+FujiSkunk Posted June 15, 2016 Share Posted June 15, 2016 I think the start button in stella has changed. Before, you hit F2, and the game would start. Now it's the fire button. ... 2 .The function of the switches has changed: "reset" = reset to the title screen, "select" = select level, and now only with "fire" starts the game. ... Reading is your friend. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 15, 2016 Share Posted June 15, 2016 I really freakking need a Delorian and Flux Capacitor. Travel back in time to an Atari board meeting. Your Pacman port will stink so bad that it inspires someone 35 years into the future to create this. I have been sent back in time to give this to you. [plugs up Atari wit Dintar's 8k Pacman] Leave cart plugged in for the execs to investigate. Return to the future to find Atari unveiling the new slimmer Spynx One at e3 2016. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hizzy Posted June 15, 2016 Share Posted June 15, 2016 Could the pause feature be switched to the B/W switch? Do people think the pause feature works better on the fire button? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+save2600 Posted June 15, 2016 Share Posted June 15, 2016 Could the pause feature be switched to the B/W switch? Do people think the pause feature works better on the fire button? I've always wished the fire button would be used for the speed-up feature. Seriously though, in such a game, probably better to have pause on the fire button for those that need to scratch an itch or make an emergency potty break in the heat of the action. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda Stardust Posted June 15, 2016 Share Posted June 15, 2016 Could the pause feature be switched to the B/W switch? Do people think the pause feature works better on the fire button? I've always wished the fire button would be used for the speed-up feature. Seriously though, in such a game, probably better to have pause on the fire button for those that need to scratch an itch or make an emergency potty break in the heat of the action. This. As someone who loves long extension cords, it's a PITA to adjust the switches for use in game. I am fine with getting up to adjust settings while not actively playing, but to reach for the switches in the heat of game play is a deal-breaker for me. Still reaching over for pause is better than no pause at all, simply forfeiting the game if my presence is required elsewhere. Also as much as I love the "Press button for turbo speed" hack on Ms Pacman, specifically with the Tengen releases, it does feel like cheating in a way if used in classic Pacman. Anyway here are my suggestions for difficulty switch use: Left difficulty switch could optionally turn Turbo on or off. LB = (default) Normal operation. LA = Always Turbo speed (overrides Right difficulty switch). Right Difficulty switch could be used to set the function of the Fire button. RB = (default) Fire activates pause. RA = Fire activates Turbo (if Turbo not already enabled with LA). For any mode, Pause function can still be accessed at any time with the B/W switch. But this is all dependent on whether or not you have the extra bytes and CPU cycles available to squeeze in the read routine. I would also suggest adding something to the score reel or other indicator onscreen to indicate that turbo mode was active during the game. Any official high score attempts in New Pacman 8k should have Turbo mode disabled (both switches B position) and start on the Cherry stage. A dot that uses the ball or missile sprite positioned within the final zero on the six digit score reel would serve this purpose nicely as an indicator. The presence of said dot would represent the state of the A/B switch, and toggling the difficulty switches clears the hi score just like toggling the fruit does. Remember however should you decide to utilize the BW switch, it functions differently on 2600 and 7800. On the 7800, it is a momentary contact. On the 2600, it is a switch. When Pause / BW button is active, the software should scan for changes after a few frames. If Pause / BW remains held down beyond a certain limit, say half a second, then releasing it will resume play. If the pause activation is momentary, then the game remains paused after release. Pressing it a second time resumes gameplay. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YANDMAN Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 Actually PAL is only UK and Australia and Parts of China Europe is SECAM Pal is also Korea and other regions of Asia, Secam is French. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hizzy Posted June 16, 2016 Share Posted June 16, 2016 I find my fat fingers colliding with the fire button in the heat of action, but that's on me. This is really a great homebrew. I'm amazed by what the programmer has accomplished with Pac-man. Kudos!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIO2 Posted June 17, 2016 Share Posted June 17, 2016 (edited) Pause on player 2 controller fire button could be interesting. I have been known to toe a fire button now and again. Edited June 17, 2016 by SIO2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zetastrike Posted June 19, 2016 Share Posted June 19, 2016 Is a cartridge release planned for 8K? I was thinking of picking up a copy of 4K, but I'll wait if AA plans on bringing this out. Looks fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iesposta Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Is a cartridge release planned for 8K? I was thinking of picking up a copy of 4K, but I'll wait if AA plans on bringing this out. Looks fantastic. The 4K version in the store is by Denis Debro from 2008. There is a 4K version in this thread by DINTAR816, and then the more polished 8K by DINTAR816. I can't speak for the AtariAge Store, but I don't see any reason that this wouldn't be for sale here. You can have a one-off cart made if you get the author's permission, although I hope this 8K gets the cornering speed-up and maybe a turbo speed mode, although it is spectacular as it stands right now. Even though the layout is wide due to the limitations of the 2600, it feels and plays exactly like the arcade machine, matching the arcade's AI so well, surpassing newer game consoles that graphically look more like the arcade, but don't quite play like arcade Pac-Man. ColecoVision has a new Pac-Man that I saw on YouTube being played side-by-side, move for move, with the arcade Pac-Man. That is seriously impressive, but I admire the 2600 coming so close to a 1980 arcade game with its mid-70's hardware. ColecoVision has early 80's hardware which came after 1980 Pac-Man. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appadeia Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 (edited) I've been reading this thread recently, and I am seriously impressed! However, I found a semi-major/semi-minor bug. When you play for an extended duration (about 1 week of continuous playing), the game starts to break down. I don't know if this is a problem with the nature of the Atari 2600 or just a bug in the programming. Side Note: I haven't replicated this on an unmodified Atari (The modification just cleans up the image and allows image/video capture) but I have done so on both a PC and my modified Atari 2600 Side Note 2:If my signature is long, then I did something wrong in the profile settings with some HTML code EDIT: Fixed my signature, and also I made an account just to report this bug, but the rest of AA looks promising Edited June 21, 2016 by Appadeia 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 So in PC Stella emulation the image breaks down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appadeia Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 (edited) The effect of the breaking down: misplaced pellets and a ghastly blue/red/whatever color the Atari feels like putting up thing to the left. Happened on my PC emu and my brother's modified Atari 2600 console (he likes hardware) which stuffs a 5200 in there with a switch to switch between the two consoles. I would put up a screenshot of both, but nothing will make the picture even decent (EDIT: Pic taken of the CRT of the console ) . I also don't know how to put up an image on here, so help on that would be nice. (Looking on how to do that, will edit if finds out) Edited June 21, 2016 by Appadeia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Any camera with an adjustable shutter speed set to below 1/30th sec should make a really nice pic - gives time for the image to be "absorbed". And I don't mean simulated shit on smartphones. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuyAllTheCarts Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 The effect of the breaking down: misplaced pellets and a ghastly blue/red/whatever color the Atari feels like putting up thing to the left. Happened on my PC emu and my brother's modified Atari 2600 console (he likes hardware) which stuffs a 5200 in there with a switch to switch between the two consoles. I would put up a screenshot of both, but nothing will make the picture even decent (EDIT: Pic taken of the CRT of the console ) . I also don't know how to put up an image on here, so help on that would be nice. (Looking on how to do that, will edit if finds out) Huh. That's weird. While I don't own a 2600 (I own a Flashback 2 modded for a cart connection.), I played it on Stella and nothing "broke down." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appadeia Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 (edited) The breakdown takes a very long time to occur, and would never be encountered in normal play so, not exactly the most urgent thing to fix, but think about people who go on game addictions and play for days on end. The reason I have trouble taking a pic of the CRT is that the "thing" keeps flickering, even on pause. :{ I still also haven't found how to upload a pic, so :/ Oh and @BuyAllTheCarts, I have the first 5 of the flashbacks as well, but also the original 2600 console and the hybrid that my brother made. EDIT: Got a new profile picture, woo! Edited June 21, 2016 by Appadeia Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Sometimes cheap cameras make videos better than they do still images. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Considering a simple power off / power on would fix it. Seems like it is not that big of a deal to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 The reason I have trouble taking a pic of the CRT is that the "thing" keeps flickering, even on pause. While working on Stay Frosty 2, back before Stella had DPC+ support, I tracked down a glitch by recording a video with my camera then stepping through it frame by frame: Once I could see it I was able to determine what it was and how to fix it Based on the 4 pixel wide, it had to be either the Nose(missile 1), or the Snowball (missile 0). Since the nose color is tied to the object and garbage data showed up over the ice chest, it had to be the snowball. Turns out the routine that updates the snowball DPC+ register info wasn't being called until after the very first game screen frame was displayed. I still also haven't found how to upload a pic, so :/ To add attachments you need to first click on More Reply Options next to the Post button. After that you'll see options for attaching files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuyAllTheCarts Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 The breakdown takes a very long time to occur, and would never be encountered in normal play so, not exactly the most urgent thing to fix, but think about people who go on game addictions and play for days on end. The reason I have trouble taking a pic of the CRT is that the "thing" keeps flickering, even on pause. :{ I still also haven't found how to upload a pic, so :/ Oh and @BuyAllTheCarts, I have the first 5 of the flashbacks as well, but also the original 2600 console and the hybrid that my brother made. EDIT: Got a new profile picture, woo! That's a downside about CRT's. The only advice I could give is to manually set it to 60 kHz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appadeia Posted June 21, 2016 Share Posted June 21, 2016 Thank you @SpiceWare! Now here is the picture recreated in Stella. Couldn't capture the thing, but it is there. Also, the score is an arbitrary number (maybe a random region in memory?), but at least I can show off the Pac-Man skills I (don't) have to my parents... This is the NTSC rom, fyi. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 What did you do to recreate this so quickly? Or has the instance been running for a week? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Appadeia Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 I had this screenshot for like forever, it was nagging me so bad so I posted about it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keatah Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 What version rom? V6? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 22, 2016 Share Posted June 22, 2016 I suggest turning on Phosphor mode for games like this which use flicker - it would probably have made that "thing" visible. I have instructions on how to do that in the first post for Space Rocks. You only have to set it once per ROM, Stella will remember. When a new build is released you'll have to set it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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