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New Atari 7800 Emulator


gstanton

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This looks great, I'll add it to our 7800 Emulation section here on AtariAge. I'll also post some news about it later today so more people are aware of it. How difficult would it be to port this to OS X? There are NO Atari 7800 emulators for OS X right now, and that's a big hole that needs to be filled. :)

 

Keep up the great work!

 

..Al

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Doh! Thanks Greg Stanton..

 

I just became so side tracked by the chirpy banter going on between Danno and Gregory DG that I found myself completely confused and bewildered about what I was saying.

 

Thanks Danno for the keyboard to joystick mapper.

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cool. just a question as a programmer...

 

is the emulation cycle exact esp. mario & dma?

 

is there a build in monitor?

 

if so... this would be nice as dev system...

 

The emulation is not cycle exact (as in DMA cycle stealing) for every ROM. Only some of the rom images have the cycle stealing enabled. The flags entry in the ProSystem.dat file indicate if DMA cycle stealing is enabled or not (flags=1). I implemented the cycle stealing as accurately as I could, but some of the games do not work well with it turned on.

 

There is not a built in monitor or debugger. I built one for myself while testing the emulator, but it was very slow. Maybe someday....

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I couldn't get Beef Drop to work (read about it here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=59998 ). It loads up ok, and I can start the game, at which point the background music starts playing and the level graphics and my character are displayed, but that's as far as it goes. The music just keeps playing, but I can't move, and the enemies never appear. I tried various versions of it. The pokey and pokeyless versions, older and newer versions. All versions do this.

 

Strange, I was able to play it fine on my machine???? Can you check the ProSystem.log file to see if there are any errors? Has anybody else gotten Beef Drop to work?

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Since you put it under the GPL, where can one get the source code ?

 

I haven't released the source code yet. I'm haven't had the time to get it prepared. Someday soon... I'm still deciding if I want to go with the GPL license and release the source or not. Since I'm still testing the software, I'm going to hold off for a while.

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How difficult would it be to port this to OS X?  There are NO Atari 7800 emulators for OS X right now, and that's a big hole that needs to be filled

 

If there is enough interest in the emulator, I was going to go from using DirectX to using SDL. If and when I release the source code, someone could port it over to other platforms.

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Here's a dumb question -

 

When Mr. Statnton releases the source code - is there anyone here capable of porting it to, or helping me port it to Palm OS?

 

I'd live to get this thing running on my Palm so I could play on the train to and from work.

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Strange, I was able to play it fine on my machine????  Can you check the ProSystem.log file to see if there are any errors?

Nothing in the log that isn't normal, take a look;

[Tue Mar 01 11:53:42 2005][iNFO ] Opening cartridge file E:unbacked up emulationatari7800ProSystemBD7800.A78.

[Tue Mar 01 11:53:42 2005][iNFO ] Filename E:unbacked up emulationatari7800ProSystemBD7800.A78 is not a valid zip file. {Archive.cpp}

[Tue Mar 01 11:53:42 2005][iNFO ] Accessing database E:unbacked up emulationatari7800ProSystemProSystem.dat. {Database.cpp}

[Tue Mar 01 11:53:56 2005][ERROR] Direct sound has not been initialized. {Sound.cpp}

 

Has anybody else gotten Beef Drop to work?

Well, Danno tried it and got the same results that I did.

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How difficult would it be to port this to OS X?  There are NO Atari 7800 emulators for OS X right now, and that's a big hole that needs to be filled

 

If there is enough interest in the emulator, I was going to go from using DirectX to using SDL. If and when I release the source code, someone could port it over to other platforms.

 

That would be great, as OS X can really use a top-notch Atari 7800 emulator. I wholeheartedly encourage you to migrate to the SDL when you're able to. :)

 

..Al

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Well, here's my 2 cents...

 

Excellent emulator! Congrats to Greg Stanton on a fine job and my appreciation for releasing the for public usage (Never ceases to amaze me what Emulator authors give for free use). Thank you, again.

 

For Starters, I have a P4 2.8GHz, 640MB RDRAM, Radeon 9800 Pro, and Sound Blaster Audigy. I run XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and all updates installed. I am running the latest Direct X version 9.0c, as well as all the latest drivers for audio (Per Creative Labs) and video (Catalyst 5.2).

 

My results:

Best compatibility and emulation thus far of any 7800 Emulator. I experienced the same results as artlover though concerning Beef Drop. Nonetheless, Xenophobe, Kung-Fu Master, the 'top-line' in Centipede all look great. Yes, the clock is too fast in One-On-One for me as well.

 

Additionally, and I *never* seen this correct in any 7800 emulator, the scrolling story in Karateka scrolls to fast. Test it side by side with the real deal and you will see what I mean. However, I never seen anyone ever mention this 'bug' in 7800 emulation, and I like to bring it out every once in awhile in case it ties in or helps with other 'timing' issues.

 

Now, for the display options. Hardware stretch turned on does *not* blur the screen for me (Exact opposite of Gregory DG results). But I believe results will very depending on graphic card, driver, and Direct X version. What hardware stretch *does* do for me is throw the emulators timing *way* off. The aforementioned is true regardless of resolution setting (From 320x200 all the way to 1600x1200). Everything becomes slow and extremely choppy.

 

When stretch is turned off speed is fine. Window modes all work well 1x-4x with no problems. Side note: I typically perfer to run 1024x768 with stretch turned on for all my emulators (I utilize the S-Video Out on my Radeon Card to a 27" Panasonic TV).

 

Second point I like to address is the controls. First, I love, love, LOVE (Did I emphasize this enough), the fact you can map all controls and system switches/functions to *any* keyboard key. This is absolutely perfect! It is my favorite thing about this emulator. Reason being is I also have a HotRodSE joystick, which uses keyboard keys as the input for all functions of the controller.

http://www.hanaho.com/products/HotRodJoystick/

 

Everything maps to the joystick perfectly. Only problem is in Windowed-mode hitting CTRL or/and ALT either messes with the emulation (Freezes the window with the file menu hidden)) or is toggling the funtionality menus (When the menu is displayed).

 

Unfortunately, the Left CTRL and LEFT ALT Keys are Player/Joystick 1 , first and second fire/action buttons. HOWEVER, none of this would be a problem if I could run at full screen with stretch turned on with the higher resolution settings (IE 1024x768). Using lower resolution settings (320x200 or 320x240) with no stretch running full screen is great - EXCEPT - going to the menu options is not workable due to the large size of the menus when set at such a low resolution.

 

Finally, last but not least my request is for Command Line support and the option to always have the display "On Top" of all other windows or applications. Both are extremely useful for some Front Ends (Especially, the one I use for almost all my emulators - Game Launcher).

http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/

 

Thanks again, Greg. Great work!

 

Regards,

Trebor

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I too have noticed the Karateka story scroll bug - and it's one that always get's brought up on the MESS board when Atari 7800 bugs are being discussed. I believe I even remember someone in MESS development mentioning that it IS related to the timing of the clock in One on One.

 

This Emu DOES support command line functions. I set it up to work with the GameEx front end last night, and it runs just fine. The onyl thing I would change would be that once you go to Fullscreen mode, the default is that the menu is hidden, whereas now as it is, the default is that the menu is shown, and you need to press escape to hide it.

 

Beef drop has changed SOOO many times, becasue it's being worked on constantly by Ken. I think Greg might have had a previous incarnation that he actually got working.

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This Emu DOES support command line functions. I set it up to work with the GameEx front end last night, and it runs just fine. The onyl thing I would change would be that once you go to Fullscreen mode, the default is that the menu is hidden, whereas now as it is, the default is that the menu is shown, and you need to press escape to hide it.

 

Fantastic! Glad to see command line support is there. Sometimes when I experience the results I did with the frontend, it can result in Command line support being "fully" implemented yet. Since that isn't the reason, command line support is implemented this is what happened:

 

When the emulator launches you can't here or see anything for it. You see the Windows task bar with the FE running on the bottom with the Command View (DOS BOX) also running (Executing the FE functions/commands). There is the Prosystem Application Window running as well, with the title of the game listed (IE ProSystem Centipede). However, nothing else is there. Above the task bar is black. ZSNES had the same issue *many* moons ago. To fix it, the ZSNES team created an option check off 'Always run On Top', which corrects the problem.

 

Not all emulators have the issue. I believe it is dependent on how it 'writes' to the screen - I forget the exact reasons. I do recall one of the NES emulators having the same exact issue (Again, as well as "older" version of SNES - going back at least 3+ years).

 

I use the Game Launcher Front-End on the following emulators without problems: MAME, MESS (Run seperate for both Atari 7800, ColecoVision, and Vectrex systems), Nestopia, Kega Fusion, Stella, ZSNES, Magic Engine, MekaW, VisualBoy Advance. It also was used by me, and can still be used for Z26, Gens, and many other NES emulators.

 

The Front End is great because it runs full screen with screenshots in the background and you can scroll through the list of games, launch ROMS, and even change systems with either keyboard keys, mouse or/and game pad. In case you missed my link before, it is here: http://www.dribin.org/dave/game_launcher/

 

...I highly recommend it. Doesn't write to the registry, it is small, not difficulty to configure, and very resource friendly.

 

Anyhow, enough talk of the front-end. Hopefully, what I'm stating makes some sense.

 

-Trebor

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I was reading the post and figured I would check for myself, and after going thru all the old posts in Beef Drop work in progress for the 7800. http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...er=asc&start=50

I found a post by kenfused on Wed Nov 17, 2004 1:12 am. Where he posted a working demo of the game that works with the emulator. I have checked all the demos from the first to the newest and this is the last one that works with the emulator. There is a couple after this version that do load and play but play 10x the speed. So this was the last working copy you could play I found download it here if you want to give it a try. http://www.atariage.com/forums/download.php?id=32452

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Hello

a really good emulator.Will it be possible in the future,to use a joypad or

even to use the stelladaptor?

greetings Gambler172 :wink:

 

You wouldn't want to use a Stelladaptor with ANY 7800 emu, never mind this one when Greg addes joystick support. The Stelladaptor doesn't support the 7800's dual fire button setup, so games like Karateka, Choplifter, Commando, or ANY games that required the use of dual fire buttons would be unplayable with the Stelladaptor.

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