Flashback 9 Gold CFW to load roms and boxart from SD

[Draxxon]

From what I've been told there will be CFW for both versions of the X

I just asked if we could unlock more bezels. I haven't heard back yet.

Someone asked about flashing this onto the system permanently, there wasn't enough free space to do it on the FB9, probably not enough room to do it on the X either.

[Draxxon]

AFBX and AFBXD custom firmware has been released.
 

 

[Draxxon]

I forgot to mention. the FB9HD and FB9Gold are the same as the AFBX and AFBXD. the rom packs will work on either version. From here on out I will post updates to the rom pack in the new thread. the newest one is posted there now. it will work as is in your updated AFB9.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Draxxon

[mamebr]

The following content is in Portuguese, if this is not your language these files are not for you.

 

940 jogos + arte com arquivo all-games.ini em português.

 

Arquivos para facilitar a criação do seu all-games.ini personalisado.
all-games(Full_940_jogos).ini - Todos os 940 jogos disponíveis.
Clones(72_jogos).ini - 72 jogos que foram lançados com nomes diferentes.
Flashback(24_jogos).ini - 24 jogos entre homebrew, prototype e exclusivos lançados nas versões do Atari Flashback.
Hack(37_jogos).ini - 37 jogos hack.
Homebrew(181_jogos).ini - 181 jogos desenvolvidos por fãs do Atari 2600.
Oficiais(460_jogos).ini - 460 jogos considerados de lançamento oficial para o Atari 2600.
Prototype(91_jogos).ini - 91 jogos que não foram oficialmente lançados pelas empresas desenvolvedoras. Estes jogos podem ter sido terminados ou estarem em fase inicial de desenvolvimento.
Utility_Misc_Trash(59_jogos).ini - 59 diversos como programas utilitários e jogos (caseiros) que pouco se sabe a respeito.
XXX(16_jogos).ini - 16 jogos adulto com conteúdo erótico.

 

Estes arquivos não são compatíveis com outras versões, o nome dos arquivos foi alterado para melhor entendimento do conteúdo.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CabNLr6jYoxz-c2n23H4EJoZhR9HyE2v?usp=sharing

Edited March 17, 2020 by mamebr

[Mick70]

Obrigado mamebr por compartilhar, coleção organizada, gostei da arte para os jogos Homebrew, Hacks, Prototype e Flashback, muito melhor para identificar.

[frosted froggie]

On 9/30/2019 at 1:51 PM, Brad_from_the_80s said:

I did some hacking yesterday and was able to package my own custom firmware in order to get SD card roms and box art fully integrated into the main menu screen. 

 

See anything interesting?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

just wanted to give a big thank you to @brad_from_the_80s , @draxxon and everyone else who contributed to this topic.

 

also, these operations work on a mac to load sd card. 

[JoeSparkie]

WOW!  This is amazing.  My wife bought me a Flashback 9 for my birthday a couple days ago, and all I was searching online for was to find out what to do with the SD slot lol.  I had no idea of all the fantastic work you guys have done with these systems.  Thank you, especially to @Brad_from_the_80s and @Draxxon for bringing back some childhood memories and allowing me to show my kids all of the goodness Atari offered to an 80s kid!

 

So, I've downloaded and installed the CFW, the control file, and the startup emu from Brad, as well as the ATARIv9 rom file from Draxxon, to a 16GB SD card and things are working great.  However, I'm having trouble playing Zaxxon or ZaxxonArcade.  When I try to play those 2 games the screen freezes.  I am able to menu button back out to the home screen and proceed to play other games.  I copied the .a26 file from the ATARIv9 rom folder, as well as a .bin file from a different thread that was posted by Arenafoot, and put them in a Game folder and tried to play them from that location and the same thing happens.  Do you guys have any suggestions I could try?  A little background on me, I'm extremely new to this being just 2 days in, I have zero programming knowledge or experience, but I'm not afraid to try anything and I can follow directions fairly well.  Hopefully this is something very simple and you guys have already worked past this before.  Even if you can just point me to a site I could try downloading a different .a26 or .bin file I'd appreciate it. 

[OldNESJunkie]

Loving this, just bought a Flashback 9 because of this CFW.  Love it so far.  Easier to mess with than digging out my old 2600 Jr, CRT, and Harmony cart...

Big thanks to all involved in this project.  Now to introduce my 13 and 18 yo to the magic of the 2600

Edited April 19, 2020 by OldNESJunkie

[mamebr]

The following content is in Portuguese, proceed only if you understand what is next..

 

1060 jogos com arquivo all-games.ini em português.

 

Arquivos para facilitar a criação do seu all-games.ini personalisado.
all-games(Full_1060_jogos).ini - Todos os 1060 jogos disponíveis.
Official(462_jogos).ini - 462 jogos considerados de lançamento oficial para o Atari 2600.
Flashback(24_jogos).ini - 24 jogos entre homebrew, prototype e exclusivos lançados nas versões do Atari Flashback.
Prototype(92_jogos).ini - 92 jogos que não foram oficialmente lançados pelas empresas desenvolvedoras. Estes jogos podem ter sido terminados ou estarem em fase inicial de desenvolvimento.
Homebrew(139_jogos).ini - 139 jogos desenvolvidos por fãs do Atari 2600.
Hack(13_jogos).ini - 13 jogos hack.
Dispensable(60_jogos).ini - 60 jogos entre Homebrew e Hack que provavelmente não lhe farão falta.
Clones(76_jogos).ini - 76 jogos que foram lançados com nomes diferentes, provavelmente não lhe farão falta.
For_Stella_6(4_jogos) - 4 jogos que requerem Stella 6 ou superior, lembrando que a versão do Stella utilizada no Flashback é a 3.9.
Trash(160_jogos) - 160 jogos entre Homebrew e Hack que não lhe farão falta, muitos nem foram finalizados e outros tantos Hacks de Adventure, DK...
XXX(20_jogos).ini - 20 jogos adulto com conteúdo erótico.
Utility_Misc(10_jogos).ini - 10 diversos como programas utilitários. Não fazem sentido em emulador.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CabNLr6jYoxz-c2n23H4EJoZhR9HyE2v?usp=sharing

[mamebr]

JoeSparkie,

Zaxxon and Zaxxon Arcade, have been tested and work well, I'm making available the versions I use on the link below. Test and report the result.

 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mbtYKmwfBKOdF6JKwHuwyOUWSPw3lmII

[mamebr]

The following content is in Portuguese, proceed only if you understand what is next..

 

Atualização final ou até surgirem lançamentos.
1290 jogos com arquivo all-games.ini em português.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CabNLr6jYoxz-c2n23H4EJoZhR9HyE2v?usp=sharing

Edited April 25, 2020 by mamebr

[Atariboy]

Thought I'd download some of these homebrew updates to update my regular Atari Flashback 9 to fancy things up, and just wanted to double check that I have everything straight before proceeding. I've previously installed the official firmware that enabled SD card loading. 

 

I've downloaded the "Atari_FB9HD_3050_CFW_Hack" firmware and the "Atari_FB9_CFW_ControlFile" file posted here by Brad for my standard Atari Flashback 9 HD. Just follow those instructions in that post. Easy enough with this part.

 

I'd like to have the nice looking theme seen below, which I believe I located a version of for the regular Atari Flashback 9 here, posted by Draxxon.

 

 

I'm not sure of what exactly to do with that file though after installing the new firmware, in order to get my Flashback 9 to look like the above screenshot. Will I just be replacing files that will already be on my SD card with the contents of this rar file? I assume I have to run the file in this post before I can change themes?

 

And then lastly I downloaded the "A.T.A.R.I. v0.X.2 (1110 games)" game pack by Draxxon here and just have to follow his included instructions.

 

Am I missing anything important here?

Edited May 3, 2020 by Atariboy

[Atariboy]

I did this on my own. 

Thought I made a mistake. After I used the startup-emu-dump file, I had no games and the menu wasn't functioning. But I installed Draxxon's rom folder and that fixed that up. 

 

But now that it's all finished, I'm having performance issues. Significant audio issues in games a few seconds in and some homebrews like Mappy won't load.

 

And at startup, I have a wait of probably 20 seconds after the AtGames splash screen before the menu appears. Was I supposed to delete the mound_sd Control File? I'm assuming my wait is while it redumps the internal games each time I boot the system. Rather a long wait when switching games, since unless you use the poor AtGames stick with a menu button (Which annoyingly doesn't work in port #2), restarting is the only way to get back to the menu.

Edited May 5, 2020 by Atariboy

[Atariboy]

I searched this forum for Mappy and apparently it doesn't work on the Flashback X. I can confirm it's also not functional here on the older Flashback 9. Super Cobra Arcade is another no-go. 

 

Not too hopeful of any answers, but if someone has a tip to soften the long load and has an idea about the audio issues (Phoenix just went completely silent on me for instance), I'd appreciate it. 

Edited May 5, 2020 by Atariboy

[mamebr]

With my bad English, I will try to answer. The audio delay in games is known and was informed to the manufacturer, the last update brought improvements, but the delay is still there, not everyone notices, but it is.
Galagon, Mappy, Super Cobra Arcade, Wizard of Wor Arcade do not work on version 3.9 of Stella which is the standard version on the console. They were included in the Portuguese package but are not present in the standard all-games.ini of the package which excludes these and other games, showing only 830 games or 850 with adult games. They were included because I use the same base for other systems like Hyperspin, Playstation Mini, Raspberry.
Deleting the mound_sd file will start the system with only the games in the console's memory.
The Menu button can be adapted, there is a topic about it, this is the only way I know to ease the long load using a control that does not have the menu button. The more games you have on all-games.ini the longer it will take.
Sometimes it happens that a game does not play the sound, goes out and loads again usually resolves.

[Atariboy]

I'm accustomed to having audio in the menu but then not having it when starting a game. That's just part of the Flashback 9 for some unfortunate reason. Another audio quirk here and with the Legends Flashback is no menu audio upon boot-up (Which always means no sounds when starting games). I don't find the audio delay too much of a problem.

 

My issue though is different and just started happening when I applied these fan-made updates last night. The usual way it happens is I'll start a game and have audio like I should, but within 15-60 seconds there will be a momentary hiccup in game performance like the processor suddenly did something in the background, causing Stella to stutter. Soon after, I'll have scratchy audio or more often than not all audio will die completely. 

 

It doesn't happen every time. I thought whatever was causing this had somehow fixed itself (Like that ever happens ) since I was able to break 100k in Donkey Kong Jr. with no issues. But next time I started the system a little while later, the audio in Phoenix failed in record time. I doubt it took 10 seconds before sounds disappeared.

 

A different HDMI cable didn't help. Could it be my SD card? I don't have a spare, but I intentionally bought a supply of old used SD cards of 2 to 4 GB capacities off GameStop.com several years ago for various AtGames products when their SD functionality seemingly wasn't cooperating for people using newer and higher capacity cards here at AtariAge. 

 

This SD card worked just fine to jailbreak my Mega Sg last year (Since I had to delete the update that was still on it when I started working on this Flashback 9 last night).

Edited May 5, 2020 by Atariboy

[mamebr]

I've been using this CFW since December, being without sound during the game never happened to me, it happened to start the game without sound.
But I already tested consoles of the same model that in the same TV installation, cabling, updating ... when placed many games presented different behaviors, in one everything worked correctly, in another, it presented some type of problem.

If the cause of these problems was hardware or software, I can't say, I know that with less games, the defective console started to work correctly.

If this is what is happening to you, I can't say it either, just a hypothesis.

[Atariboy]

Yeah, I can't figure it out.

 

I don't believe it's a hardware issue since I tested this console out this morning with Centipede and several others without the SD card inserted and everything acted as it should. If it is a hardware issue, i believe it must be with the SD slot. If not, I imagine it's the SD card since these files I'm using have worked for other people. 

 

I'm not too concerned since it's not going to take the place of my updated Retron '77 or original 2600/7800 systems. But since I own two of these things, I thought I'd fancy up one of them a bit. 

 

I'll restart the process later starting with the firmware update and see if it works any better the second time around. If not, I suppose a cheap (new) SD card should be the next thing I check.

[mamebr]

I mentioned the hardware hypothesis for having already tested consoles that worked well, although they were not modified, and after the modification, depending on the amount of games added, they presented a problem. It would not be a defect, perhaps minor component differences depending on the batch. As I said, this is not necessarily your case.

I think it's worth testing another SD card.

Despite my bad English, if I can help with anything, ask.

Edited May 5, 2020 by mamebr

[+original_gamer]

On 5/5/2020 at 5:39 AM, Atariboy said:

I searched this forum for Mappy and apparently it doesn't work on the Flashback X. I can confirm it's also not functional here on the older Flashback 9. Super Cobra Arcade is another no-go. 

 

Not too hopeful of any answers, but if someone has a tip to soften the long load and has an idea about the audio issues (Phoenix just went completely silent on me for instance), I'd appreciate it. 

I upgraded to a class 10 sd card on my FB9 and the sound problems have virtually disappeared.  I switched to a usb 3.0 drive on my FBX and have much improvement there also.  The FB9 has the faster boot. 

[Draxxon]

On 5/3/2020 at 8:54 AM, Atariboy said:

Thought I'd download some of these homebrew updates to update my regular Atari Flashback 9 to fancy things up, and just wanted to double check that I have everything straight before proceeding. I've previously installed the official firmware that enabled SD card loading. 

 

I've downloaded the "Atari_FB9HD_3050_CFW_Hack" firmware and the "Atari_FB9_CFW_ControlFile" file posted here by Brad for my standard Atari Flashback 9 HD. Just follow those instructions in that post. Easy enough with this part.

 

I'd like to have the nice looking theme seen below, which I believe I located a version of for the regular Atari Flashback 9 here, posted by Draxxon.

 

 

I'm not sure of what exactly to do with that file though after installing the new firmware, in order to get my Flashback 9 to look like the above screenshot. Will I just be replacing files that will already be on my SD card with the contents of this rar file? I assume I have to run the file in this post before I can change themes?

 

And then lastly I downloaded the "A.T.A.R.I. v0.X.2 (1110 games)" game pack by Draxxon here and just have to follow his included instructions.

 

Am I missing anything important here?

that first "theme" I made isn't as good as just updating your standard edition model with the AFB9 Gold CFW. If you update with the gold cfw, you will make your standard edition a legit gold edition (minus the wireless joysticks)

Edited May 13, 2020 by Draxxon

[Draxxon]

On 5/5/2020 at 2:39 AM, Atariboy said:

I did this on my own. 

Thought I made a mistake. After I used the startup-emu-dump file, I had no games and the menu wasn't functioning. But I installed Draxxon's rom folder and that fixed that up. 

 

But now that it's all finished, I'm having performance issues. Significant audio issues in games a few seconds in and some homebrews like Mappy won't load.

 

And at startup, I have a wait of probably 20 seconds after the AtGames splash screen before the menu appears. Was I supposed to delete the mound_sd Control File? I'm assuming my wait is while it redumps the internal games each time I boot the system. Rather a long wait when switching games, since unless you use the poor AtGames stick with a menu button (Which annoyingly doesn't work in port #2), restarting is the only way to get back to the menu.

you didn't wait long enough to dump all the files. you could of just tried again, but my rompack will replace it even if it dumped properly anyways.

performance issues is the console itself. its an older version of stella emulator, so some games won't work until the emulator is swapped out. The sound issues are also an issue with the flashback consoles.

yeah, its like 20-30 seconds to launch the roms now because of how many there are. do not delete the "mount_sd" or "startup.sh" files. I use the packed in p1 stick to go back to menu, I don't reset after each game, so I didn't even think of that. Brad from the 80s uses a micro sd card with a usb 3.0 adapter on his AFBX, I wonder if it has better loading time than a USB Flashdrive. I have a 3.0 usb sandisk flashdrive, about 20-30 sec like you said.

The only other way to soften the load times would be to remove games. Maybe utilites, clones and non working titles all need removed and see what we get. This wasn't an issue with the AFB9 model. It's a new issue that has developed. Maybe we could have a 2nd alternate "light" pack, with only top notch titles. 

 

Question, how long does it take the AFB9 to load the 1110 game pack?

Edited May 13, 2020 by Draxxon

[Atariboy]

I reverted back to the original firmware that introduced the ability to load roms via SD card or I'd time it for you, but I'd say the wait was a good 30 seconds at boot-up. Just long enough to be annoying. 

 

I went through the process to install these homebrew updates once more after I last posted, but I still had severe audio issues and had to give up for now. But I would like to try again soon with a brand new SD card.

 

I'm fairly confident my troubles are with the old SD card I was using, but perhaps my AFB9 is just out of spec enough to cause issues somewhere like someone suggested.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Atariboy

[Draxxon]

Yeah, I've only ever heard of the normal sound issues, no sound on launch (which I haven't experienced on the AFBX yet), or the delay from emulation.

I'm guessing its the sd card too, bro.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Draxxon

[frosted froggie]

5 hours ago, Draxxon said:

 

Question, how long does it take the AFB9 to load the 1110 game pack?

i just installed your 1110 game pack to my fb9. thanks for all your hard work, and for sharing. just fyi, it now takes 31 seconds from hitting the power button till i get the menu page.