Is the ATARI5200 emulation of the ATARI800 broken?

[misterkilgore]

OK I SOLVED IT!!!!! :D :D :D

On the Atariage forum i've read that someone had the same problems and solved it by upgrading his hardware from a pi3 to the pi4. On the other hand I downgraded the retropie version to the 4.5.1 and now everything works great. I'm no expert but i can guess that 4.7 is pre-compiled for the pi4 so on a pi3B+ is buggy. The 4.5.1 version of retropie is the last one made explicitly for the pi3. Since all the others emulator works reasonably well, i think i'll stick with it.

[tobas]

@misterkilgore hi, sorry to necro but I'm having the same issue, how were you able to downgrade? I would like to do the same if possible.

[jamrom2]

@tobas I disagree with downgrading. I have a Pi3b+ and have both the a5200 and a800 working flawlessly now based on this fine method.

Go through this and set everything as suggested. It should fix your issues.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/22392/lr-atari800-5200-artifacting-basic-and-other-guidance

[tobas]

@jamrom2 I followed the instructions but sadly it crashes every time. I can get them to load only sometimes if I mash f1 quick enough on my keyboard to get to the emulator menu. otherwise I'm out of luck.

[jamrom2]

@tobas You have to make sure you have a good romset and the correct BIOS name as well as version. There are a lot of BIOS files out there, but I found many of them were bad. I kept trying till I found a set that worked well.

Make sure they are named properly as well. The script that is posted in that thread relies on there being a few BASIC and BIOS files. So make sure you have them. Atari 800/5200 rely on specifics and it is a finiky emulator set to get working. The 5200 being the easier of the two.

Did you at least get the 5200 working? BTW... there are separate build for each Pi version. For all we know, the above user may have built with a Pi4 image. Just confirm that's not your issue. If you did, this will be a lot harder to fix.

[tobas]

@jamrom2 the weird thing is, I was using the same roms and bios on my old pre-built image and it worked flawlessly. I decided to build a new one using buster and it refuses to work.

the most frustrating part by far is like I said, if I catch it before it crashes by mashing f1 I can load to the emulator menu and hit "load atari program" and it works no problem.

[tobas]

@jamrom2 so I experimented a bit. it seems that only the [b2] versions will work mostly. but some roms have no solution, the original pitfall for example.

[jamrom2]

@tobas as the build changes, so do the emulators, and so do the problems that need to be worked out.

I'd go back and download all new BIOS files, as well as a good known romset like TOSEC. I used that one, and whatever roms didn't work, I Googled till I found a good rom. I was very selective which games I wanted so I limited it to under 400.

I think you'll find following that guide to the letter will get you in the right direction with all new roms and bios files.

[tobas]

@jamrom2 yeah I'm grabbing the TOSEC set now, fingers crossed.

[tobas]

@jamrom2 no good. I give up. not like I play 5200 anyway. so frustrating.

edit: for example, on the cartridge code list it tells you how to convert cartridges using the emulator using nifty codes. except most of those codes don't exist. Pitfall! is an example of this. there is no 8kb option at all.

[jamrom2]

@tobas don't give up yet.

So you have the correct a5200 bios in the BIOS file. Did you try a few of them to make sure it's not the BIOS. Now, you start a5200 (a game that works always seems to be BallBlazer) Do you have the done?

If you don't have this file in the location it's supposed to be in, and named properly... the two emulators (well, one really... two branches of it) will fight for control of the emulator config file.

Make sure you have a file called /opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/retroarch-core-options.cfg with this in it:

atari800_artifacting = "enabled"
atari800_cassboot = "disabled"
atari800_internalbasic = "disabled"
atari800_keyboard = "poll"
atari800_ntscpal = "NTSC"
atari800_opt1 = "disabled"
atari800_opt2 = "disabled"
atari800_resolution = "336x240"
atari800_sioaccel = "enabled"
atari800_system = "5200"

[tobas]

@jamrom2 thank you so much for trying to help me. it seems 5200 emulation just isn't in the cards for me.

I actually found the old image had backed up on a card in a drawer. I booted it up and 5200 worked without a hitch. I figured, jackpot, I'll just transfer the settings and configs to my current image. no dice.

short of finding a pre-converted 5200 romset somewhere I don't think it's going to work out.

[stoogesfan87]

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