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Altirra 1.9 released


phaeron

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I haven't been following this too closely, so, sorry about that, but can you list the different methods to get 80 columns out of the emulator? Is there a fast & easy way to use the emulator's 80 column functionality with BASIC? If not, could you post links to the relevant documentation, necessary to study, to get 80 columns, from any language. I guess that Action! wouldn't work right in 80 columns... Would it?

 

 

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Oh, it was Atari800 that had added the Franklin 80 column support... At one time I tried the XEP 80 support in Atari800, but, it didn't seem to scale, so it was too tiny to experiment with, very much... & I remember that it was kind of temperamental, to get it running, in the first place.

 

I know that Altirra has the VBXE support built in... have the above options been ported from Atari800? How, exactly, does one directly program the emulated VBXE 80 column support in Altirra? I did take a look at the Altirra sources zip, looking for clues... but it is programmed so professionally (excellent coding!!!), that without really taking a lot of time to spend a lot of time studying the code, nothing was very apparent, since there are so very few comments in the code.

 

This might be obvious to someone who has the actual VBXE hardware, but I don't, and I was going to play around with it in the emulator, to see if it was hardware that I might like to actually purchase, but it seems like, without investing a ton of time in it, just to emulate it & then attempt to do something useful with it requires quite a bit of time-sucking research.

 

Is it possible that you would code up something, for a future version of the emulator, that just lets you select to run the emulated Atari directly in an 80 column environment, right from a drop-down menu option, like, "80 Column VBXE Mode", as a configuration option? That would be a really cool thing.

 

Any help on this would be appreciated, thanks for such a great emulator!

 

 

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Altirra does not currently support emulating Franklin 80 or XEP80 hardware.

 

The programming specs for Video Board XE (VBXE) are the same as for the real hardware... and of course you are much better off working from the register specs than from the emulator code:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/142283-vbxe-2/

 

Almost all features are supported except for overlay collisions (COLDETECT). Neither Altirra nor VBXE comes with an E: handler for the VBXE hardware; there is now an 80-column VBXE handler for SpartaDOS X that might work for BASIC as well, but I haven't tried it. Otherwise, there's no reason that an 80-column E: driver couldn't be written other than that no one's done it.

 

The issue I have with putting in something like "80 column VBXE mode" is that it doesn't yet have an analog on real hardware -- ideally there would already be a driver that you could boot on a real Atari with VBXE hardware to do the same thing. If something like that did exist, then you could just boot a disk or cartridge image with it in Altirra. Then again, I would love to have an "additions" disk for Altirra, like VMWare or Virtual PC. :)

 

Another issue, btw, is that VBXE emulation is complex and thus slow compared to the standard GTIA emulation. One of the items on my "would be cool if" list has been to bolt a more flexible host-based terminal onto E:, like the existing enhanced text mode but CIO based instead of hardware intercept based. That'd allow BASIC to be driven off of a modern terminal interface rather than the (IMO) clunky screen editor. I don't know if ACTION! would work with this, though.

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Big THANK YOU for altirra.

 

Live is much easier coding a BIOS on the emulator and first line debugging :-)

 

(My)IDE emulation is really supurb!

Even RGB-movies run flawless (and I have only an atom330@1.6hz)

 

Keep up the good work.

 

Later,

Sijmen.

 

Any chance of porting altirra to the Wii as homebrew?

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I run altirra on a 2004 computer, 1.7GHz Dothan core, 82855GM (intel integrated graphics) about the worst you can get. And it runs silky smooth! And it blasts through the rom listings of a billion roms like nobody's business. So unless you got even worser(!) hardware, I think the performance is right on.

 

It gets top speed too on a Celeron 1.4GHz with that old-style ram and an ISA soundcard and PCI bus videoboard..

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First off, I think Altirra is freakin' awesome! I've been an Atari800Win user for years. I switched to Altirra about a month or 2 ago and I haven't looked back! Awesome work! :)

 

I would love to see paddle support through the Stelladaptor for Altirra. It supports joystick control wonderfully. Any chance that can be incorporated in a future release?

Edited by Deteacher
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I run altirra on a 2004 computer, 1.7GHz Dothan core, 82855GM (intel integrated graphics) about the worst you can get. And it runs silky smooth! And it blasts through the rom listings of a billion roms like nobody's business. So unless you got even worser(!) hardware, I think the performance is right on.

 

It gets top speed too on a Celeron 1.4GHz with that old-style ram and an ISA soundcard and PCI bus videoboard..

 

For use of the word 'worser' you now have to play Atari Asteroids for 10hrs flat!

 

:)

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I would love to see paddle support through the Stelladaptor for Altirra. It supports joystick control wonderfully. Any chance that can be incorporated in a future release?

Are you sure?

For example, I found that Altirra supports the new 2600-daptor so perhaps it supports Stelladaptor too.

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I would love to see paddle support through the Stelladaptor for Altirra. It supports joystick control wonderfully. Any chance that can be incorporated in a future release?

Are you sure?

For example, I found that Altirra supports the new 2600-daptor so perhaps it supports Stelladaptor too.

 

Hmmm...I'll have to try again when I get home. Maybe I'm not doing something right. I'll give it another shot and report back.

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You should add a new input map, add paddle A controller, add mappings Axis 1 = Joy Axis 1H, Button 1 = Joy Button 1, add paddle B controller, add mappings Axis 1 = Joy Axis 1 V, Button 1 = Joy Button 2.

 

An Altirra preset woud be nice.

Edited by Philsan
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I would love to see paddle support through the Stelladaptor for Altirra. It supports joystick control wonderfully. Any chance that can be incorporated in a future release?

Are you sure?

For example, I found that Altirra supports the new 2600-daptor so perhaps it supports Stelladaptor too.

 

Hmmm...I'll have to try again when I get home. Maybe I'm not doing something right. I'll give it another shot and report back.

 

Just gave it a shot. No response from either paddle. :(

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I would love to see paddle support through the Stelladaptor for Altirra. It supports joystick control wonderfully. Any chance that can be incorporated in a future release?

Are you sure?

For example, I found that Altirra supports the new 2600-daptor so perhaps it supports Stelladaptor too.

 

Hmmm...I'll have to try again when I get home. Maybe I'm not doing something right. I'll give it another shot and report back.

 

Just gave it a shot. No response from either paddle. :(

The new 2600-dapter just works because it present itself as a standard HID (Human Interface Device) and therefore requires no special drivers / software. I don't think this is the case with the old Stella-Dapter.

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Have you tested my previous post mappings?

 

Holy crap! I set it up like you suggested and they work! It took me a minute to figure out how the mapping worked (never played with it before.) Paddles are a little sensitive, but definitely workable!

 

Thanks so much! +1 rep for you! I'd +100 if I could. :)

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Have you tested my previous post mappings?

 

Holy crap! I set it up like you suggested and they work! It took me a minute to figure out how the mapping worked (never played with it before.) Paddles are a little sensitive, but definitely workable!

 

Thanks so much! +1 rep for you! I'd +100 if I could. :)

I think I'll regret it (in the high score club)! :D

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Do you have any recommendations on how to achieve better performance with the emulator?

 

I tried running Altirra 1.9 with Telengard on the kitchen computer (an old IBM xseries dual pentium 800) and it was pretty darn slow... Are there any emulator-specific tricks to speed things up on an older machine?

 

Thanks!

 

 

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Make sure VBXE is turned off.

Use the smallest memory config that will run the game.

Turn off any fancy filtering effects on the graphics.

Use "normal" overscan mode.

Turn off stuff like interlace, frame blending and artifacting.

 

But really, for just playing games on a low-powered PC you're probably better off using A800Win+ or one of the others.

 

You pay the price for accuracy and extra feature set by the fact Altirra puts more demands on your system.

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Do you have any recommendations on how to achieve better performance with the emulator?

 

I tried running Altirra 1.9 with Telengard on the kitchen computer (an old IBM xseries dual pentium 800) and it was pretty darn slow... Are there any emulator-specific tricks to speed things up on an older machine?

 

If that's a Pentium III 800MHz, it shouldn't be that slow CPU-wise. Might have to do with the video card. Wikipedia says that some of the x-series laptops had ATI Rage Mobility video chips, which are pretty slow. You might try turning off vsync in the View menu or running in DirectDraw mode (/ddraw on the command line or in a shortcut).

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Do you have any recommendations on how to achieve better performance with the emulator?

 

I tried running Altirra 1.9 with Telengard on the kitchen computer (an old IBM xseries dual pentium 800) and it was pretty darn slow... Are there any emulator-specific tricks to speed things up on an older machine?

 

If that's a Pentium III 800MHz, it shouldn't be that slow CPU-wise. Might have to do with the video card. Wikipedia says that some of the x-series laptops had ATI Rage Mobility video chips, which are pretty slow. You might try turning off vsync in the View menu or running in DirectDraw mode (/ddraw on the command line or in a shortcut).

 

 

I believe (Phaeron???) that Altirra will only use a single core. Right?

I've used Altirra on a Pentium III 1.3GHz with a 100MHz bus - super slow system! And I got pretty much full speed if I did all the stuff Rybags said. Those filters can be a bitch on some videocards. On another marginal system I got a 50% reduction in speed with them on!

 

So filtering & vbxe are the killers here.

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Hi phaeron!

I've got a question about Alrirra emulator. Is there any chance to add support for KMK/JZ IDE+2.0 with V3021 clock and three Am29f040 flash-chips? Also what about support for disk of SD/CF memory card, connencted through the reader with above IDE data. It's now done in WinUAE emulator, where you can attach external disk and it's ready (just after setting some options). The list of all the registers for maintaining the memory you can get form Draco030 and Simius. Some infos about KMK/JZ registers If you agree with this proposal, and will have any problems, just write in this thread http://atariarea.krap.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=8908 (in English, of course). You will get all the needed support.

Regards

Stryker

Edited by St(r)yker
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already added.

Use this new build.

 

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.00-test7.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.00-test7-src.zip

 

changes:

 

MultiJoy 8 support, OSS 034M cartridge mapper split to fix ambiguous mapping issues, emulation support for the IDE half of the KMK/JZ IDE device, and call graph profiling support in the debugger.

 

hmm, the list of changes does not even mention multijoy interface.

and in the settings I could not find options to enable multijoy.

or something I do not understand or author forgot something.

Edited by serj
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Heh... I hadn't actually integrated over the MultiJoy8 and OSS cartridge changes. This version has them, along with IDEPlus 2.0 emulation:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.00-test8.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.00-test8-src.zip

 

To use MultiJoy8, clone the existing joystick entry in Input > Input Maps and then switch the joystick controller in the input map to one of the MultiJoy ports.

 

Altirra only uses a single core. The portion of the emulation that feeds back to the CPU has to be run lock-step, and unfortunately on the Atari this includes almost all of ANTIC, GTIA, and POKEY. The audio and video post processing don't have to run in the same thread, but they don't take much CPU.

 

VBXE and the NTSC/PAL high artifacting modes are quite expensive and will definitely slow down the emulator. VBXE is simply just much more complex and higher resolution than ANTIC+GTIA, while the high artifacting modes require extra image filtering. The high artifacting modes are most optimized for CPUs that support SSE2, so they won't run as well on a Pentium III or Athlon XP.

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IDEPlus 2.0 emulation is not holding the contents of 'B'oot drive: D0: and 'C'onfig drive: D0: returns between sessions.

and has to be reset to D3: each new session.

 

 

after reseting options.

post-10165-0-65520200-1309073117_thumb.png

 

after starting a new session.

 

post-10165-0-52383700-1309073994_thumb.png

Edited by rdea6
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Another paddles question!

I'm trying to map the 2nd paddle to the mouse's vertical axis for the game Tilter as it uses both paddles simultaneously - I've edited the "Mouse ->Paddle A" setting and added 'Mouse Move Vert' on 'Axis 2' but I can't seem to get it to work :?:

 

Paddles are single axis -- you need a second paddle. Add a Paddle B controller and map Mouse Move Vert to its Axis 0.

Thanks for that (Axis 1) :thumbsup: Is there a way of restricting the movemement to allow only 1 paddle to operate at a time by blocking diagonal movement :?: (but still allow up/down and left/right movements to use both paddles)

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