Atari Flashback X Custom Firmware for USB roms and boxart

[rocketfan]

On 4/20/2021 at 9:04 PM, Draxxon said:

This book, is really, really good. 240 pages.

I meant to comment that looks pretty neat - from an Atari geek sort of perspective!  ?  I think I'll order one.

[Draxxon]

22 minutes ago, rocketfan said:

Is everyone else using 2Amp adapters?  I'm still using the one that came with my deluxe rated only 1.0A output...  

Yes, or I plug it directly into the TV.

 

SO, the colecovision folder was just a copy paste of the LFB folder. for the background images. If there is a mame ini in there it came from the LFB folder.

[Rodney Hester]

58 minutes ago, rocketfan said:

I dug into it pretty far at one point, and I found several references that (on some devices) you can just write to the max frequency in the "live" tree (I later found out you MUST be using the "userspace" governor, BTW) then you can do it dynamically - yes, still bears proving, but don't knock it til you try it! ?  

 

Here - check out the part "How to reset Max Frequency"

 

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1057710/change-min-and-max-cpu-frequency

I haven't played in the Android space since Gingerbread (really :/), but I rather doubt that'll work on an Android kernel.  I'd be happy to be proven wrong.  ?

[rocketfan]

On 4/20/2021 at 9:44 PM, Rodney Hester said:

I read WAY earlier in this thread that some of the original CFW would look for certain directories on USB and, if not found, would automatically dump the (relevant) contents of flash to USB and then run from there in the future. 

Sorry, I meant to comment on this and I'm behind so trying to catch up tonight when I have few mins. 

 

That stuff from the original custom firmware should still work - AFAIK.   You could even take Draxxon's Nexus5.0 and remove or rename the /rom and /emulator folders.  But that is sort of overkill and you could just use the original FW as Draxxon already mentioned.  When not present, the /rom will be copied out by the menu_launcher.sh which is down in the "true" emulator folder in your device after you apply custom firmware.  Then /emulator will be copied out  by the startup.sh script on the thumb drive.

 

The original Firmware was truly minimal and elegant in a way I admire.  As we keep hacking at it, we have arrived at something very complicated -  and probably approaching a little too complicated.  However it does give us:

-A bunch of new emulators, including A800 which was my original dream, Draxxon's Colecovision pack (I always wanted to run that!), and anyway the ability to play lots of Atari content way beyond 2600.

-A way to organize the roms to avoid the super slow load which used to occur with too many games installed.

-Custom themes and favorites and recent lists for each area.

-The custom bezel capability - did anyone ever use that? ?

 

I have Altirra for Atari 800 emulation on my computer, plus other devices for mame with Arcade joysticks and buttons.  For Atari, I would much rather sit back and play on my 50" TV screen with an original Atari joystick!  I will go as far as to say, playing A800 games this way (well, the ones that don't use keyboard) is actually better than the original experience with my Atari 400 when I was a kid.

 

But yeah - the atGames joysticks are on the loose side, and if anyone more mechanically creative could figure out a way to improve them I would be all over it! 

Edited April 22, 2021 by rocketfan

[Rodney Hester]

@Draxxon Just a quick FYI, the instructions for Journey Escape for the 2600 in NEXUS 5.0 appear to be missing - there's a header section but nothing after.  Just noticed entirely by accident!  ?

[Draxxon]

8 minutes ago, Rodney Hester said:

@Draxxon Just a quick FYI, the instructions for Journey Escape for the 2600 in NEXUS 5.0 appear to be missing - there's a header section but nothing after.  Just noticed entirely by accident!  ?

I haven't written any game descriptions. Those are either stock, from an older flashback unit (8 or 9) or written by other AA members.
There are a few still blank.

Edited April 22, 2021 by Draxxon

[rocketfan]

On the topic of game descriptions, someday I would like to sit down, and especially for the A800 stuff create a short description with Micro-instructions for each game.  Shooters and such would be easy - "Shoot the enemies for higher score"!  The artwork is 1000% better than having just a text description anyway, but having those would just put the final polish on things.  Getting it right for the complicated games would be a research project though. and other stuff keeps taking priority.  Hmm... I bet one of the various repositories for 8-Bit games has descriptions that could be mined...

[Velvis]

Yes, or I plug it directly into the TV.
 
SO, the colecovision folder was just a copy paste of the LFB folder. for the background images. If there is a mame ini in there it came from the LFB folder.

Could a Mame rom be run from that folder and make use of the mame.ini located there?
Does the actual Legends Flashback support paddle type devices?

Sent from my Surface Duo using Tapatalk

[Draxxon]

yes, you can run any rom from any folder. just watch the /rom_alt/data/retroplayer.ini settings per core.

 

also, you could move the mame ini to the proper spot in the LFB folder.

 

As far as I know, the LFBs do not support 9pin atari paddles (or joystick).

Edited April 22, 2021 by Draxxon

[MrFister]

15 hours ago, rocketfan said:

 

-The custom bezel capability - did anyone ever use that? ?

 

Yes!  In fact later today I will be releasing my updated NTSC pack with bezels to match!

[Velvis]

What extention will use the Mame2010 core?

Sent from my Surface Duo using Tapatalk

[Draxxon]

MAME2010 isnt a core in the NEXUS.

 

MAME2000 .zim, MAME2003 .zi3, FBAlpha .zip, FBNeo .zin

Edited April 22, 2021 by Draxxon

[rocketfan]

@Draxxon just curious - do you know where the mame2010_libretro.so came from? 

 

I don't think I have played with that since probably before we had ANY mame cores going.  And when I did I sure didn't have a mame.ini for it to read.  BTW, I verified it is the only mame core that has any reference to mame.ini in it.

 

Just saying that if we have a valid mame.ini in the right place and try all three retroplayers there's at least a chance that core could work.

 

I'll add that to my list of things to fiddle with (it's a pretty long list) - unless someone beats me to it!

[Draxxon]

There is no mame2010 core in /emu. Just 2000 and 2003+.

If you mean the /mame2010 folder in the /rom_cv/data folder, (I see there is also a /mame2003-Plus folder in the /data folder and that also predates mame2003 support) it came from you. It was in the cv.zip you sent to me in PMs. It did NOT come from my LFB CV Pack.

 

Also, here is the core from a LFB2:

mame2010_libretro.so

Edited April 23, 2021 by Draxxon

[rocketfan]

Well, all my CV stuff came from YOUR original CV pack for LFB2!   I just meant which device did the mame2010 core originally come from.  If it came from LFB2 it really seems like it should be possible to make it work on AFBX.  I will try again...

[Draxxon]

I downloaded both packs again today. the /data folder came from your cv.zip (Not saying originally at this point). but it got cut and pasted from there to the NEXUS pack when I cloned the LFB folder, and copied just the 4 CV BG theme images, because the LFB themes and AFB themes aren't compatible. (Which you alerted me to, just saying that's where I copied it from recently for the NEXUS. During the CV update.)

 

my CVFBCv0.3:

 

my /data folder was empty, my /rom/mame2003-plus folder was empty. It's possible I have multiple CV packs and I'm looking at the wrong one and it came from me???? It's possible a LFB game runs on that core and it generated the folder and we passed it back and forth. LOLOLOL. maybe that /data folder came from me to you for a diff LFB project??? It might have manifested out of thin air because Velvis vibrated us to a Mandela Effect universe, lmmfao! I just don't know.  


P.S. I realized i dont have any examples of FBNeo games implemented yet. Any ideas what to add?

Edited April 24, 2021 by Draxxon

[rocketfan]

OK, here is my theory - I took your CV pack, but the way the startup.sh works (when it has a goto) it copies the /data file out from the real device into the rom folder if data is not present.  I definitely ran it first on the "Nexus-like" LFB thing we have going (a real early version of that - because Colecovision was the FIRST experiment on there) and would have probably have deleted the data folder knowing I wanted the contents copied out.  Also, I can verify that EVERY data folder on LFB has a mame2010 folder with the mame.ini in there!

 

Yeah, FBNeo I have found the SAME romset for FBAlpha works.   Tac/Scan is an interesting game to look at.  I can't remember exactly, but it is not-Optimal in either FBalpha or mame2000. One doesn't render the vectors well, and the other has no sound.  Running it as a .zin, it looks WAY better and the sound works.  So I would probably have that in there as a .zin.  Starting from scratch on LFB, I think FBNeo might be a better choice for every single game than FBalpha.  Changes that impact a lot of games without testing make me nervous since the whole retroplayer.l on a2600 thing!! ?

 

BTW - Mame2003 does have a fair number of games not in mame2000/FBA sets.  I swear I remember somebody asking for a game that was not in the other sets.  Special requests are not too frequent so I wanted to see if it is available as mame2003, but sure enough I can't find the post - or remember the game.  Also, I never really looked if Atari games other than Detroyer and Pong are in there.  Detroyer yes, Pong no.

Edited April 24, 2021 by rocketfan

[bionicdave]

On 4/20/2021 at 10:16 AM, bionicdave said:

Can anyone recommend a otg adapter that a) works reliably and b) is available in Canada??

 

I have one that looks like this:

I always used an offical Raspberry Pi 3 power supply with it.

It was dodgey to start with and now will no longer load Nexus although I can still see Ext USB "game" folder.

 

On 4/20/2021 at 12:05 PM, Draxxon said:

I use these
Amazon.com: AuviPal 2-in-1 Micro USB to USB Adapter (OTG Cable + Power Cable) - 2 Pack: Electronics

I wonder if your mount_sd and startup files got jacked up???

On 4/20/2021 at 2:17 PM, bionicdave said:

Thanks! AuviPal 2-in-1 Micro USB to USB Adapter (OTG Cable + Power Cable) - 2 Pack appears to be available on amazon.ca here:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07FY9Z9GD

 

Amazon delivered the pair of OTG cables yesterday and...

both worked! Thanks @Draxxon?

Interestingly enough, my USB3 Flash drive also worked with these OTG cables whereas it never worked with the old one.
I only used the stock 1A adapter.

Hopefully, my experience saves someone else trouble.

 

 

[Draxxon]

 

Asteroids playing at 1008Mhz and then at 1200Mhz.

Cosmogang playing at 816Mhz, 1008Mhz, and 1200Mhz.

Dynamic Clock Speed on a per-game basis works. Changing the clock to 1008Mhz does not fix the asteroids sprite bug. It is in the retroplayer.x. (something to point out about my cheap-a** capture card is objects that flicker blink in and out on camera. for asteroids, first run has either missing ship or missing asteroids. the 2nd run looked fine, (too fast???) but it shows up on camera as blinking in and out like the stella 6.1 galagon "player 1" in that test. on my tv screen the asteroids and ship in the second run looked normal in person.)

retroplayer.9 fixes all the issues, but has heavier scanline filter. Game play speed, missing sprites, etc are going to have to have priority over the prettier scanline filter. I'm also pretty sure the bug was in more than just mousetrap, moonsweeper, battlezone, and asteroids. 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Draxxon

[Draxxon]

NEXUS NEWS:
The A2600 retroplayer was changed back to retroplayer.9. No longer needed is the (.a269) magic extension. It was replaced by (.a26x) It functions the same way, it will load a game with the retroplayer.x instead. The clock speed for A2600 games was dynamically set to 1008Mhz to match the AFB9 clock/retroplayer.9 settings. All other categories (including Stella 6.1 games) still run at 1.2Ghz. There are no more "missing sprites" or "too fast" issues that I've noticed so far.

Tacscan and Burgertime were changed to FBNeo (.zin). They run better and there is now an example of FBNeo ROMs running. Possibly a lot of FBAlpha roms need swapped to Neo, RocketFan is still testing them.

 

The "Wrong/Other Button" NES games were added with the (.nesl) extension. The A and B buttons were swapped in the retroplayer key mapping, and these games now work.

 

The Atari Arcade game 'Destroyer' was added. it uses the MAME2003 core and the (.zi3) extension.

Cosmogang was swapped with a ROM of the (.ziml) extension variety. As an example for that extension.

All the atari lynx games were added. Games with too many buttons to play correctly will need removed.

A Restore Switch was added. It activates the "Restore Custom Bezels" command if the path to the custom bezels gets broken.

I also went through and mapped all the buttons to MAME games that were lacking enough buttons on the AFBX Joystick to play. Up for Jump, Up for thrust~Down for shields in another game kind of thing. I did it for both players when applicable and mapped player 2 Start button to the AFBX P2 Joystick's fire button.

TO DO LIST:
Separate Hacks from HBs

Restore the removed games from A.T.A.R.I.v2.0

Add more a800 games

 

PERSONAL GOAL:

Fingers crossed for dragons lair 2: time warp on the Daphne emulator,

I know from past experience that this game is a PITA to get running.
I also know kmfdmaniac's daphne libretro core cannot emulate the sound,

and it may not even run full speed on the AFBX at all anyways.

But its a one button game, and one of my all time favorites.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2021 by Draxxon

[MrFister]

1 hour ago, Draxxon said:

The A2600 retroplayer was changed back to retroplayer.9. No longer needed is the (.a269) magic extension. It was replaced by (.a26x) It functions the same way, it will load a game with the retroplayer.x instead. The clock speed for A2600 games was dynamically set to 1008Mhz to match the AFB9 clock/retroplayer.9 settings. All other categories (including Stella 6.1 games) still run at 1.2Ghz. There are no more "missing sprites" or "too fast" issues that I've noticed so far.

A Restore Switch was added. It activates the "Restore Custom Bezels" command if the path to the custom bezels gets broken.

I cannot wait to try the new version incoming. Eager to apply some dynamic overclocking and see how those pesky games play with the retroplayer 9!

Also excited to check out the bezel switch too!   

This is progressing in a most nice way!

 

 

 

[rocketfan]

10 hours ago, Draxxon said:

NEXUS NEWS:

Thanks Draxxon, I tried and failed (again) with mame2010 core.  I'm thinking that core may be a "stripped down mame" set up for only a limited number of games.

 

Yes, I'm going to plow through the final burn roms!

[Draxxon]

NEXUS NEWS:

.a269 .a26x and .a26l was added so users have total flexibility. If they decide to change the default retroplayer to the X version, they can make individual games run however they feel.

 

A Dynamic Clock speed of 1008Mhz has been set for the main menus. No more system hang-ups have been observed for an overclocked Mali 400Mhz GPU. (I might be letting the cat out of the bag, but, the AFB9s have been running on 400Mhz Mali GPU stock, new out of the box, this whole time.) DO NOT double back and download the old Mali OC though. The AFB9s run the Mali GPU at a lower power level than was set by Mr. Rifonas in the original OC CFW we used. New CFW needs to be created, but RocketFan proved it all works.

The Atari 2600 Hacks folder was removed and the games were merged with the Homebrew folder. No more empty folders.

FBNeo is NOT superior to FBAlpha, so those games wont be getting swapped after all.

And yes, I'm pretty sure that the MAME2010 core was hardwired for a handful of games on the LFBs. I believe Mr. Rifonas (RMR_MD) told me that IIRC. I think that was the main reason he added MAME2000, 2003+ and FBA to the LFB and didn't just start adding stuff that worked with MAME2010. I's sorry @Velvis, that's a huge blow against getting paddles working for arcade games.

 

Final note: I tried adding the Lynx boxes at a size of 183x220 and the system stretches the images. I need to go back and resize them to 255 with a transparent top and bottom to make them show up properly, once I finish Ill be ready for a release. I'm shooting for tonite sometime.

Edited April 25, 2021 by Draxxon

[Draxxon]

Atari Flashback NEXUS V.0.5.1

 

NEXUSv5.1.rar

[Draxxon]

NEXUS V.0.5.2 (Update Only)

 

Word on the street is this is hot off the presses!

 

 

Penult RPG (Atari 2600) - Homebrew Discussion - AtariAge Forums

rom_hb.rar

Edited April 25, 2021 by Draxxon