Jump to content
IGNORED

Altirra 3.90 released


phaeron

Recommended Posts

13 minutes ago, Yautja said:

Alright. I'm here (see the image, please). What should I do next?

Select the command you want to have the shortcut assigned to (left pane).

Check if your chosen shortcut is already used by something else (right pane "bound commands") and in case it is already used, decide if you want to replace it.

Choose the scope in which you want the shortcut to work (default: Global).

Click/select the field behind "Global" and press the keystroke you want to assign.

"Add"

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DjayBee said:

Select the command you want to have the shortcut assigned to (left pane).

Check if your chosen shortcut is already used by something else (right pane "bound commands") and in case it is already used, decide if you want to replace it.

Choose the scope in which you want the shortcut to work (default: Global).

Click/select the field behind "Global" and press the keystroke you want to assign.

"Add"

 

Many thanks!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DjayBee said:

Select the command you want to have the shortcut assigned to (left pane).

Check if your chosen shortcut is already used by something else (right pane "bound commands") and in case it is already used, decide if you want to replace it.

Choose the scope in which you want the shortcut to work (default: Global).

Click/select the field behind "Global" and press the keystroke you want to assign.

"Add"

 

 

Mmm.. despite I could add the key combination, when pressed, nothing happens... where are the save state files supposed to be recorded?

 

altirra08.thumb.jpg.1c214893449940aacb9d4651438b35d8.jpg

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IIRC the quick states are just for that session and are in memory, so if you shut Altirra down they go..

 

What happens when you click quick load state?

 

Edit: confirmed, quick states are just in mem, ideal if playing a game for testing or anything that is just to be saved until you quit Altirra..

 

In your case if you do a quick save on the test screen and then press start to enter a test, then pressing quick load should bring you back to the main test screen menu where you were when you saved it.

Edited by Mclaneinc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

no pop up window, just takes you back to when you first did a quick save..

 

With quick saves there's nothing to browse for as it's just memory, if you do a full save state and then press load state you then get a file browser..

Edited by Mclaneinc
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just bought a MISTer.    It should be here in 2 days.   I still do not think it will break my love affair with Altirra .   I have a ton of real A8 hardware, including an 800XL on my desk right in front of me, connected to my main PC monitor (PC keyboard on slide out tray under the desk, and I still use Altirra way more than 800XL.  I use Altirra daily.  Have not turned on the XL in a few months.  Even with Ultimate1MB, Fujinet, SIO2PC, S-Drive Max and Sophia, I still love me some Altirra.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/18/2021 at 8:22 PM, scotty said:

Just bought a MISTer.

 

I've owned one for a while, and they are super cool little devices - but it isn't as good at simulating an Atari as Altirra already is. Or at least it wasnt, I haven't checked in a while. Last time I tried to call MiSTer an "emulator" it launched a flamewar, so I won't get into that again. But the simple fact there were plenty of things I could run flawlessly on Altirra that i could not on MiSTer with the atari core at the time - acid800 for instance.

At the end of the day, for myself and my preferences, I went back to Altirra most of the time, my 1088XEL for real hardware, and the MiSTer for a bunch of other things in another room (NES etc).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

MiSTer is good at the things it does..with select cores. Overall you shouldn't be disappointed.

 

Personally for myself - especially when it comes to the early consoles and 8/16 bit computers, I still prefer emulators like AppleWin, Stella, Altirra, MAME, ColemWin, and others. And here's why:

 

Software Emulation has many added features. On the host side there are things like a full Windows OS, complete with a file system and massive storage. A surefire boon to managing disk/cart/tape files. Things like debugging. Many screen options and effects. And of course the emulated machine is usually highly configurable - sometimes with cool fantasy options. Then there's the concomitant reliability, versatility, consistency, convenience, and even elegance, if you set it up on a classy designer SFF PC.

 

I'm primarily an Apple II & PC guy 1st and then an Atari 8-bit fan 2nd. I keep Apple II hardware around for sentimentality, but I'm always using emulation 95% of the time. I don't have any Atari hardware, that's been gone for decades. Not so sure I want to go through the tediousness associated with curating a physical collection and acquiring parts and accessories and cartridges and aging floppies. Not to mention maintaining it all. Apple II is enough! So I rely 100% on Altirra.

 

I believe MiSTer's strengths are in the 16-bit arena and timing accuracy and low lag. Users seem to love the video output and seem to prefer it as a way to get old consoles working on modern displays. Is MiSTer an emulator? I don't think so. It's more of a simulation. A collection of truth tables. And it is definitely not a 100% recreation of any machine. No FPGA is.

 

IMHO Software Emulation, FPGA simulation, homebrew hardware, and real hardware, are complimentary to each other. Each excels in its own way. Fantastic that we have so many options!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure if this is the proper thread to ask, but I'm having trouble on executing Corina ROM files.

 

Tried Yie Another Kung Fu on Altirra 3.90 and 4.00 test23 and in both the screen is flashing between a correct and a faulty one. Tried on NTSC and PAL configurations. I don't know if this is a problem from the ROM file dumped or there is an incompatibility on Altirra. Does anyone know what is the issue?

 

Here's the dump I have, as well as the screens I got:

 

image.png.67d82ac1258936b5aa58b31b231b02ab.png

 

image.png.57cab01b252b2a04336cfcfc33c4d8b8.png

 

 

Yie Another Kung-Fu.rom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Wilheim said:

Not sure if this is the proper thread to ask, but I'm having trouble on executing Corina ROM files.

 

Tried Yie Another Kung Fu on Altirra 3.90 and 4.00 test23 and in both the screen is flashing between a correct and a faulty one. Tried on NTSC and PAL configurations. I don't know if this is a problem from the ROM file dumped or there is an incompatibility on Altirra. Does anyone know what is the issue?

 

Here's the dump I have, as well as the screens I got:

 

image.png.67d82ac1258936b5aa58b31b231b02ab.png

 

image.png.57cab01b252b2a04336cfcfc33c4d8b8.png

 

I referenced @phaeron's answer to this question in my post in the AVG cart thread: Corina Cart

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, MrFish said:

 

I referenced @phaeron's answer to this question in my post in the AVG cart thread: Corina Cart

 

Here's a six byte patch that at least stops the flicker on the first level:

 

Yie Another Kung-Fu Xuel Patch.rom

 

I just shortened the double-buffered display lists by one line to avoid the hires bug that phaeron identified in the thread you quoted. Not sure how it works on real hardware.

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Xuel said:

Here's a six byte patch that at least stops the flicker on the first level:

 

I just shortened the double-buffered display lists by one line to avoid the hires bug that phaeron identified in the thread you quoted. Not sure how it works on real hardware.

 

Thanks! Nice work.

 

It seems to be fine now. I've played the first three levels with no problems (still PAL only, of course).

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Xuel said:

Here's a six byte patch that at least stops the flicker on the first level:

 

I just shortened the double-buffered display lists by one line to avoid the hires bug that phaeron identified in the thread you quoted. Not sure how it works on real hardware.

 

Obviously a different issue (as noted by @phaeron ), but would it be too difficult to patch the Bomb Jake Corina cartridge?

 

Bomb Jake.rom

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/20/2021 at 2:59 PM, MrFish said:

 

Obviously a different issue (as noted by @phaeron ), but would it be too difficult to patch the Bomb Jake Corina cartridge?

 

Bomb Jake.rom 520 kB · 11 downloads

 

Here's a 21-byte patch:

Bomb Jake Xuel Patch.rom

This fixes the title and hiscore screens but the game play seems slow on PAL and OK on NTSC. Not sure if this is due to being an older version of the code or maybe something else that's broken.

 

For this I shortened the NMI entry sequence by about 8 cycles which is enough for DLIs to meet the deadlines for writing to WSYNC. To achieve this I changed the way the current bank is saved and restored such that it is never saved, just restored from the game's shadow register.

 

Both this fix and the one that I did for Yie Another Kung-Fu are more about fixing ANTIC timing issues than anything to do with Corina hardware. I don't see how either cartridge would work reliably on real Ataris. The hires issue and the WSYNC deadline issue are both confirmed in hardware AFAIK. Have people actually tested these carts on lots of different machines? I wonder if the devs happened to have Ataris with oddball timings? Or maybe the cartridge itself affects ANTIC timings?

 

Edit: grammar

Edited by Xuel
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 10/22/2021 at 4:58 PM, Xuel said:

Here's a 21-byte patch:

Bomb Jake Xuel Patch.rom 520 kB · 18 downloads

This fixes the title and hiscore screens but the game play seems slow on PAL and OK on NTSC. Not sure if this is due to being an older version of the code or maybe something else that's broken.

 

For this I shortened the NMI entry sequence by about 8 cycles which is enough for DLIs to meet the deadlines for writing to WSYNC. To achieve this I changed the way the current bank is saved and restored such that it is never saved, just restored from the game's shadow register.

 

Thanks for taking the time on it. It does seem to be a bit slower than the XEX version; but at least it's running without glitches.

 

  

On 10/22/2021 at 4:58 PM, Xuel said:

Both this fix and the one that I did for Yie Another Kung-Fu are more about fixing ANTIC timing issues than anything to do with Corina hardware. I don't see how either cartridge would work reliably on real Ataris. The hires issue and the WSYNC deadline issue are both confirmed in hardware AFAIK. Have people actually tested these carts on lots of different machines? I wonder if the devs happened to have Ataris with oddball timings? Or maybe the cartridge itself affects ANTIC timings?

 

Both Bomb Jake and Yie Another Kung Fu were sold on the Corina cart format some years back. I guess less than 100 (maybe even less than 50) people own one (but I'm just guestimating here). I've never heard a single complaint about the product; but it would be nice to hear from owners as to how these games have performed for them on real hardware, given the issues encountered attempting emulation.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a weird bug I encountered while testing PoP:

 

PopAltirraBug.thumb.png.bc952d85c07406fc29ab9a044d171615.png

 

As you can see the instruction at $8f3a changes between 2 executions despite no instruction modifying that location.

 

I've included a save state which starts just a few seconds before the crash.


On a side note, I've also noticed that sometimes reloading a (quick)state doesn't work: a crash usually occurs straight away and the location is typically in the extended RAM region (or was it extended ROM?)... I'm a little hazy but I'm wondering if perhaps something related to bank switching isn't restored properly ?

PopAltirraBug.atstate2

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi!

1 hour ago, rensoup said:

Here's a weird bug I encountered while testing PoP:

 

PopAltirraBug.thumb.png.bc952d85c07406fc29ab9a044d171615.png

 

As you can see the instruction at $8f3a changes between 2 executions despite no instruction modifying that location.

IMHO, you are writing to the cartridge control window (D5DD) and probably activating a cartrdige, so the memory at $8000 to $9FFF  changes.

 

Have Fun!

 

 

  • Like 2
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, dmsc said:

Hi!

IMHO, you are writing to the cartridge control window (D5DD) and probably activating a cartrdige, so the memory at $8000 to $9FFF  changes.

 

Have Fun!

 

 

Thanks I totally forgot $d500 was the cart bank switching ?

 

(Even writing to $D6xx is probably completely wrong)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just noticed something interesting a bit earlier tonight.

image.thumb.png.58ad246f0de9674a99ae8c4c9b1b57ef.png

On top is a capture from latest Altirra 4.0-test using the WAV recorder feature, and below is the exact same audio recorded from my PAL 800xl 

 

Is it possible that Altirra is emulating audio but outputs the waveforms upside down? Or is it my recording setup that fooled me there?

Not like this is a major difference, but comparison side by side got me surprised, because I never noticed this was a thing until now since I happened to compare 2 audio recordings for a friend of mine.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...