Stella 6 on the R77: the eagle is landing

[quohog]

3 hours ago, bcombee said:

On the "no permissions" ... balenaEtcher seems to have problems with recent builds of Windows 10 and having the right permissions to re-write the SD card.  I was able to get around this by right clicking on the etcher icon and running it as administrator.

That was the ticket! Works like a charm now! Thank you!

[envytomdead2]

I  upgraded to 6.4 today. After the upgrade, the 2nd controller port stopped working. I still had the stock sd card so I tried that and the 2nd controller port was functioning again. I tried a trooper, ranger and a original controller all the same result. Is there another step that is needed to get the second controller port working  in 6.4?

[marlowe221]

I just wanted to thank the developers of Stella for making such an excellent port of the emulator to the Retron 77.

 

My lovely wife gave me a Retron 77 for Christmas yesterday and I just got Stella running on it. It's a great improvement in every way, though I've only tried actual cartridges so far.

 

Thanks for all the hard work, Stella team!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

7 hours ago, envytomdead2 said:

I  upgraded to 6.4 today. After the upgrade, the 2nd controller port stopped working. I still had the stock sd card so I tried that and the 2nd controller port was functioning again. I tried a trooper, ranger and a original controller all the same result. Is there another step that is needed to get the second controller port working  in 6.4?

Have you tried to default the input mapping?

[envytomdead2]

On 12/27/2020 at 1:50 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Have you tried to default the input mapping?

By clicking defaults under inputs (I think that's where I found it ) fixed the issue. The fire button on paddles doesn't work well but I think that is a known issue that is being actively worked on. 

[BitMerge6502]

By no means in a hurry since I'm still enjoying v6.4, but I wanted to know what any plans for 6.5 with high score saving were? Is that Atarivox only support?

[wfletcher3]

Can anyone tell me the best thread to watch (get notices from) for new releases of stella?

Thanks up front,

w-

[+fdr4prez]

26 minutes ago, wfletcher3 said:

Can anyone tell me the best thread to watch (get notices from) for new releases of stella?

Thanks up front,

w-

There is not a single thread for this.

 

Go to the Emulation subforum:

Emulation - AtariAge Forums

 

Each released version will have its own thread there.

 

So if you were following the Stella 6.4 thread, then there was a post about the release of the new Stella 6.5

 

Then you can go a start following the Stella 6.5 thread.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

3 hours ago, BitMerge6502 said:

By no means in a hurry since I'm still enjoying v6.4, but I wanted to know what any plans for 6.5 with high score saving were? Is that Atarivox only support?

No, R77 doesn't support the AtariVox/SaveKey. The high scores are saved in Stella.

 

A 6.5 version for R77 should be released quite soon.

[Dionoid]

Someone on Facebook mentioned buying a pre-loaded Retron77 SD card from emustation.store for $19.95, containing a recent version of Stella, every commercial game ever released and also a list of homebrew games.

 

Selling a $4 micro-SD card for $19.95 by copying Stella and a large amount of ROMs onto it, for which you clearly don't hold rights...

That's not legal, right?

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 29, 2021 by Dionoid
Removed link

[Thomas Jentzsch]

We are aware already, someone promoted this on the AA FB site until Al removed it. Using (my) homebrews without permission is clearly not legal. 

 

BTW: Please remove the link. We don't want promote theft.

Edited January 29, 2021 by Thomas Jentzsch

[BitMerge6502]

9 hours ago, Dionoid said:

That's not legal, right?

I also might add that Stella77 is updated fairly frequently, (thanks devrs), and if someone is unwilling to go through the simple update process themselves; they will soon have an outdated OS.

[BitMerge6502]

Kinda sad that the contemporary "retro" gaming community has become more about "look what I can buy" rather than "look what I accomplished". I miss the tinkerers, programmers, artists, & composers that chose this as their hobby because it was an outlet for their creativity, not a status symbol or reflection of their affluence.

[Atari2600Lives]

Original Paddles do not work on 6.5 and retron 77 .

Thomas I am just giving feedback since I read you were not getting much feedback with stella's latest build and retron 77 and paddles  I tried 3 paddle sets, (even one new from sealed package) and it was still unplayable jittery. I tested hyperkin ranger which was ok but kind of blows for competitive play. Let me now if I  missed something or need another set up. thank you for everything you do! its amazing in any case!. 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Atari2600Lives

[DirtyHairy]

If the paddles work but jitter, then there is not much that can be done. The R77‘s paddle readout is crappy, and some consoles seem to be worse than others. Have you tried to adjust the dejitter settings?

[Atari2600Lives]

On 2/7/2021 at 2:38 AM, DirtyHairy said:

If the paddles work but jitter, then there is not much that can be done. The R77‘s paddle readout is crappy, and some consoles seem to be worse than others. Have you tried to adjust the dejitter settings?

OK got some useful info. The dejitter settings as I understand it are already on by default. I have 2 retrons. On the one I first tested paddles were unplayable and I posted here. I then tested the other one and the jitter is minimal and the games are perfectly playable, both breakout and kaboom played well. So its a retron specific issue for sure as some consoles work some don't.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Atari2600Lives

[+stephena]

Not surprising.  On my R77, one of the buttons on the front is wired backwards!  So when it's released (as normal) it registers as pressed, and vice-versa.  I added code to the Linux kernel backend to deal with this issue for all buttons, since it could technically happen for any of them.  And the other members of the Stella team never had such a problem.  So it's very likely that there is different behaviour amongst different devices.

[jeremysart]

SOS! I just flashed the latest community build to my Retron 77 SD card. (https://github.com/DirtyHairy/r77-firmware-ng/releases/tag/stella-6.5.3 this is where I downloaded the sdcard.img) I used Etcher for Windows 10 to flash the SD card image to the SD card.

 

Popped it in, fired up the Retron and played Mario Bros. just fine for a couple of minutes, then hit fry to go back to the Stella menu. Loaded up Keystone Kapers and within seconds the game froze. Waited, nothing. Hit reset, nothing. Fry, nothing. Turned off and back on, same result. It is now doing this with every game I try and sometimes freezing in the menu as well.. I have 116 roms loaded in the the games folder, all are .a26 files. 

I did not mess with any Stella menu settings whatsoever.. I did read that some snapshot setting can cause a memory leak, but again, I did not change any settings at all. 

One last bit of info, the same thing happens when I insert a cartridge, it also freezes the console just like playing from the sd card. 

 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Obadiah64]

On 5/10/2021 at 8:25 PM, jeremysart said:

SOS! I just flashed the latest community build to my Retron 77 SD card. (https://github.com/DirtyHairy/r77-firmware-ng/releases/tag/stella-6.5.3 this is where I downloaded the sdcard.img) I used Etcher for Windows 10 to flash the SD card image to the SD card.

 

Popped it in, fired up the Retron and played Mario Bros. just fine for a couple of minutes, then hit fry to go back to the Stella menu. Loaded up Keystone Kapers and within seconds the game froze. Waited, nothing. Hit reset, nothing. Fry, nothing. Turned off and back on, same result. It is now doing this with every game I try and sometimes freezing in the menu as well.. I have 116 roms loaded in the the games folder, all are .a26 files. 

I did not mess with any Stella menu settings whatsoever.. I did read that some snapshot setting can cause a memory leak, but again, I did not change any settings at all. 

One last bit of info, the same thing happens when I insert a cartridge, it also freezes the console just like playing from the sd card. 

 

Any help would be appreciated.

Basically getting the same results.......freezing in the menu mostly.

Using R77 Stella 6.5.3 

https://github.com/DirtyHairy/r77-firmware-ng/releases/tag/stella-6.5.3

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Maybe the console is overheating. Is it currently hotter than normal? Does the problem disappear when you switch it off for some time?

 

Else you could try a different power supply.

[Obadiah64]

I don't think heat is the issue, but I will keep that in mind as I proceed.  I re-flashed the SD with R77 Stella 6.5.2 and so far no freezing.  Everything is running smoothly. I may leave the unit on for an extended amount of time just to see if it causes any problems that may be due to heat build up.

[DirtyHairy]

I am afraid this is likely to be a hardware issue. All R77s are identical, and if Stella crashes on an individual console even after reflashing the SD card this is likely to be hardware. A possible explanation for this happening only in the latest version might be a different memory access pattern that hits a bad row in RAM that wasn't hit before, or maybe more heat.

 

I'll see whether I can log stdout / stderr in a future build to be sure that we get log output of the crash though, just in case...

Edited July 8, 2021 by DirtyHairy

[Trouble for Turmoil]

First off, this build is such an improvement performance wise and I am really amazed that it runs games as well as it does. I just got the recent build onto an micro SD card, and while fun, I've had a few issues. For one, whenever I play something the game will only last like 8 minutes before everything freezes and I have to turn off the console and start it up again. After an hour of using this build the there's something going on where, when starting up the console without a game, a black screen just shows up and nothing will happen unless I put a game in and take it out. Doing that will bring me back to the Stella menu. Before it would boot up to the Stella menu but now it's up in the air if it will or not. I've also had an issue where, when it does go to the menu, when I try to put a game it won't recognize it where it didn't do that beforehand. I'm not sure if these are common issues and if I did do something wrong or not. I tried looking through some of the forms but didn't see anything like this except early on saying that I shouldn't adjust settings or else the memory will overload. Didn't know about that before messing with things like the TV settings and Scanlines, but seeing that the warning was for an older build I'm not sure if that still applies. If I can have some help or guidance to a place where this problem has been resolved on the forms that would be appreciated. Also apologize for my disjointed explanation, still pumped up with worry as I just got a SD card today to try it out and, while I knew this would be something that could have problems and isn't official, I was concerned that my system messed up when the dumper stopped working. Thankfully that still works as everything loads up fine with the SD card with the 3.9.3 build.

[Trouble for Turmoil]

On 7/5/2021 at 12:59 PM, Obadiah64 said:

I don't think heat is the issue, but I will keep that in mind as I proceed.  I re-flashed the SD with R77 Stella 6.5.2 and so far no freezing.  Everything is running smoothly. I may leave the unit on for an extended amount of time just to see if it causes any problems that may be due to heat build up.

Have you had any issues with it since then? I'm having similar freezing issues and I tried the same thing and the same thing happens, just a minute later than it did with 6.5.3.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

It is really tough to diagnose your system's problems. But since you have to use the cart port to get Stella going again, it might be that the port is causing the problems. You could try to clean it or check if something has fallen into.

 

Other options:

• Try different games, e.g. Combat and any ARM game and see if there is a difference in behavior. The latter will put much more load on the CPU, so if the behavior is identical then we know the problem is somewhere else.
• Try a different (stronger) power supply and also make sure that you use a different power cable
• Exchange the controllers

Effectively try to change everything you can (one by one) and see if anything changes the picture.