justclaws Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 Here's a video to kick-off the thread about emulators. ? The good news is that the machine is happy doing this... 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 7, 2021 Share Posted January 7, 2021 Cool video. This is what I'm mostly interested in the VCS for- building the ultimate TV-connected retrobox. I always expected it would run emulation well, nice to see that it does. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAVE 1 GAMES Posted January 8, 2021 Share Posted January 8, 2021 F-ZERO GX and the Dolphin emulator are acually things I had in mind for my VCS. Glad to see it it works, and with the out of the box 8GB of RAM that is impressive. Upgrading the RAM would most likely improve those PS2 games performance as well. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justclaws Posted January 11, 2021 Author Share Posted January 11, 2021 There's a nice video follow-up by Spawn Wave. He wasn't much impressed by the VCS as a console (but has since discovered pressing the = key in VCS Vault gave him more than twice as many games, ha ha) but in this video he checked it out for emulators. For this, he was MUCH more positive. He feels it performs well, above his expectations. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justclaws Posted January 12, 2021 Author Share Posted January 12, 2021 Here's a video about emulation under Linux, on the VCS. Generally, Windows DirectX can get a bit more performance over OpenGL though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allpaul Posted January 12, 2021 Share Posted January 12, 2021 I just pulled the trigger (thanks to this new VCS forum!), so I will have a VCS 800 coming at some point. Are these emulators ever going to be in the VCS store, as opposed to installing and running on Windows 10, or is it illegal to provide them? It would be cool to not have to reboot to play old games on emulators. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD-0082 Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 hour ago, Allpaul said: I just pulled the trigger (thanks to this new VCS forum!), so I will have a VCS 800 coming at some point. Are these emulators ever going to be in the VCS store, as opposed to installing and running on Windows 10, or is it illegal to provide them? It would be cool to not have to reboot to play old games on emulators. I would not hope that ANY console emulator would be on the official store, let alone Nintendo consoles... More than illegal, they are on a grey zone. Don't expect them officially, but you can run them without fearing a raid on your home asking for your head...or fines lol. But if they are on Linux, and being "Atari OS" a Debian based distro, someone could "port" them with a proper drawer icon and splash screen/easy install. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allpaul Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 28 minutes ago, KD-0082 said: I would not hope that ANY console emulator would be on the official store, let alone Nintendo consoles... More than illegal, they are on a grey zone. Don't expect them officially, but you can run them without fearing a raid on your home asking for your head...or fines lol. But if they are on Linux, and being "Atari OS" a Debian based distro, someone could "port" them with a proper drawer icon and splash screen/easy install. I, maybe incorrectly, assumed that the emulators were technically legal, but it was the Roms that were illegal to provide. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 The Atari OS appears to be a closed system meaning only programs available through their store ui can be installed. It's also a version of Debian Linux so debian programs shouldn't need porting at all. If you had access to the linux terminal you could install programs, even a linux desktop; no need to boot to an alternate os. There is suppose to be a software development kit you can download/install from atari. Maybe the sdk gives access to the linux terminal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justclaws Posted January 13, 2021 Author Share Posted January 13, 2021 4 minutes ago, mr_me said: The Atari OS appears to be a closed system meaning only programs available through their store ui can be installed. It's also a version of Debian Linux so debian programs shouldn't need porting at all. If you had access to the linux terminal you could install programs, even a linux desktop; no need to boot to an alternate os. There is suppose to be a software development kit you can download/install from atari. Maybe the sdk gives access to the linux terminal. I think we should expect that AtariOS will never allow controversial programs like emulators in the store. Just my opinion. It's a legal minefield, but I think we will see more legal licenced packs like Atari Vault. They'll still need to validate software, to protect users from rogue or illegal installs, which by distributing them Atari could be held responsible. The security, legal issues will be what limits AtariOS "side-loading". On the other hand, as the system encourages use of PC-Mode, a community VCS distribution of Linux is inevitable, and that can be dual-boot with Atari-OS and there, users can run anything, no compromises. It's not as if we don't already have full access to emulators already, so no need to have them in AtariOS. It's a "one state, two systems" type of thing to me. re: home-brew game-development Atari do clearly want to support home-brew game development though, and beyond the original mention of this on Indiegogo (and the "you can already develop now for the VCS, with or without a VCS" articles on Mediun- see the developer thread on this forum) there was also an informal mention of a possible new "home-brew section" (something like that) on the VCS Discord. (Games need to be compiled as 64-bit.) I am sure as time-permits, Atari will publish better guidelines for everybody to develop games for the VCS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD-0082 Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 11 hours ago, Allpaul said: I, maybe incorrectly, assumed that the emulators were technically legal, but it was the Roms that were illegal to provide. Emulators are "legal" for private purposes. For commercial purposes it's a dangerous gray zone. Even if they are free to download, the fact that there are in a store can be troublesome. I think that in Google play are more relaxed with that because all responsibility is in the developer and also they provide all type of apps. With Atari...well. They provide videogames. Imagine that they provide you an emulator that can make you bypass paying for their own products or worse: a legal strike by Nintendo for allowing a Game Cube / SNES emulator. I suppose that for now they will pass. But you can install it either by your own with not much hassle (sudo dpkg -i emulatorname) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 (edited) The Atari Vault is a commercial emulator and it's 100% legal. What's illegal is making copies of copyrighted files without permission, privately or commercially. There's lots of rom files that are distributed freely with permission so there's nothing illegal about free emulation itself. 2 hours ago, justclaws said: I think we should expect that AtariOS will never allow controversial programs like emulators in the store. Just my opinion. It's a legal minefield, but I think we will see more legal licenced packs like Atari Vault. They'll still need to validate software, to protect users from rogue or illegal installs, which by distributing them Atari could be held responsible. The security, legal issues will be what limits AtariOS "side-loading". On the other hand, as the system encourages use of PC-Mode, a community VCS distribution of Linux is inevitable, and that can be dual-boot with Atari-OS and there, users can run anything, no compromises. It's not as if we don't already have full access to emulators already, so no need to have them in AtariOS. It's a "one state, two systems" type of thing to me. Closed systems has nothing to do with responsibility. Microsoft Windows is an open system and they're not responsible for anything you do. Closed systems are about collecting revenue/fees on all software sold. Apple makes a killing on ios; but even ios has a way to sideload apps through a developer account. Atari OS is debian linux. Dual booting another linux is fine but seems redundant. Edited January 13, 2021 by mr_me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 16 hours ago, Allpaul said: I just pulled the trigger (thanks to this new VCS forum!), so I will have a VCS 800 coming at some point. Are these emulators ever going to be in the VCS store, as opposed to installing and running on Windows 10, or is it illegal to provide them? It would be cool to not have to reboot to play old games on emulators. Emulators are legal and widely available for download. Many emulators require images of the system roms to operate. (Some don't) These are usually still copyrighted, but they are still easy to obtain. Sometimes there's a freely available OS replacement you can use instead. Then there are the games themselves. Some have been made free to use by the developer, so no legality issues with those. Others are still fairly easy to find. My approach- if I owned the system and the game, then I have no moral qualms running it on an emulator. It's just more convenient. 16 hours ago, Allpaul said: Are these emulators ever going to be in the VCS store, as opposed to installing and running on Windows 10 My understanding is the VCS has a sandbox mode to install your own stuff, and I would think emulators should work there? I don't have one myself yet, but I wondered this myself. Everyone seems to be installing their own Windows or Ubuntu rather than using sandbox mode. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justclaws Posted January 13, 2021 Author Share Posted January 13, 2021 12 minutes ago, mr_me said: The Atari Vault is a commercial emulator and it's 100% legal. What's illegal is making copies of copyrighted files without permission, privately or commercially. There's lots of rom files that are distributed freely with permission so there's nothing illegal about free emulation itself. Closed systems has nothing to do with responsibility. Microsoft Windows is an open system and they're not responsible for anything you do. Closed systems are about collecting revenue/fees on all software sold. Apple makes a killing on ios; but even ios has a way to sideload apps through a developer account. Atari OS is debian linux. Dual booting another linux is fine but seems redundant. Atari Vault is 100% legal because it's an emulator for Atari owned IP or licensed IP. That's a bit different. Nice discussion here. There are countries where any circumvention of copy-protection is actually illegal. https://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/are-game-emulators-legal-1329264 Closed systems are also for support purposes. e.g If Atari allow you to install something in AtariOS, or delete something, suddenly it's a support nightmare. If a user buys a piece of software from the VCS store, and there's a conflict with a user install, what to do? We know, as Linux users, sometimes packages break other things. Recovery can then become a major pain... It's the same reason sysadmins who want to keep their jobs, test patches on test, not production systems! The dual-mode solves that. They let owners do whatever they want, but not in the "consumer mode" AtariOS. The other reason why I prefer dual-boot is that AtariOS is likely to be updated, significantly or fundamentally. AtariOS needs to maintain the system firmware, the store, the controllers, and as such it has to be controlled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Most old games from the 1970s and 1980s had no copy protection. But even those circumventing copy protection laws have been modified to allow for backups and other legal uses. Support from Atari's point of view is simple. If you bugger up your system, flash a new atari os. None of this really matters. Either the atari sdk allows sideloading programs, like ios does, or it doesn't. I don't see how that should interfere with atari system updates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD-0082 Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 In short: - Atari OS can emulate Atari Games because they are from their own and they are SELLING it. - Nintendo *nix/FreeBSD (I guess) based Switch OS (or the Nintendo 3DS OS) also have for selling roms with a custom emulator - Atari would never sell/distribute a software in their commercial machines/OS/online shop that could emulate any Nintendo games and set them in trouble with the Big N - Viceversa also: Nintendo obviously doesn't allow to put emulators (like the ones we have on our PC's) of other systems on their eShop, at least, AFAIK... ---------------- Maybe one of the few exceptions is the Atari Greatest Hits by Code Mystics (an early version of Vault for Nintendo DS) and other games that uses emulation of older systems as main engine (PC Engine, Sega systems, and other retro stuff). BUT they are on sale and have an agreement with Nintendo. They are not just the "Dolphin Emu" and look yourself for the roms". OTOH, the final user in Sandbox/PC mode can load whatever wants under their own responsibility. You break it, you fix it. You want Atari OS it will work as it is. You can run another OS's but with some legal caveats, of course. I suppose that conditions are under the legal "read me disclaimers yadda yadda i've read and accept everything". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allpaul Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Good discussion. After I posted my reply, I realized it could have set a bomb off. I’m glad it didn’t. I’m really looking forward to my VCS showing up! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD-0082 Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 Honestly...I pretty much like it. It's a bit expensive yet for what it is in raw power and software, but it's not a bad concept per se, specially for people that wants a console with more possibilities. And in software...well, it's still not for public sale, let's wait a bit...and hope that they add 8bit/ST, Lynx and Jaguar games to their library. In my case, I've decided that after the Switch and Atari Portfolio, I would buy better the original VCS with a small library. I love it. But I would not discourage this thing for enthusiast. At the end of the day, the "TRVEGAMERS in 4K 120FPS" are not the public for this console, just the retro/scene/indie xDD and the said Nintendo Switch has a pretty old/underwhelming hardware too, being only the software and the concept of "dual console" the real deal for it (and many ports run in potato mode, like The Sinking City and Doom Eternal, and they are still VERY enjoyable). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr_me Posted January 14, 2021 Share Posted January 14, 2021 (edited) 18 hours ago, KD-0082 said: In short: - Atari OS can emulate Atari Games because they are from their own and they are SELLING it. - Nintendo *nix/FreeBSD (I guess) based Switch OS (or the Nintendo 3DS OS) also have for selling roms with a custom emulator - Atari would never sell/distribute a software in their commercial machines/OS/online shop that could emulate any Nintendo games and set them in trouble with the Big N - Viceversa also: Nintendo obviously doesn't allow to put emulators (like the ones we have on our PC's) of other systems on their eShop, at least, AFAIK... ---------------- Maybe one of the few exceptions is the Atari Greatest Hits by Code Mystics (an early version of Vault for Nintendo DS) and other games that uses emulation of older systems as main engine (PC Engine, Sega systems, and other retro stuff). BUT they are on sale and have an agreement with Nintendo. They are not just the "Dolphin Emu" and look yourself for the roms". OTOH, the final user in Sandbox/PC mode can load whatever wants under their own responsibility. You break it, you fix it. You want Atari OS it will work as it is. You can run another OS's but with some legal caveats, of course. I suppose that conditions are under the legal "read me disclaimers yadda yadda i've read and accept everything". Yes nintendo has lots of emulated classic games for the switch for sale in their store including collections from namco, sega, konami, and atari sa to name a few. If any of these publishers want to put their games in the atari vcs store, they can ask atari sa. I doubt nintendo has any interest in publishing on the atari vcs. Arcade1up not withstanding, there isn't a lot of money in classic video games so you'll rarely see third party licenses, however the atari vault and flashback classics does have m-network games. I wouldn't expect to see any video game in any mainstream store that is not propely licensed. None of that matters if the atari os can sideload programs with a developers kit. If you're developing for the atari os you have to have a way to load and run your game. Edited January 14, 2021 by mr_me 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAVE 1 GAMES Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) This is DKC Tropical Freeze running in glorious 4K on the Wii U emulator at 60 FPS. I tested several other Wii U games all ran nearly perfect. To all the Atari VCS haters, this thing is the real deal. It's the ultimate emulation machine. Tropical Freeze!!!! (Side note I do have the max 32 GB of RAM now and that is using the Vulkan plugin on the Cem U emulator) received_207604511029713.mp4 Edited January 16, 2021 by WAVE 1 GAMES 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clint Thompson Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 (edited) Curious, can anyone who is emulating games under W10 on this thing show a few memory (and CPU usage) shots from task manager under performance? (especially what you would consider more demanding emulation) Would be cool to see... (also, this is not from the VCS... otherwise I would have bought one ) Edited January 16, 2021 by Clint Thompson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WAVE 1 GAMES Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 (edited) 13 hours ago, Clint Thompson said: Curious, can anyone who is emulating games under W10 on this thing show a few memory (and CPU usage) shots from task manager under performance? (especially what you would consider more demanding emulation) Would be cool to see... (also, this is not from the VCS... otherwise I would have bought one ) Here is DKC Tropical Freeze just standing around on stage 3 doing nothing Here is Mario Kart 8 in the middle of a race Mario Kart 8 is running in offline mode but it can run online with real Wii U and Switch users. I have not tested the performance in online mode. For this game the GPU temperature reached 91 degrees C or 195.8 degrees F but it did not get any higher than that. On a side note it was also performing at 3.3 GHZ at peak Below is Zelda Breath of The Wild. I could only ever get 15 FPS at my current settings but Im hoping to get better performance after tweaking with it more. Edited January 17, 2021 by WAVE 1 GAMES added Zelda breath of the Wild 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leech Posted February 7, 2021 Share Posted February 7, 2021 (edited) I know it's digging further than most want to usually, but AtariOS is NOT actually based upon Debian. it's based on Apertis, which is in itself based upon Debian. But Apertis is a weird little operating system apparently meant for infotainment systems for the auto industry from what I can gather. https://apertis.org/ Edited February 7, 2021 by leech 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SizzleAtari Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 I've just been using the Chrome browser and found lots of good sites with emulation. Here's Castlevania Symphony of the Night, you can use the Atari modern controller as well. Also, I was playing Doom on Stadia earlier, unfortunately can't get the Atari controller to work in Stadia, but got a little touchpad keyboard that works well as a controller. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottyy Posted February 2, 2022 Share Posted February 2, 2022 newbie here to the Atari VCS... right now I play games from the Ultimate cart using my Atari 400... (pictured below) will it be easy to install, navigate and play these type of games on the VCS? thx! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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