leech

I'll have to check again. I usually judge by frame rate / audio popping. Like my previous build to that i7-6700k would run at a good framerate, but the audio would pop in and out. The VCS was at the level where the framerates were like 15-20, and the audio was barely working. That means probably 90% of all of MAME would run fine. it's just that 10% that had 3d hardware in the cabinet that'll run like garbage. If they did a MAME release that used GPU acceleration, it'd be a different story.

My current MAME set up takes about 5 min to start when it first is set up. Second start up is quick. But I also have like 3tb of mame/mess ha

Ha, modern MAME takes a while to launch on my modern computer, but that's mostly only when it first has to cache the rom directory. So maybe that's a large part of it. Especially after the merge with MESS. I think it's that part where it tries to scan the library that adds so much more work to getting it to launch than it used to. As I don't think it tries to build a database on the older ones?

MAME is an interesting project in that the binary itself is almost more like an operating system, and all of the different things it supports are like drivers. so saying MAME doesn't work well on older hardware is kind of odd to me. They did finally add an interface to the standard one, but you can still launch things via command line. Still wish someone would fix Congo Bongo. 😛

Ha, my Benchmark for MAME is Gauntlet: Legends. The VCS can't quite do that one. I should try Cruisin' USA. Still a 3dfx based game but requires a but less oomph in the CPU. First system I have had that could do that Gauntlet game was my i7-6700k though...

Yeah, I have never understood why libretro uses such old versions of MAME. If I recall, they are based on versions from 2003 or something. MAME cranks out nee releases quite often these days. Especially as they merged with MESS.

I'm aware. Also aware of Recalbox. We all can set up something like that, what I'm looking for is something where AtGames or Activision themselves would be able to add roms and sell it. most of the open source type things have an issue with selling with bundled roms (like RetroArch definitely gets pissy).

My idea was more like what AmiKit does. Have a USB stick you can plug in and boot up to a Vault-style interface. If it could be built to have various sets, then license the games from different companies, could be pretty sweet. So some form of open source Attract Mode setup. http://attractmode.org/

Haha, now that is some DRM there.

Well, this is missing my point. What I was driving fir is say Activision releasing a game pack on a USB stick. Or we just build one ourselves so to speak. In essence having something like Atari Vault on a USB stick.

Performance on the RPi was terrible for desktop usage before the 4. So I'm curious about the usage for that. For sure things like NUT, or PiHole, etc. They're perfect for things like that. RetroPie is a pretty sweet setup, but you're still looking at at most PS1 emulation for the RPi4. The Pi 400 seems to be a decent setup, but I think it'd do better with 8gb of ram, as you said, just doing a small amount of tabs will eat your ram like nothing else (remember when web pages were small?)

Ha, yeah when I first started being an admin for Asterisk, FreePBX wasn't even a thing. Then my next computer job, it was in an early state and didn't have it's own thing. I also had the lucky chance at that job to learn that IRQ conflicts are still a thing when the hardware you use is just an ISA board moved to a PCI and then PCIe setup... Basically we were having randomly dropped calls here and there. Straight from Digium's mouth, their cards don't work well when the IRQ is shared with something with high I/O, like RAID and NICs... that was a great bit of 'well crap, time to rebuild this system on a not HP system...' Thanks to Steam and Proton, most games work out of the box on Linux now. AAA games usually are supported as 'official' through Valve as being supported by Proton. Indie games usually have native releases. Sure there are some here and there that don't work or aren't released. But I have so many games at this point, I won't miss some here and there. Main reason I keep windows around is for Elite: Dangerous. This is mainly because I use the scripts people made for the Thrustmaster Warthog to make it even more awesome. That and nvidia doesn't support Async reprojection for VR yet. Though I play Half-Life: Alyx (natively) under Linux in VR on my Index. How many people actually use the RPi as a desktop though, vs just slapping RetroPie on it?

These days most companies have switched to o365, so it'll run anywhere anyhow. I still prefer LibreOffice, as they don't make it all colorful. Too distracting for me for doing actual work with it. They were too cheap to actually use Exchange, but that's fine I ran their email server as well. Kind of lets me put tons of valuable skills on my resume I was using PBX In A Flash back then. Funny thing is, I even integrated the phone system with a chat server, so people could see when they were on a call, etc. But they were so short-sighted they didn't want a chat server.. claiming that one manager would always be chatting instead of getting work done because his team would be constantly asking him questions... well considering instead they'd queue at his door to talk to him in person... Ah, a company that was started 40 years ago... and still acted like they did back then...

Apple's OS is based on NeXT, but is basically a MACH kernel, with a BSD userland. They're also very anti-GPL (specifically v3) which is why newer macOS versions default to zsh instead of bash. Much like browsers, i feel it wrong for a company to keep pestering you to log into a cloud account on a local OS, so macOS bugs me on a few levels. Also was fun when their server died that makes every App call home. Made applications take 10 to 15 minutes to start...

Man, I'm so glad i don't have to manage a company's PBX anymore. It was fine except that they were cheap and wanted everything for free, and then had some really strange, non-standard thoughts on what a PBX should do (like custom do not disturb messages). Being CentOS 5 based made it even more terrible, as it still was on old grub that didn't support GPT... But yeah I fell in love with Debian all those years ago, and every time I distro hop, I get annoyed by something and go back to Debian. Pop_OS is probably the best I've seen so far outside of Debian though. System76 seem to actually listen to their users, and take Ubuntu and make it good.

Wonder how much effort would be involved in setting up a USB stick that would boot directly to a Stella interface for an activision collection. Not that anyone could sell that without their approval.

The early days where a net install took days, and most distributions you had to compile XFree86. I saw a video where someone was whining how hard an old version of Debian was to install. Debian has always been easy, as long as you knew what hardware you had in your system. But at least the installer improved. FreeBSD's installer hasn't improved much in many moons.

Ha, I won't even suggest installing Windows on a normal system. I hate the thing. Unless you plan on only gaming. Only reason I really keep it around. Wine has gotten so good it will literally run things Windows 10 no longer supports (for example anything with SafeDisc protection)

Since I have been using Linux as a desktop since 1997...

This thread should go out to the naysayers that keep saying 'we can build that ourselves'. Let's do it! Wonder if we can get someone to just sponsor the project. Like we'll call it the Albert for the machine being inspired by conversations on Atari Age.

VCS is PC Gaming (or can be, yeah you can even hook in a keyboard and mouse if that's your thing. I spend 10-12 hours a day working on a keyboard and mouse, I have tended more and more toward games I can play on controllers as a result.) Frame rates matter... to a point yes. For the most part as long as minimum frames don't dip really low in parts you need them to, games can be perfectly playable. No one ever expected the VCS to be playing Cyberpunk 2077 AT ALL, let alone in some almost PS4 level of game play. They both suck, yes, but they both suck about on equal parts playing it. So that was a surprise to me and everyone else. As I said above, I actually prefer playing with a controller these days as I spend most of my time typing / mousing on things at work, and quite frankly my brain / fingers need a break occasionally and that is what video games are for. Ha, I honestly don't know why you couldn't do office work. It's not like the thing has anymore reason to buy it over a PS5. Why not try to give it some value to parents. Hell, remember back in the Atari 400/800 days where Atari tried marketing hard that it was a serious computer for serious tasks? They had to do that because they wanted a different image for their computers than they did for the 2600. Same with the ST during the Tramiel times. But yeah hook up a keyboard and mouse to it, boot off a USB drive or install an internal one. Either way you can use it as a full blown computer. Will it be rendering the next blockbuster CGI movie? no. Apparently people would use PS3s for strange tasks too. Not that I think the VCS is as cool s a PS3's Cell processors... Pretty sure that wasn't his idea. His idea was to create some sort of hypervisor type sandbox, and the system doesn't even have VT / IOMMU stuff turned on in the bios by default. So I'm fairly certain whatever ideas he brought to the table, they'd scrapped. PC-Mode to me didn't even do anything but reboot the system. Though maybe it sets the USB Port to default boot, as I had some weird experience with that sometimes working. If you want to join in my cause of building a better VCS and have suggestions on a SBC (I'm not even going to try to shoot for a 300 dollar project, as that would be unrealistic on a small scale / build it yourself thing). This is more of a 'could we as a community build our own Pro System based loosely around the goals of the VCS (modern hardware stuffed inside a good looking case, with a Linux based operating system (we can use GamerOS or something else if we get some designers for that). Let's put our money where our mouths are and see what we, as a community, can do better?

And now you know why I was saying people making a big deal about wanting a compartment on the bottom are kind of missing the point. It is easy, and you really only need to do it once. It is easier than upgrading memory on a modern macbook, or some other laptops.

I would like to see things like this. I'd like to see Atari becoming a developer / publisher again as well. Even if (or especially if) it is the single or dual person devs that have been creeping out of their basements to release some weird beta game in VR or some Early Access thing, where they need some funds to get them pushing the development a little bit. This is the area where I think the VCS could excel. Even if it was kind of one of those things where they started nabbing these incomplete games and making them more exclusive to the VCS. Give more people an actual reason to own the thing, instead of arguing that 'well I can just build a better PC even though it'll cost me more'

This just makes me think there needs to be a Star Wars mod for it. Like the scene where they are flying the speeders in Empire and Luke's poor tail gunner gets whacked?

Ha, I do VR gaming, and very well know that not all PCs are created equal. And sorry, but very few games / setups will play [email protected] with highest quality settings even on the most powerful GPUs. Some engines are just garbage, others are still trying to push the limits. Like try to play a raytraced game at [email protected] The thing about Frame rates is there is a difference between a platform game and a competitive esports game. Guarantee no one is going to be doing any eSports on the VCS. It's just not the type of system where there'd be a point in it. There hasn't been any input lag for me. Except on Antstream which... yeah last time I played on it, it was different per game. Like Double Dragon was fucking awful. I'm not going to pull any punches there. Weirdly Gods on the Genesis seemed too fast, but it ran fine on the Amiga version. So yeah, it's been hit and miss there. But for the most part, and especially locally installed games, the VCS does perfectly fine on games. From the AltOS side of things (I don't use Windows there so can't speak to that) but Linux runs perfectly fine, and it's capable of running playable games for PS2 / Wii / Gamecube era games. It's also capable of PS4 level gaming (100% depending on the game, some will be garbage, some will run about the same as a PS4, little better, little worse). This is from personal testing and seeing some others test some stuff. Is it perfect? No, but let's accept it for what it is, a low end system that is about right for 300-500 bucks (if you put money into RAM/Storage). My video card in my PC (2080 RTX) literally cost more than the entire system, including controllers, and memory / storage upgrade, and I put 32gb and 1tb m.2 SSD in it. So when you take that into account... yeah PC gaming is expensive if you want those [email protected] I love how you assume I don't know what I'm talking about. I practically came out of the womb with a computer in my hands I can agree that fun is subjective. What isn't subjective is that a single Call of Duty game is larger than the actual eMMC that the VCS comes with. Hell, there is a large amount of my steam library that wouldn't even fit on it by itself. This clearly is not what Atari is targeting. They are targeting the new 'retro' style games. They are targeting streaming services. I personally don't like the streaming services. The only thing I think Antstream has going for it is their contests and high score rankings. BUT, the shit thing with that is that there are people ranked highest there that I'm pretty sure did not get there fair and square! You know, when you see a game where the top three are in the 60,000 points, then the 4th person is at maybe 20,000, something sort of stinks... but it's sort of a neat feature, that I wish something like FujiNet can one day support. How much did you pay for your PC? Maybe some people aren't as fortunate as you and can't afford a gaming PC. What would be your base specs for a gaming PC? You claim it has been proven that you can build a better spec PC for 300 - 500 bucks. I can pretty much bet you can't, as the price alone for windows is 100, unless you can get a student discount. You seem to not think Linux is a valid Gaming OS as you try to include Windows in your build. Really the VCS isn't for you. You've made it clear. Cool. It might be for some other people. Cool for them. I bought one for shits and giggles. And because it actually seems to be the most 'open' of the gaming consoles, so I actually thank 'Atari' for thinking that. And also for finally taking a chance on using Linux as a gaming operating system. Valve tried it with the Steam Machine, but it failed for several different reasons (1 being price, another being that there wasn't a 'standard spec' chosen that developers could target. Another being that not all PC games (as you mention) are geared toward living room / controller use.) Onto the next bit... Keyboard / Mouse is NOT always better than controller. At least for me (that is always subjective). Like how is say Tempest on a kbd/mouse? It's like playing Missile Command on a gamepad. Terrible experience. Some games are just better with particular control schemes. I hate First Person Shooters with game pads. I can 'almost' play decently with the Steam Controller, but like a PS4 or Switch controller? Ewww. RTS games are another one.. simply just need mouse / keyboard. Anything else is just heresy / garbage. But third person games, or pretty much anything that supports analog movement, game pad. Then again, something like flight simulators... HOTAS all the way. Yeah, I'm a controller snob too. Mechanical Keyboard: Check. 8200 DPI Mouse w/ 14 buttons: Check. Thrustmaster Warthog w pedals: Check, Steam Controllers: Check... listing all the other adapters, controllers... hell I even have a Sinden Lightgun on the way. Yeah, I'm mostly a PC gamer. Is the VCS an utter pile of garbage that I regret buying? no. Hell, it's a portable linux box that's easy to connect to a TV. I may even use it to host FoundryVTT if I'm feeling bored. People do strange crap with their purchases It's 1am now, so I should decide between drinking more Scotch and going to sleep, or playing Half-Life Alyx some more and hopefully don't wet myself as I get those damn lightning dog things after me...