Zoyx Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 I'm using WindowsXP sp3, I also had a problem with Harmony.exe crashing, but I rebooted Windows and everything is fine now. Maybe you should add that Windows needs to be restarted after the drivers are installed. I didn't need a restart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Well, I think I did everything right, but it is still really really slow. I added the drivers and followed the thread. The cart says bios updated and power cycle to continue. The cart works it is just super slow with the ying yang spinning when I power on and off between games. I tried several different cards, so that's not it. On the screen now it now has hbios.bin below the rom folders. Any help? Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wccw mark Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 im still stuck with a bios error when i put the harmony in my atari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoyx Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Mine is slow as well. I timed it... 2.5 minutes of yin-yang before the main menu pops up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 That's just like mine - 2 minutes or more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 There's something wrong there with those speeds. From what I've read in other threads, it's either a poorly supported card, or the wrong formatting (FAT16 vs. FAT32). I have a 512MB card here with almost 2000 ROMs, and it takes no longer than 3 seconds to start up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Stephena, I formatted mine using the commands on here (FAT32) and my cards are brand new, but I'm still having problems. -RG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Looking forward to the Mac OS X update tool!!! Thankfully I'm not having any issues with my Harmony cartridge!!! However I am still working on bugs in my game Atomic Meltdown!!! -Disjaukifa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Any more advice on slow loads? I love having all these games, but the ying-yang is driving me crazy :-). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) Any more advice on slow loads? I love having all these games, but the ying-yang is driving me crazy :-). On a different forum, but similar application, I was reading something about how the FAT file system is structured and even after 'formatting', residual bits of info are still really on the card. Stuff that is needlessly being sorted out upon bootup. Not unlike modern file systems that just change directory info, but I guess the FAT standard is even less efficient that way? Have you tried using a brand new card? Or the command line format suggestions others have talked about? If you think the yin-yang ball is annoying, try loading a single game off SD card into a Commodore 64. lol I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that a 1541 was ever *that* slow. Have JiffyDOS on the way, but jeez... Edited October 5, 2009 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted October 5, 2009 Author Share Posted October 5, 2009 Any more advice on slow loads? I love having all these games, but the ying-yang is driving me crazy :-). I might have a handle on the problem and there is likely a hardware solution but there might be a software workaround. I will provide more details as I continue to investigate the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Early adopter's fate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RangerG Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 thanks for working on it Batari. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) Playing around with this more, I just had another thought or suggestion. At the expense of a line or two, would it be possible to have an option, say where you could have the entire alphabet represented horizontally up on top? Have the Harmony cart do the "directory" organising? That way, you could just select which letter of a title you wanted to play and then after selecting, you'd be brought to the correct library of titles... -edit- sorry RangerG, didn't see where you had mentioned you have been using new cards. Edited October 5, 2009 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 Playing around with this more, I just had another thought or suggestion. At the expense of a line or two, would it be possible to have an option, say where you could have the entire alphabet represented up top? Have the Harmony cart do the alphabetising? That way, you could just select which letter of a title you wanted to play and then after selecting, you'd be brought to the correct library of titles... The philosophy behind Harmony is, that the user should decide how he organizes his games. This could be alphabetically, by company, by year, by size, by programmer, by genre etc.pp. If you want it alphabetically with fast access, you could do that by creating subdirectories. Maybe once an application which helps you organize the cars the way you want them will be written. But for now, you have to rely on the existing tools for your OS. And there are plenty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 5, 2009 Share Posted October 5, 2009 (edited) If you want it alphabetically with fast access, you could do that by creating subdirectories. Maybe once an application which helps you organize the cars the way you want them will be written. But for now, you have to rely on the existing tools for your OS. And there are plenty! Oh no - I get that. Creating directories et at and I have done just that. Still, vertical representation of the single letter directories seems a little cumbersome compared to a static lettered representation on a transparent "menu bar" of sorts. Just thinking out loud really. The product and its software is great as-is. Edited October 5, 2009 by save2600 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Ok this is bizarre - the 2GB Kingston SD card I put in the Harmony booted nice and fast for 2 days, and now takes minutes to boot. I've changed nothing on the card, save the update after which it still booted quickly. Reformatting had no effect. Just pulled another sealed Kingston 2GB card, copied the same rom set to it and it boots super slow as well. Going back to the original no name 2GB microSD card that I first used (and left setup) it boots in seconds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted October 6, 2009 Author Share Posted October 6, 2009 To those experiencing slow load times: We have found the source of the problem. Stay tuned for another BIOS update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 To those experiencing slow load times: We have found the source of the problem. Stay tuned for another BIOS update. In a simplistic nutshell, what was it? Sounds like you stumbled upon a universal problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted October 6, 2009 Author Share Posted October 6, 2009 To those experiencing slow load times: We have found the source of the problem. Stay tuned for another BIOS update. In a simplistic nutshell, what was it? Sounds like you stumbled upon a universal problem... The problem is with a loop where the SD card is sent a status command to see if It is ready. It was looping for several minutes. Before we release another update, we need to rewrite some of the code in this loop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 (edited) Oh no - I get that. Creating directories et at and I have done just that. Still, vertical representation of the single letter directories seems a little cumbersome compared to a static lettered representation on a transparent "menu bar" of sorts. This could be part of an extension which has not been discussed in detail yet. With the help of an external application, one could (automatically) categorize the games (e.g. based on their filenames). The various possible categorizations could be written into a library file on the SD cart and then used by the flash driver and menu for navigation. Then the functionality of the menu could be enhanced similar to what you described. But this will require a lot of coding on various parts of the system. E.g. the current display kernel is barely able to mark a single line. Marking a single character will require a much different kernel. So I wouldn't expect this to happen soon. For now we are still busy sorting out bugs. Edited October 6, 2009 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
san-d-2000 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hi, i received mine today, i made a folder for each letter in the alphabet and put the roms in the folders. At first the cartridge kept going through the menu, which made it impossible to select the item you wanted, now it just goes to the ying/yang thingy. any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted October 6, 2009 Author Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hi, i received mine today, i made a folder for each letter in the alphabet and put the roms in the folders. At first the cartridge kept going through the menu, which made it impossible to select the item you wanted, now it just goes to the ying/yang thingy. any suggestions? We have a BIOS update for the yin-yang forever problem, and have recently fixed issues where the yin-yang appears for several minutes. We also have one other report of menu self-navigation. We suspect it's because the menu is detecting a paddle (is one plugged in?) Regardless we are aware of that issue and investigating it. We will post the next BIOS update today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
san-d-2000 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 (edited) Yes, i had my Gemini controller plugged in which is a paddle aswell, i tried with a joystick and navigation seems to be fine as long as i stay on 1 page. Anyway, thanks for the fast reply, looking forward to the bios update Edited October 6, 2009 by san-d-2000 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 One other thing I'll add is that the cart doesn't seem to be real good at consistent power on initialization. On both the 2600 and 7800 I've tried it on, at times I will have to power cycle the system up to three or four times before getting the cart to come up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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