Altirra 3.20 released

[Docwiz]

3 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

There are very few exciting new features that would only be made possible on Windows 10 that may apply to a mature and very well done emulator such as Altirra. I rather think, as I listen, that it's a fair amount of work moving everything over and making the changes needed to cut the old out for the new. The advantage that I did hear was the environment for further development may be nicer.   There's little point discussing it. The decision is made. We'll see what the future holds, phaeron has a way of beating the crap out of the new clunky stuff and making it useful, it's possible he'll do the impossible and make something win10 can't muck up. The only reason I am the slightest bit receptive, is because phaeron makes it happen.

 

I just installed 8.1 on and old HP, currently trying to remember all the tweaks to make it 'normal'... this is in preparation for what we've been told is coming...

 

  Well, I would like to see someone take the source code and get it running on Oculus Quest as far as having a virtual Atari computer and a disk/tape drive and carts. Phaeron is busy and he doesn't need to be involved with this, but it would be cool.

 

   I have to tell you guys that I have used his Emulator on a screen the size of a movie theater in Virtual Desktop on the Oculus Quest and it's quite amazing.   You ever want to see what a massive 50 foot screen with an Atari 8-bit looks like, it's really amazing!

[_The Doctor__]

I thought of the Oculus Quest as the VR headset and software you put on an iPhone or Android based device... a quick search shows they have cut the price and made their own all in one solutions without a PC x86 x64 at all. Nice... and way less expensive too!

[ilmenit]

There seems to be a bug with "PAL artifacting" turned on when D3D 9 is set  Altirra.ini

[Docwiz]

21 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I thought of the Oculus Quest as the VR headset and software you put on an iPhone or Android based device... a quick search shows they have cut the price and made their own all in one solutions without a PC x86 x64 at all. Nice... and way less expensive too!

Yeah, it's really cool if you get some games with it.  I love Eleven Table Tennis VR, it's like the real thing and it's 20 US dollars!

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/1995434190525828/?ranking_trace=0_1995434190525828_SKYLINEWEBQUESTSEARCH_1LTCgCiYwMRv2c1D9

 

Anyway, the Atari 8-bit emulator with real 3D Atari hardware (3D model meshes) such as an Atari 800xl or 1050 Disk drive or XF551 disk drive would be amazing along with the emulator on a big screen or on a regular CRT TV.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Docwiz

[Keatah]

FEATURE REQUEST:

 

What's the ease or feasibility of adding another "phosphor type"? I see color, green, amber, bluish-white. Can we get a black & white phosphor? Or maybe a set of RGB sliders to mix our own?

 

[phaeron]

On 5/12/2020 at 1:05 AM, ilmenit said:

There seems to be a bug with "PAL artifacting" turned on when D3D 9 is set

Fixed (release candidate try #3):

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.90-test34.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-3.90-test34-src.zip

 

Happened when D3D9, PAL artifacting, hardware accelerated screen effects, and bloom were enabled, with the common effect being to halve the saturation. So this explains why you were seeing such significant color differences.

 

Also fixes the debugger help text typo.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 11:17 PM, StickJock said:

Speaking of joystick, did you see my suggestions for additional input mapping in post 648?  Since the cheapo ZeroDelay USB joysticks support 12 buttons, it would be really cool if we could map some of them to arbitrary keys.  I already build a joystick that maps buttons to the three console buttons & the spacebar, but being able to add other keys (and 2B+) would allow much more flexibility.

Yes, but I don't reply to every post and I haven't done anything on this yet.

 

On 5/11/2020 at 11:46 PM, gnusto said:

It's not just that, it's the case that eventually, as a developer, you can no longer even use your tools to produce code that runs on XP as a target. This is the case by default nowadays with Visual Studio, and phaeron is using a hackish unsupported 'it kinda works' approach to the platform targeting, or he's using an old version of the development tools, not sure which. Well I should say that's what I would guess, maybe he's found some clever work around.

 

Arguably you can so something like use MinGW to build a windows target to almost any version, but honestly its a horrid mess and distraction compared to the Microsoft tools and just rolling a drop down to the target.

It's a fully supported path, VS2017 XP targeting to be exact. But that's the last version that supports it, and it requires using the old v7.0A Windows SDK that causes problems when trying to use newer functionality. There are some hacks in the code base to work around non-compliant C++ code in the old system headers.

 

I can't use MinGW, it has old WinAPI definitions and the compiler doesn't output MSVC-compatible debug data. I have the v4.0 devline compiling with clang-cl with only a couple of hacks remaining, but Clang still has a couple of annoying incompatibilities with the Visual C++ compiler and compiles a lot more slowly on Windows. I have no plans to switch away from MSVC but Clang is useful for UBSan, plus it has much better warnings.

 

On 5/12/2020 at 12:31 AM, _The Doctor__ said:

There are very few exciting new features that would only be made possible on Windows 10 that may apply to a mature and very well done emulator such as Altirra. I rather think, as I listen, that it's a fair amount of work moving everything over and making the changes needed to cut the old out for the new. The advantage that I did hear was the environment for further development may be nicer.   There's little point discussing it. The decision is made. We'll see what the future holds, phaeron has a way of beating the crap out of the new clunky stuff and making it useful, it's possible he'll do the impossible and make something win10 can't muck up. The only reason I am the slightest bit receptive, is because phaeron makes it happen.

 

I just installed 8.1 on and old HP, currently trying to remember all the tweaks to make it 'normal'... this is in preparation for what we've been told is coming...   hmmm. killed most of the charm bars trip wires... now to murder the rest of it... yanking stuff left and right...

Altirra does take advantage of a few features in Windows 8.1 and 10 although they're not ones you would notice unless you were looking for them. One is improved support for low latency windowed mode vsync in 8.1, another is high-DPI support. This includes per-monitor high DPI in Windows 8.1 and per-monitor V2 in 10. The Direct3D 11 shaders also execute in half precision for better performance / lower power usage on integrated graphics on Windows 8+. Windows 10 also has some improved support for HDR that I might try if I ever bother getting an HDR-capable monitor.

 

There's nothing in Windows 8/10 that makes a compelling case for dropping Windows 7, though, and Microsoft's current policy of neglecting Win32 doesn't make that likely to change any time soon. I have zero interest in porting to UWP. The most likely next hazard is Visual C++ deprecating Windows 7 support, and in that case I'd likely just freeze compilers for a while.

 

On 5/12/2020 at 2:19 AM, Keatah said:

What's the ease or feasibility of adding another "phosphor type"? I see color, green, amber, bluish-white. Can we get a black & white phosphor? Or maybe a set of RGB sliders to mix our own?

Not hard though it's a lot easier to add single named colors than an RGB selector. The question regarding white -- what white? White on a modern display isn't the same as white on the old CRTs. In any case, it would be for the next version as this version is feature frozen. I could certainly add #ffffff; the bluish-white profile is off of screenshots and ancient memories of a TRS-80 Model 4.

 

I have been thinking about whether it'd be feasible to put in a Firefox-like about:config screen for changing parameters under the hood. It'd be a way to expose this stuff more cheaply for people to play with before promoting it to a main feature, or just stuff that's a bit niche.

 

[Keatah]

2 hours ago, phaeron said:

Not hard though it's a lot easier to add single named colors than an RGB selector. The question regarding white -- what white? White on a modern display isn't the same as white on the old CRTs. In any case, it would be for the next version as this version is feature frozen. I could certainly add #ffffff; the bluish-white profile is off of screenshots and ancient memories of a TRS-80 Model 4.

I was thinking just plain old white. Like white paper in sunlight or something. ffffff or 255,255,255. Yes. I think that would work for the look I'm after. Can we try that?

 

And make no mistake, it's pretty surreal playing classic games in blue phosphor. In fact it's what got me thinking about a b/w phosphor (fictional or realistic). I can get close to B/W by playing with the contrast/bright/intensity/saturation sliders.

 

Quote

I have been thinking about whether it'd be feasible to put in a Firefox-like about:config screen for changing parameters under the hood. It'd be a way to expose this stuff more cheaply for people to play with before promoting it to a main feature, or just stuff that's a bit niche.

That could work.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Keatah

[mr-atari]

I have an issue with device H:

Most likely nobody noticed because of the file-size in "normal" use.

But when I output (or throughput) a file, it's output-size is limited to 16Mb.

All bytes beyond 16Mb are lost in space...

Can you have a look?

Thanks!

[Mclaneinc]

2 hours ago, mr-atari said:

 

All bytes beyond 16Mb are lost in space...

 

 

[phaeron]

15 hours ago, mr-atari said:

I have an issue with device H:

Most likely nobody noticed because of the file-size in "normal" use.

But when I output (or throughput) a file, it's output-size is limited to 16Mb.

All bytes beyond 16Mb are lost in space...

Can you have a look?

Thanks!

This is intentional, both to prevent the emulated computer from opening huge files. This is particularly an issue with H6-H9: since the file is kept in memory to support seeking with EOL translation. You should have gotten disk full errors trying to write to the file past that point, however.

 

I could see lifting this limit for H1-H4: since in that case the data can be spooled to/from disk.

 

[_The Doctor__]

This is SPARTA! 32M * 15        :)

[flashjazzcat]

3 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

This is SPARTA!

I very much doubt it in this particular case.

[mr-atari]

5 hours ago, phaeron said:

This is intentional, both to prevent the emulated computer from opening huge files. This is particularly an issue with H6-H9: since the file is kept in memory to support seeking with EOL translation. You should have gotten disk full errors trying to write to the file past that point, however.

 

I could see lifting this limit for H1-H4: since in that case the data can be spooled to/from disk.

 

If that would be possible (or at least one specific Hx:), yes please.

 

I did not check for errors (on write), assuming when files are opened correctly, this should not happen.
So that went passed me.

 

It had me puzzled for some time, since I was working on video-compression and I could shrink 500+ Mb into 16, lol...

 

Many thanks in advance ?

[TheRaven81]

Would it be possible to add an option for un-mounting/un-loading any disk or cart images/roms that have been loaded in when a cold reset(Shift+F5) is done? Or at least unmount them upon quitting the emulator? I say an option because there may be people that do not want this. But I use the emulator simply for testing things. So when I do a full cold reset or quit, I'd prefer the emulator pretty much have a clean slate afterwards. It has me confused sometimes if I test an ATR of something, quit, and say don't come back to it for a week, and see something unexpected load when I open the emulator again(mainly b/c i can't recall what I was doing in it a week before).

Edited May 15, 2020 by TheRaven81

[+skr]

55 minutes ago, TheRaven81 said:

Would it be possible to add an option for un-mounting/un-loading any disk or cart images/roms that have been loaded in when a cold reset(Shift+F5) is done?

Yes, that would be really useful. There are options to unmount when new images are loaded, but everytime I boot up Altirra, it does whatever it did the last time I used it.

[TheRaven81]

I mean, I suppose it makes a *tiny* bit of sense when you think about it in a realistic way too. If you turn your Atari off after playing a cartridge game, and you leave the cartridge in the slot, then it's obvious that when you turn it back on, it's going to run the cartridge again. And the same would go for a disk in your disk drive(even though it's apparently not good to leave a disk in there from what I've read) - if you turn it and your Atari back on with a disk in the drive, then it's going to load the disk. Because that's what you were doing last. 

 

However, this is an emulation environment, and I'm not entirely sure that the emulator doing this is necessary. I think it would be good enough to unmount it, but still save it in the "Recently Booted" list. So that if you DO want to use the same image, you can just go there to do it. 

[+skr]

What you are saying is exactly how my Atari800MacX-Emulator behaves like.

You can set that in the Prefs:

 

I think, the two options at the bottom (unchecked here) would be great to have in Altirra.

[evilmoo]

Any idea how much work it would be to get this to work in Altirra?  I know the CRT 6545 chip would not be trivial to code, but it would be really need to see some of the old vaporware in action:

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/xlperipherals/1090/80 column board/index.htm

 

 

[evilmoo]

1 hour ago, evilmoo said:

really need

*sigh* really NEAT

[Kylev]

TheRaven81,

Isn't this what profiles are for? I have not tried them, so I could be waayy off base here, but everything I have read here in the forums seems to suggest that profiles are used to load specific states for the emulator with specific hardware/software present when the emulator is started.

If I am right, all that is needed is to create a profile that contains just the bare-bones system, ram, and add-on hardware you would like to use every time.

[Mclaneinc]

The profile system won't load states but that can be done via command line or directly, but yes the whole idea of the profile is to setup a system exactly as you like it and have that available at any time without having to recreate it by hand every time.

[TheRaven81]

Yeah but the profiles are only for the hardware side of things, like what type of system, how much RAM, peripherals attached, that sort of thing.  I'm talking about booting the images of software. Like say you boot a cartridge ROM, play it and then exit the emulator entirely(as in, closing the whole Altirra program). When you open Altirra again later, it will re-boot that same cartridge from before.  And I don't think it should do this. There should be an option for automatically un-mounting any Cartridge or Disk images when you open it.

 

Take a look back a few posts, this has already been mentioned.

[+DjayBee]

8 minutes ago, TheRaven81 said:

When you open Altirra again later, it will re-boot that same cartridge from before.

Only if you start it by itself. I hardly do this at all.

 

If you doubleclick an ATR or if you drag a disk image onto Altirra's window (not on one of the drive slots on the right side of the window), only this image is loaded.

[Mclaneinc]

Yup, just use the associate option in tools and just load stuff directly..

[+MrFish]

7 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

Only if you start it by itself. I hardly do this at all.

 

If you doubleclick an ATR or if you drag a disk image onto Altirra's window (not on one of the drive slots on the right side of the window), only this image is loaded.

Exactly, which is what I'm in the habit of doing. Double-click any media, and that's what gets loaded. Simple.

 

Even if you start Altirra by itself and there's media loaded, you can just interrupt the process and use "Boot Image" from the file menu, and it will only load what you've selected.