be a significant bottleneck if done for every single draw call.
+
+In the end, all of these are bad in terms of performance. It is a simple upload call, but it either
+requires many copies and context switches, or the GPU is stalled (_More on that in [here](https://de.slideshare.net/CassEveritt/approaching-zero-driver-overhead)_). Instead, Citra
+allocates a big staging buffer, copies the data to the current position within the buffer,
+and tells the GPU to directly access the data from there. The driver has no scope of interpreting what
+we ask it to do.
+
+_This has a downside as well_. The GPU now accesses the main memory over PCIe. So if we're going to
+reuse the same data in the next frame, it has to go through the PCIe bottleneck again. But, we never
+use the same data again and hence gain a big performance boost.
+
+[wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele) tweaked the configuration UI and renamed some parts of it.
+However, this caused some confusion about the configuration window and GPU features.
+
+### What's changed in the UI?
+
+With the initial release of GLvtx, we added support for running shaders on the host GPU. So, we had
+a dropdown menu called **Shader Emulation** to select either CPU or GPU, to run the shaders. The
+option has now been renamed as **Enable Hardware Shader**. When enabled, it makes use of the host
+GPU, and when disabled, it uses the CPU alone.
+
+Due to many of the users having older hardware, we introduced an option called **Accurate Hardware
+Shader**. It was later renamed to **Accurate Multiplication**, because technically that's what it was
+doing. ***When enabled it would render games with more accuracy at the cost of slower performance***.
+Same goes for **Accurate Geometry Shader**. Earlier this was configurable via the INI file, but now
+it can be configured in the UI.
+
+&nbsp;
+{{< sidebyside "image" "/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/"
+    "renderer-settings.png=Old Graphics Tab"
+    "renderer-settings-new.png=New Graphics Tab" >}}
+
+During it's time in Canary, a lot of testing was done by our contributors. They tested many games,
+under varied hardware conditions and submitted valuable telemetry data, crash logs, etc., which helped
+us in fixing issues with the hardware shader support.
+
+**Note**:
+Unfortunately, due to driver issues with AMD GPUs and inadequate OpenGL support on macOS, the hardware
+shader might not perform better than the software renderer under these conditions. However, worry not,
+as research is being done into possible fixes that might come around sooner than you think.
+
+Read more about hardware renderer improvements in detail [here](https://citra-emu.org/entry/improvements-to-hardware-renderer/).
+
+## Continuous Integration (CI) Improvements ([here](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3647), [there](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3649), [this](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3706), and [that](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3744)) by [liushuyu](https://github.com/liushuyu)
+
+One of the more time and resource consuming parts of the project were our build generating environments.
+We use Travis and Appveyor to release fully functional builds for download. However, the time it took
+for the builds to be created was too long and if it was stopped abruptly, it took even more time to
+create the builds again. Thanks to [liushuyu](https://github.com/liushuyu)'s contributions, we were
+able to optimize this whole process and make it very efficient to build and release latest changes to
+our site.
+
+## Logging System Rewrite ([here](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3449), [there](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3533) and [that](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3568)) by [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy) and [daniellimws](https://github.com/daniellimws)
+
+Our old logging system had several drawbacks and was due to be updated. So, a newer and efficient
+logging system based on fmtlib was designed and implemented by [jroweboy](https://github.com/jroweboy)
+and [daniellimws](https://github.com/daniellimws). This gets rid of the ugly console window and made
+many under the hood improvements to the logging system. This will make identifying and fixing issues
+a whole lot faster. After the implemetation was done, migrating our codebase to the new system was a
+huge endeavour shared by [daniellimws](https://github.com/daniellimws), and many others.
+
+## [citra-qt: Camera Support](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3566) by [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779)
+
+One of the highly requested features of Citra has been the support for using the system camera to
+scan QR codes and other kinds of images. [zhaowenlan1779](https://github.com/zhaowenlan1779) took it
+upon himself to provide Citra with this feature. By making use of the available Qt libraries, he worked
+on the implementation for weeks and was finally able to finish the feature. Citra now boasts the ability
+to directly scan images and use the system camera in a manner similar to the 3DS camera.
+
+{{< figure src="/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/camera.jpg"
+    title="System Camera Support" >}}
+
+## [citra-qt: Translations](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3297) by [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele) and [The Citra Community](https://community.citra-emu.org)
+
+For a long while now, Citra’s UI had been in English and has had absolutely no support for other languages. [wwylele](https://github.com/wwylele) discussed this at length with other contributors and finally
+brought UI translations to Citra. Citra can now be used in many other languages. Note that these
+translations are maintained by our own community members and the translations are hosted on
+[Transifex](https://www.transifex.com/citra/citra/). Now, you too can submit a translation for your
+language (if it doesn’t exist already), or review existing translations to make them accurate.
+
+{{< figure src="/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/translation.jpeg"
+    title="Citra - Now available in your language" >}}
+
+## [Sending Test Cases via Telemetry](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/pull/3325) by [BreadFish64](https://github.com/BreadFish64)
+
+Over the years, Citra has improved by leaps and bounds. However, there has always been a lack of consistent
+information on game compatibility. We introduced the [game compatibility list](https://citra-emu.org/game/)
+to fix that. Having a list was helpful, but maintaining it was proving to be a tedious task. After a
+lot of brainstorming, [BreadFish64](https://github.com/BreadFish64) added the option in the UI to send
+test cases via telemetry. These results are submitted by the users themselves, and are in turn used to
+update the game compatibility list.
+
+### Steps to submit test cases via Telemetry
+{{< sidebyside "image" "/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/"
+    "compat-1.png=Step 1"
+    "compat-2.png=Step 2" >}}
+{{< sidebyside "image" "/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/"
+    "compat-3.png=Step 3"
+    "compat-4.png=Step 4" >}}
+**Note**: To be able to report compatibility, you have to first login to the Citra Web Service, using
+your Username and Token.  
+(See Emulation -> Configure -> Web)
+{{< figure src="/images/entry/citra-progress-report-2018-q1/web-verify.png"
+    title="Citra Web Service" >}}
+
+## Miscellaneous
+
+Various other contributions to the external dependencies have been made by [Lioncash](https://github.com/lioncash), [MerryMage](https://github.com/MerryMage), and many others. Several services were converted to the new
+service framework ([here](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/issues/2531)). Many minor bug fixes and
+under-the-hood feature improvements were done by our [contributors](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/graphs/contributors?from=2018-01-01&to=2018-05-19&type=c).
+We believe ***even the smallest contribution is valuable***  and without these [contributors](https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/graphs/contributors?from=2018-01-01&to=2018-05-19&type=c),
+these new features wouldn’t have been possible.
+
+<h3 align="center">
+<b><a href="https://github.com/citra-emu/citra/">Contributions are always welcome !</a></b>
+</h3>

site/data/authors.json

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+  "saphiresurf": {"key": "saphiresurf", "name": "saphiresurf", "avatar": "https://community.citra-emu.org/user_avatar/community.citra-emu.org/saphiresurf/120/695_1.png"},
+  "CaptV0rt3x": {"key": "CaptV0rt3x", "name": "CaptV0rt3x", "avatar": "https://community.citra-emu.org/user_avatar/community.citra-emu.org/captv0rt3x/120/98_1.png"}
 }