Altirra 1.6

[phaeron]

I've released version 1.6 of my Atari 8-bit emulator, Altirra:

 

http://virtualdub.org/altirra.html

 

This version supercedes all previous 1.6 test releases. I've also updated the hardware reference manual, which includes new sections on DMACTL oddities, IRQEN timing, and POKEY's overrun bits.

 

This won't be much of a surprise to those of you who have tried the test releases, but 1.6 includes fixes and improvements to the debugger, UI, ANTIC cycle timing, 65C816 emulation, and sound quality. And, of course, the cool icon you guys came up with.

 

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback, and more is always welcome.

[Syfo-Dyas]

Hell ya! Thankx a lot man!

[+Philsan]

I've released version 1.6 of my Atari 8-bit emulator, Altirra:

http://virtualdub.org/altirra.html

... And, of course, the cool icon you guys came up with.

And file association icon too!

 

A big thank you for Warm reset mapped to F5.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Philsan

[flashjazzcat]

Looks terrific so far: thanks for the many great improvements.

[Mclaneinc]

Phaeron already knows what I think of it, just such a pleasure to see an emulator being developed so well and the public getting to have their play and say...

 

Mucho cheers from a nice but cold London (ish)

[Rybags]

Nice about the F5... but still a complaint here about keymapping.

 

I'd much prefer Home (or in fact Shift+Home) to clear screen, I like Delete to actually just work like it does on A800Win+

 

Also, how about mapping Home to actually perform the Home function, ie return the keycode for Shift+F1, which is supported by all the XL/XE OS versions?

Edited April 26, 2010 by Rybags

[retrobits]

* UI: Input maps can now be bound to a specific game controller index.

 

Thank you phaeron for your hard work! You just made my day with this outstanding emulator.

Edited April 26, 2010 by retrobits

[+Philsan]

Awesome new feature to paste text from clipboard!

 

Thanks for window size save on exit.

Now, for my programming needs, I only miss a shortcut to toggle between Input>Port1>None and Input/Port1/Arrow keys.

 

When Altirra starts, I hear a short high sound (two PCs with W7 32 bit).

Is it normal?

 

 

[Heaven/TQA]

for my programming needs I would need a Mac port... but good work so far...

[+remowilliams]

Many thanks for the continued amazing work on this emulator! Altirra has quickly become my favorite A8 emu!

[flashjazzcat]

Just had a chance to look further at this version and it's stunning. I love the way video quality improves proportionally when VBXE output is selected... I love the way full screen view just "works" (after a year of Atari800WinPlus). I'm having fun just exploring the menus. Brilliant work.

[phaeron]

Ugh... I hate dealing with the keyboard. Maybe later.

 

Don't know about the sound on startup... haven't heard that on XP. Will have to check the next time I'm in Win7.

 

The Shift+F1 toggle is something I miss too. I had to drop it when I made the input maps configurable -- the problem is that now that there are no hardcoded input maps, there's no way for the emulator to know which one is the right one to toggle. I might have to add a way to tag an input map as quick-switch. In the meantime, note that you can use Alt+ArrowKey to get to the keyboard arrow keys even if those keys are mapped to the joystick.

[eeun]

Phaeron, thanks for your work on this!

 

Just to note, I hadn't tried Altirra until recently, and searching for it on Google the main page is this one, which led me to incorrectly believe 1.0 was the latest version. Might want to change that page so it links to the 'real' one, so others late to the party like myself get the current version.

[+Philsan]

In the meantime, note that you can use Alt+ArrowKey to get to the keyboard arrow keys even if those keys are mapped to the joystick.

Better than toggle!

Thank you very much.

[+MrFish]

Edit: Never mind...

Edited April 29, 2010 by MrFish

[Sheddy]

Excellent work as usual. Just keeps getting better. Many thanks!

 

Very glad to see the randomize of memory fix. Thought I had a serious problem with my warm start code for a while using 1.5

 

Is there a quick way of docking the display window back into the emu window after the display has been moved out? I seem to do that accidently far too often!

 

Only things I personally miss at the moment are screenshots, movie recording and a pause or single frame step (mind you that may be somewhere in the debugger already, I've hardly touched the surface of that yet - it looks just awesome)

Edited May 2, 2010 by Sheddy

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Only things I personally miss at the moment are screenshots, movie recording and a pause or single frame step

 

It's on my wish list too!

 

BTW: Phaeron - you're doing incredible things (including VirtualDub I often use), thanks!

Edited May 2, 2010 by Kaz atarionline.pl

[PeteD]

Pause and frame advance can be had from the debugger, break will obviously cause a pause and there's a go till scanline command so you can just gs 0 to advance to the top of the next frame.

 

Screenshots, copy frame to clipboard which is fine unless you want to take lots of shots.

 

The .traceser command saved me endless debugging, many MANY thanks for that one

 

 

Pete

[Sheddy]

Pause and frame advance can be had from the debugger, break will obviously cause a pause and there's a go till scanline command so you can just gs 0 to advance to the top of the next frame.

 

Screenshots, copy frame to clipboard which is fine unless you want to take lots of shots.

 

The .traceser command saved me endless debugging, many MANY thanks for that one

 

 

Pete

 

thanks Pete, that's good to know

[R4ngerM4n]

:thumbsup:

[phaeron]

A few comments:

• Yes, go to scanline (gs) is the only way to do a frame step right now. I might put in a go to vertical blank (gv) command for convenience.
  
• Redock the display window by releasing the mouse over the center of the docking target.
  
• Memory randomization only takes place on cold start and is not something you can rely on. Having blocks of memory be zeroed on cold start is a valid condition, especially if the Atari was quickly turned off and back on again, as it can take several seconds for DRAM to decay enough for a byte to change. (Occasionally, a real Atari will improperly warm start on power on because of this.) Therefore, if you've got a problem with warm start only working reliably if that option is on a particular setting, you've got a bug with reading uninitialized data.
  

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

Screenshots, copy frame to clipboard which is fine unless you want to take lots of shots.

 

Well, we can either use a Windows screen shooters, but this is not comfortable solution too. I vote for screenshot save option in Altirra

[Sheddy]

A few comments:

• Yes, go to scanline (gs) is the only way to do a frame step right now. I might put in a go to vertical blank (gv) command for convenience.
  
• Redock the display window by releasing the mouse over the center of the docking target.
  
• Memory randomization only takes place on cold start and is not something you can rely on. Having blocks of memory be zeroed on cold start is a valid condition, especially if the Atari was quickly turned off and back on again, as it can take several seconds for DRAM to decay enough for a byte to change. (Occasionally, a real Atari will improperly warm start on power on because of this.) Therefore, if you've got a problem with warm start only working reliably if that option is on a particular setting, you've got a bug with reading uninitialized data.
  

 

Ahh...docking target

 

Also...I think I must have been confusing 1.5 with one of the 1.6 beta test versions when talking about a warm start/randomize problem on 1.5

[+MrFish]

Any plans for adding more cartridge support in near future?

 

Also, I remember there being a low-pass filter used for Pokey output on one the older versions. I rather liked how it sounded. Is it possible to have this as a sound "option"?

[phaeron]

Any plans for adding more cartridge support in near future?

 

I could be convinced. If it's adding more cartridge mappers, that's pretty easy. The part that I haven't done is the UI to ask the user for the mapper if the image is a raw image, like the way that Atari800Win does. If it has a header, though, then it's unambiguous.

 

Also, I remember there being a low-pass filter used for Pokey output on one the older versions. I rather liked how it sounded. Is it possible to have this as a sound "option"?

 

There still is, it's just that the cutoff is a lot higher since I raised the playback rate (~18KHz instead of 8KHz). Don't know if I can easily make it runtime switchable, though... I think currently some compile time constants are dependent on the sampling rate.