Heaven/TQA Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Ok. Xformer in the past was my first emulator which runs reasonable fast on a win95 laptop. And it was the only way at those days to get the Roms. I like the consumer approach but I havent tested it so what about all those new games? Like the ones using more RAM. What about space harrier, stunt car racer etc? Stereo pokey? Etc etc. its nice to see caverns of Mars demoed or Astrroids but well thats 1980 stuff... For the consumer Approach I dont see a need of a debugger. It reminds me like the Cloanto C64 and Amiga emulators. Btw that result of the acid test was a little shock as I would have expected being a lot better. In 2018 with Averys work and Docs available. Time travel mode is very nice and would be nice to have in Altirra even for us Devs as it convenient instead of watching histories in debugger.... but thats another story 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 It wasn't there when I bought it decades ago and it still isn't. Why you'd prefer to run 800 inaccurate emulated sessions instead of one near perfect is beyond me. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) OK, I have the VC17 runtime installed, and it refuses to run under Win XP32. This makes it useless to me and many others. I'll stick with Altirra. Can you guys emulate a Corvus? Edit: The Runtime installed OK, just not the emu. It says Not a Win32 app. Is a compatible re-compile possible? Edited October 12, 2018 by Kyle22 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snicklin Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) Each emulator has its own slant on things and no system will be for everyone in all circumstances. I would like to appreciate this for what it is, a great system for casual gamers. Thank you gentlemen. There is some innovative thinking in here, which I love. Edited October 12, 2018 by snicklin 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) Why you'd prefer to run 800 inaccurate emulated sessions instead of one near perfect is beyond me. If it's accurate enough to run the games and apps you want to use, that's good enough. Especially if it has a really accessible interface, which is the unique value it provides. I admire Altirra's accuracy, but it is a clunky app to configure and use. Edited October 12, 2018 by FifthPlayer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 I don't find Altirra 'clunky' at all. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) (...) so what about all those new games? Like the ones using more RAM. What about space harrier, stunt car racer etc? Stereo pokey? Etc etc. its nice to see caverns of Mars demoed or Astrroids but well thats 1980 stuff... (..) Ding, ding, ding! Bingo! It seems we've got a winner, tonight... That is exactly the point... We (the Americas) are part of Atari's past... primal past, that is, where Star Raiders, Alley Cat, Ghostbusters, Goonies, etc., all come from... but contemporary work like Space Harrier, Atari Blast, Stunt Car Racer, The Last Word, Pang, etc. it all comes from pure talent distilled mostly by the European (West/Central) and RoW teams... These guys have gone where no man has ever gone before, and their work is a reflection of a new level of insight and know-how of the underlying platform. A LOT has changed since Xformer (to say something) days (!) Therefore, and in TODAY's terms, the BAR (especially for Emulation and preservation) HAS BEEN RAISED to much higher levels... and meeting such bar is ESSENTIAL to effectively bridge the primal PAST and today's PRESENT.... The need for a common platform for faithful playback and accurate development purposes is more than a luxury... it is a real necessity, and, in the case of Altirra (as an example), it effectively serves as such (which is WHY there has been so much work put into it, to also incorporate recent and MAJOR developments such as Ultimate-1MB, its advanced BIOS, and so on). For the above, I would agree that Xformer is more of a quite refined and very efficient window into the PAST, more than the present, I would say. Edited October 12, 2018 by Faicuai 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 If it's accurate enough to run the games and apps you want to use, that's good enough. Especially if it has a really accessible interface, which is the unique value it provides. And there's the issue. This was sold bitd as being able to do all that. It wasn't. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) And there's the issue. This was sold bitd as being able to do all that. It wasn't. I'll repeat myself, with some boldface for emphasis. If it's accurate enough to run the games and apps you want to use, that's good enough. In other words, if (for example) I really only play Star Raiders, Moon Patrol, Archon, and a handful of other games, and it works fine for those games it's done its job. And maybe I keep Altirra around for something this emulator doesn't handle. (Or for development, which Altirra is really good at). Edited October 12, 2018 by FifthPlayer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) I think the more constructive way to go about this is to say... I really like the new front end and features but we absolutely need the emulator to do the 320k that almost every Atari owner upgraded their machine to back in the later 80's and 90's. We really do need the emulator to handle the large cartridge footprints that were also available back then, You know the XE carts and AtariMax carts at the very least. This would greatly improve the reasons to use such a nice emulator. It would not require all the acid/exact stuff just support for the additional memory bits... I venture it wouldn't be too hard to touch that part of the emulator up... Thanks again guys, glad to know your still in the game. Edited October 12, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Yeah. I dont want to downplay the emu. Its like snes mini.... comfortable but I never would like to use it for development if you know what I mean. But the core needs to be par to the others in the wild. I guess I will have a look over the weekend. Otherwise you get questions about why is this not working or has glitches while others not etc... And I vote for warp mode back in time for Altirra 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 As Derek Mihocka once said back in 1995, "PC Xformer 2.51 is a free emulator for MS-DOS users who wish to run their old Atari 400/800 and Atari 800XL software on their PCs." This implies that Xformer was a solution to a specific problem. And that just getting it to run would be sufficient enough, never mind any glitches or differences/inaccuracies/incompatibilities. I don't think nostalgia or "take me back to the 80's" was a thing yet. Not in the early and mid-90's. Not yet. 23 years later, today, the demand on emulators is so much more. We demand exact graphics, sounds, aspect ratios, display nuances, complete coverage of documented and undocumented instructions, and so much more. Not to mention nice interfaces and cycle-exact operation of not only the CPU, but custom chips and their interaction with the rest of the system. That's not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. But today there's nostalgia. The emulators have to be faithful enough to take us back in time. And that means a lot of work to get the "small stuff" just right. Color shades, sound nuances, and more. The emulator must not only be accurate to a "T" it also must capture the ineffable flavor and ambiance that surrounds the original vintage machine. Years back I would sit my ass down at the PC and consider it a novelty and convenience to be able to run my Atari 800 stuff. It was great. Today when this sagging ass sits down I expect the PC to be transformed into that vintage Atari 800 - if just for a little while. An accurate emulator does that with ease and plenty of side benefits. An easy to use emulator brings some of that functionality and "magic" to the masses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Personally I think it's great the way it is. Not as a replacement for Altirra, but as super cool easy to use game selection interface for all our retro Atari 8-Bit titles. And when I have grand kids some day, this will be a perfect entertainment system as they're first starting out. Not to mention us older folks who just want to blast some aliens, race a few laps, and gobble up power dots, without having to think too much. Altirra is the perfect tool for development. This new multi-tile Xformer is the perfect way to play games. Making it quick and easy to pick one out of the collection. But yes it would be nice to be able to run the extended memory titles as well. So that's where the work should be done. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 There are reasons to use Altirra and there will be reasons to use the new XFormer, which might, e.g. attract more attention in a display. Star Raiders will be as much fun when played with a slightly wrong shade of galactic map (as a PAL user I can vouch for that, we got slightly wrong colours all the time). I find it slightly harsh to tell someone (who started to give free software to the community quite early) that what he gives us for free is a bit inadequate. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeron Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Thanks again, everybody for the feedback. I'll try and answer a few more of the questions. I do realize that we still fail half the ACID tests, I've worked with that closely. However, in the interest of shipping, I've focused on the issues that actual programs need to run. I know of hardly any program that won't run because of the remaining failing ACID tests, and I've tested over 7,500 programs! We are about 99.5% compatible with programs designed for a standard 800/XL or XE. The ACID test was never meant to indicate that an emulator would not sucessfully run programs correctly, it is a fabulous and indispensible benchmark to test cycle accuracy of very specific hardware features and anomalies. Altirra author here -- the Acid800 test is designed to be a stress test, so yeah, you will get a lot of corner case failures with it. Glad it was useful for your dev. I do want to point out that most of the tests come from real-world programs failing in emulation, so there are going to be connected real-world issues. Here are some more concrete issues I noticed with Xformer 10: Games Alley Cat -- a number of sound effects are playing as tones instead of raspy effects, makes me suspect that high pass filtering is not working. There is also a glitch on the clotheslines that looks like either a CHACTL or HSCROL intermittent timing problem. Archon -- sound problem on channel 3+4 17-bit noise, some low notes playing off pitch. Aztec Challenge -- misaligned score, probably due to an issue handling mismatched playfield start/stop widths. (This game is the reason for the Acid800 playfield start/stop tests.) Boulder Dash -- cannot switch to NTSC, emulator thinks game requires PAL. Bristles -- cannot switch to NTSC, emulator thinks game requires PAL. Chicken (Synapse Software) -- unusual white stripes showing up in top artifacted color bar (these are solid colors on an actual NTSC display). Also, catch sounds playing abnormally long or getting stuck on. Frogger -- wide playfield extends too far left. Pitfall II Lost Caverns -- cannot switch to NTSC, emulator thinks game requires PAL. Rescue at 94K -- sound problems, looks like an issue with combining 5-bit and 4/17-bit. Spider City -- corrupted minimap, probably ANTIC playfield DMA timing. Demos 8 Players Demo (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=27428) -- corrupted sprites. If you decide to try for P/M graphics timing accuracy, this is the demo to fix. Ray of Hope (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=30127) -- off-pitch tones in display list section, specifically 16-bit 1.79MHz in 4-bit noise mode. Ilusia (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=52807) -- corrupted effect window. Joyride (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=9212) -- corruption during load screens, something wrong with the players that are supposed to cover the left and right sides. Pacem in Terris (http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=9756) -- corruption on title screen. Same cause as Aztec Challenge. Some non-compat issues: Bit of an oddity: backgrounding the app silences POKEY audio but not the console speaker. x64 build has a bug in the file dialogs, they are displaying as pre-XP style. The x86 and ARM64 builds do not have this problem. The ARM64 build is almost impossible to run because the link you have to the Visual C++ Redistributable doesn't have the ARM64 redist, and as far as I know, there isn't an ARM64 redist installer. I had to copy over the loose files from my dev machine that had the ARM64 tools installed. (This may pose a critical problem for the three people who can run it.) And a small confession - we have not yet implemented Direct Draw support, so that's using GDI. When we get around to that, I expect we'll be able to make an even more ridiculous demo with 400 visible tiles. :-) DirectDraw has been deprecated and emulated since Windows Vista. Performance-wise it is slower than Direct3D due to not supporting pixel format conversion, and Microsoft did not reimplement the common video driver hack of bilinearly filtering DD blits until Windows 8.1. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awch Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Amazing looking interface! I can't wait to try out my favorite games on it. Thanks for releasing this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SoulBuster Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 It is a great program loader. If that is all it ever is, it will still be useful to people that emulate. Nice job guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 It's great to hear people are interested in trying it out. It does support AtariMax cartridges, and NTSC artifacting, and PAL and NTSC tiles can be mixed (all at 60Hz until you go full screen, then a PAL program will start rendering at 50Hz), and because of popular demand, we just uploaded a new version that should work on Windows 7! There is a readme with instructions and an address to send bug reports to, we'd love to hear from everybody. Still not able to get AtariMax SpartaDos X the latest is 449.c beta SDX449_maxflash1.rom 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) (…) I find it slightly harsh to tell someone (who started to give free software to the community quite early) that what he gives us for free is a bit inadequate. And HOW IN THE WORLD do you think we got Altirra (and other SUPERB work here) up to where they are today? By just back-patting each other and kissing our foreheads? It would be a DISSERVICE for the Xformer crew not to provide them with a clear perspective of things, as much as it would be to our own community, to which we would also (and indirectly) negate the opportunity to enjoy a stronger, better Xformer… This notion of "because its free you accept it and don't criticize it" is essentially meaningless and harmful. Sorry to be a rude awakening here, but it is much better to face the truth, as it is, and build upon it a better future, for everybody (devs. and users alike). Progress only comes out of truthful and real criticism. Edited October 12, 2018 by Faicuai 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) I'll try and be the god cop here.. Its a positive that its been updated and its quite a nice looking interface (if not a little confusing), its a first release in the current state and I hope it gets upgraded taking in to account the little hints that Avery has added, there's definite potential and it does a reasonable job at what its built for BUT and there has to be bad cop too, it needs to be more accurate, an emulator is only as good as its accuracy, no matter if you are emulating the flight characteristics of a rocket or an computer / console, if the end result is flawed then it needs work.. I'll look forward to more versions but Altirra will stay as my first choice and probably only choice bar a bit of fun...You have to go where the goings good! Edited October 12, 2018 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) And HOW IN THE WORLD do you think we got Altirra (and other SUPERB work here) up to where they are today? By just back-patting each other and kissing our foreheads? It would be a DISSERVICE for the Xformer crew not to provide them with a clear perspective of things, as much as it would be to our own community, to which we would also (and indirectly) negate the opportunity to enjoy a stronger, better Xformer… This notion of "because its free you accept it and don't criticize it" is essentially meaningless and harmful. Sorry to be a rude awakening here, but it is much better to face the truth, as it is, and build upon it a better future, for everybody (devs. and users alike). Progress only comes out of truthful and real criticism. Constructive criticism is one thing, but some of the feedback here a) is not constructive and b) has a dismissive and insulting tone. The devs didn't do anything to deserve that. Edited October 12, 2018 by FifthPlayer 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 (edited) Constructive criticism is one thing, but some of the feedback here a) is not constructive and b) has a dismissive and insulting tone. The devs didn't do anything to deserve that. I've read the entire chain, here, and a) almost ALL feedback is constructive, b) there is no such dismissive and/or insulting tone. Could not find it. Much on the contrary, PLENTY of relevant and actionable feedback. Now, that we may not like what we read, then too bad, life's hard, and move on. Plain and simple. Edited October 12, 2018 by Faicuai 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ely Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 That tile mode is amazing, looks amazing when a ton of stuff it up and running I'd quite like to be able to open to nothing and then I'll select what I want to do, so I deleted the DOS25.XFD file in the Xformer10 folder and tried to run and the thing hangs before quiting, not ideal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 Look at it this way, my wife is able to use Xformer from download to play without my help. Altira was like this, heeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp, get up here! what am I doing? Once it was set up and I walked her through it.... she was good. She never would have used Altira otherwise... I see the attraction for Xformer.... she gets a new PC or is somewhere and wants some Atari, she can install it and go it on her own until I set up Altira for her. Here at home we have the real hardware so It's not a big issue. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted October 12, 2018 Share Posted October 12, 2018 This notion of "because its free you accept it and don't criticize it" is essentially meaningless and harmful. Sorry to be a rude awakening here, but it is much better to face the truth, as it is, and build upon it a better future, for everybody (devs. and users alike). Progress only comes out of truthful and real criticism. Indeed. That's why we have version numbers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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