Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 Hard to tell, could be everything. Can you try to flash a different SD card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SvOlli Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 On 10/30/2020 at 6:19 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said: Yes, especially because it would have required only a bit of extra work to make the dumper better. Or at least allow to update it. Anyway, IMO the slot is only a marketing gimmick. Last week, I checked if I could use the knowledge I gathered creating my own ROM dumper on the RetroN, buying one just for that. Digging through the sourcecode I was underwhelmed: no updating the firmware without soldering the firmware is written in a way that makes recreating the binary difficult, when using open source tools the design was a very bad choice I want to comment on the last one: with my ROM dumper, the microcontroller software is still in it's first incarnation. When deciding on the design, I chose that I will implement all "intelligence" about the mappers on the "host" side, and not the microcontroller. The firmware just knows the functions: POKE PEEK DUMP (multi-PEEK) POKE writes a single byte to the bus, PEEK reads a single byte, DUMP is just for speeding up things by reducing protocol overhead: it PEEKs through whole areas. And I came up with that design in something like thinking about it for 15 minutes with the focus on "what well be the easiest to debug", as well as "what would be a simple and elegant architecture"? I'm really wondering what the guy that designed the dumper of the RetroN does for a living... Originally, I assumed that the dumper just works by connecting the ROM slot to GPIOs of the CPU using level shifters. For my dumper I was evaluating this option using a Raspberry Pi as an alternative option, but using an ATmega with enough GPIOs was so much easier, as I can run it on 5V. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 3 minutes ago, SvOlli said: I'm really wondering what the guy that designed the dumper of the RetroN does for a living... IMO the software looks like a cheap, outsourced (probably offshore) job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeremysart Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 8 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Hard to tell, could be everything. Can you try to flash a different SD card? Update: I tried using a different disk imager, and I tried using an older release of the community stella build. Still the same freezing issues no matter what I did. So I flashed the OEM Hyperkin official disk image it came stock with and that works fine. So it's not likely the console.. perhaps there's a step I'm missing somewhere, but I followed directions to a T, wrote the new disk image to the sd card. Added a folder called "games" and dropped my .a26 rom files in. Safely ejected the sd card from the computer, inserted it into the Retron 77, power Retron on.. what am I doing wrong? Are there other files I'm supposed to be copying onto the SD card? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 I stick with my try a different SD cart idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DirtyHairy Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 (edited) Sorry for your trouble, but I suspect that your console has a hardware issue. If Stella "freezes" this usually means that it has crashed --- the framebuffer driver keeps displaying the last picture. The stock build and the Stella 6 firmware image are very different, so it is entirely possible that your hardware is damaged in a way that does not cause issues with the stock image but crashes Stella 6. Some possibilities: Faulty memory. The new firmware uses more RAM, both for Stella itself and for the GPU, and it is possible that it is hitting a bad row in memory that is not accessed in the stock image A bad GPU. Stella 6 uses the GPU for acceleration and vsync, the stock image doesn't A bad CPU. The stock image underclocks the H3 to 1GHz, the new firmware runs the CPU at 1.2GHz, and it is possible that a bad CPU runs fine at 1GHz and causes random crashes at 1.2GHz Thermal issues You can try a new SD card to be 100% sure, but there is not disk access after the game starts, so I don't think that the card is the issue here. Another remote chance is the power supply, the new firmware sucks up more power, so you may want to try another USB supply just in case... Edited May 11, 2021 by DirtyHairy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RetroRocks Posted January 17, 2022 Share Posted January 17, 2022 My upgrade to the latest Stella works GREAT! And is so cool! EXCEPT...... the menu screen has the leftmost character and the rightmost characters not showing.... almost as if the "projected" screen is one character too wide on both sides! And my 16:9, 4:3 button on the back does nothing. Any help would be MUCH appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 17, 2022 Share Posted January 17, 2022 (edited) A screenshot would help. Maybe your TV has significant overscan? Can you disable it? Edited January 17, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+stephena Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 There's also an overscan setting in Stella itself, for problems such as this. But if you can disable it at the TV level, that works too. Sometimes it's called "native 16:9" vs. "full 16:9", or something similar. EDIT: Also, the 16:9 / 4:3 button affects only the game output, not the ROM launcher. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted January 18, 2022 Share Posted January 18, 2022 10 minutes ago, stephena said: There's also an overscan setting in Stella itself, for problems such as this. IIRC that also only affects emulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 Hi, I finally put Stella on my Retron 77 and I'm really enjoying it. However, not much luck with paddles. They are jittery through the built in port or the y adapter thingy with Stelladapters. They don't seem to work at all with Ultimate PC Interface. No jitter with them on the 7800. Questions... 1) Is there a Stella setting to get rid of the paddle jitter? 2) Does Ultimate PC Interface work with the Retron? I'm guessing if there's a problem it needs more power, and not sure how to do that... Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, doug0909 said: Hi, I finally put Stella on my Retron 77 and I'm really enjoying it. However, not much luck with paddles. They are jittery through the built in port or the y adapter thingy with Stelladapters. They don't seem to work at all with Ultimate PC Interface. No jitter with them on the 7800. They should not jitter when using a Stelladapter if they do not jitter on the 7800. Makes no sense. Quote Questions... 1) Is there a Stella setting to get rid of the paddle jitter? Yes. Switch to advanced settings and then go to Input/Devices & Ports. Quote 2) Does Ultimate PC Interface work with the Retron? I'm guessing if there's a problem it needs more power, and not sure how to do that... No clue. Does it create digital values like the Stelladaptor/2600-daptor do? Edited February 21, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted February 21, 2022 Share Posted February 21, 2022 2 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: No clue. Does it create digital values like the Stelladaptor/2600-daptor do? Don't know. The 2600-daptor is referenced on the Ultimate PC Interface page, but I guess that doesn't mean the design is similar. http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/interface/interface.php I don't know what to say about the jitter, I bought a usb adapter recommended on Atariage. As I recall, the Stelladaptors were fine with my PC as well, and I tried 2 Stelladaptors with the Retron, with multiple paddles. Constant (though limited) back and forth jitter with all. I'm thinking electrical interference... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 8 hours ago, doug0909 said: I'm thinking electrical interference... I haven't heard something like this yet and I wouldn't know how this can happen. But since you are reporting it, it seems to happen nevertheless. You can only try to experiment with the anti jitter settings in Stella. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dualcam Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 18 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: No clue. Does it create digital values like the Stelladaptor/2600-daptor do? Yes. I make the Ultimate adapters sold on http://intellivision.us/. They work like the 2600-daptors. Tom http://2600-daptor.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 22, 2022 Share Posted February 22, 2022 Stella currently detects Stelladaptor and 2600-daptors by their device name (I don't know about a better way). What name do the Ultimate adapters return? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dualcam Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 23 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Stella currently detects Stelladaptor and 2600-daptors by their device name (I don't know about a better way). What name do the Ultimate adapters return? The Ultimate v3 which supports paddles is named "Ultimate 2600-daptor". I believe Stella was looking for "2600-daptor" any where in the name and thus detected it, but has been many Stella versions since I last checked this. The v2 does not supports paddles and no need for it to be specifically detected by Stella. Tom http://2600-daptor.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 13 minutes ago, dualcam said: The Ultimate v3 which supports paddles is named "Ultimate 2600-daptor". I believe Stella was looking for "2600-daptor" any where in the name and thus detected it, but has been many Stella versions since I last checked this. Yes, Stella checks for this string. Maybe the check is too strict (begins with) at some parts. I will look into this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Yes, Stella checks for this string. Maybe the check is too strict (begins with) at some parts. I will look into this. Everything is fine there (only a minor bug in Global Hotkeys). @dualcam Have you done tests with that adapter and Stella? Edited February 23, 2022 by Thomas Jentzsch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 On 2/22/2022 at 3:05 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said: You can only try to experiment with the anti jitter settings in Stella. I bought another otg adapter to see if that was the problem and now, after going into jitter settings, my R77 is really fritzing. It's recognizing a constant input of up, even with no joystick plugged in. I give up; I'll play paddle games on my 7800. I the meantime is there any possible combination of buttons I can press on the R77 to reset it to defaults? Having trouble getting into Stella menus to do that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 You could read the docs. ? Or delete all sqlite files on the SD. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted February 23, 2022 Share Posted February 23, 2022 (edited) 1 hour ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: You could read the docs. ? Or delete all sqlite files on the SD. Deleting sqlite files worked well. May have reduced jitter a bit by reducing averaging to 1 but still unplayable. Back to joystick games. Edited February 24, 2022 by doug0909 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 7 hours ago, doug0909 said: Deleting sqlite files worked well. May have reduced jitter a bit by reducing averaging to 1 but still unplayable. Reducing the dejitter values in Stella will of course increase the jitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doug0909 Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 (edited) 5 hours ago, Thomas Jentzsch said: Reducing the dejitter values in Stella will of course increase the jitter. I took the values in both directions, and nothing seemed to fix it. I just recall seeing a little less when I reduced the averaging value to 1, but another may have been increased. I wasn't taking careful notes. Maybe when I have more time I'll try to do this more methodically to see if I can fix it. The sqlite deletion keeps everything repairable, thank you for that... Curious if anyone else reading this has experienced paddle jitter with the latest build and Stelladaptors... Edited February 24, 2022 by doug0909 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 24, 2022 Share Posted February 24, 2022 At least in theory it is impossible that the same paddles work on the 7800 and not when using the USB-ports (the front ports are lousy when it comes to paddles) of the Retron77. The only explanation I have is, that something is broken. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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