Stella 4.1.1

mediamogul

I decided to take a look at this to see if there was a better experience of playing Super Breakout and Kaboom! with my PS3 controller than the libretro version of Stella.

When configured for analog paddle control, it really is a step up. The ability to play the keypad games is a big plus too.

I then decided to build version 4.7.3

Reading this, I was curious to see just how old 4.7.3 is and was surprised to see it listed as being the current "stable" version. So, I take it that the memory leak and excessive CPU usage is only in the current development build?

It may worthwhile if others can test and confirm my findings

I've been testing this all day and it's performed very well with every game and control scheme I've thrown at it. the CPU never rose above 36% and the memory usage never got higher than 1.6%. I compared it to 4.1.1 and the performance was no higher or lower.

The main feature that I was hoping would pay off does indeed. The in-game analog cursor no longer sticks to the sides nearly as much as it did previously. This is inline with the changelog after 4.7 that claimed the issue was greatly improved. I would say that it's barely noticeable now.

The only problem that still persists is that screenshots are still saved out in what almost seems to be inverted colors. I don't know much about compiling, but since this doesn't seem to be an issue on other platforms, I wonder if something could be adjusted there to account for the issue.

Anyway, I'm really glad you tried this, as I had written it off as being currently impossible. Now, I'm able to play 'Kaboom!' without a handicap. Granted, I'm still lousy at the game, but at least I can't blame the controls anymore.

BuZz

I have a module with updated stella - will test with 4.7.3. Certainly I had issues with 4.7.2 but from what you have said looks like it's all sorted now.

mediamogul

@BuZz said in Stella 4.1.1:

I had issues with 4.7.2

Those memory issues were just a point release older then? Wow.

I have a module with updated stella - will test with 4.7.3

Very cool! Thank you for that. I'll continue testing it quite a bit myself. I played 'Kaboom!' until I was bleary eyed yesterday.

BuZz

@mediamogul Could be an bug due to retropie compiler options or something perhaps so I will look into that too if I get the issue with 4.7.3.

BuZz

Well it works for the most part, but I'm still getting all memory eaten up on the game Combat. Odd as the rom is fine on earlier versions. Need to look into it further.

mediamogul

@BuZz

Ouch! I'll load up 'Combat' a little later and see what happens. I'm using top to monitor. Is there a better way?

BuZz

@mediamogul top is fine, the process will be killed if you hit the bug as it eats up all available memory very quickly - top will probably not respond until after it's killed.

mediamogul

@mediamogul

I'm running the game now and assuming top is accurate, the memory doesn't seem to be moving past 1.6%. I'll play a few games, then let it sit for a while to see if starts misbehaving.

BuZz

@mediamogul i will build stella without our compiler optimisations - it could be some compiler bug or something.

BuZz

@mediamogul I am getting the crash still even building without optimisations. Very strange. The rom is fine on the older version. Will dig further.

BuZz

@mediamogul Please can you detail your system specs and the md5sum of the Combat rom you tested with.

mediamogul

@BuZz

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
5.1V 2.5A PSU
RetroPie 4.1.14
Pre made SD Image on RetroPie website
8GB SanDisk microSD
Memory Split: 400
'Combat' md5sum: 4c8832ed387bbafc055320c05205bc08 (From the "Good" ROM set)
Run from 128GB External USB Thumb Drive, mounted using the auto-mount feature of RetroPie

BuZz

@mediamogul thanks.

mediamogul

@BuZz

Not a problem. I just shut my test game down, but I checked on it about every twenty minutes or so for the last couple of hours. It seemed to behave itself the whole time, never using more than 1.6% of the memory.

BuZz

@mediamogul Unfortunately I am still unable to get Combat working with 4.7.3 of Stella.

Same set-up as you - manually compiling exactly as above. Other games work, but Combat doesn't. Same md5sum too.

Are you able to send me perhaps your zipped working "binary" from Stella, so I can compare it. I can't think why we would be having different results currently unfortunately. (my email is viewable on my profile).

Are you starting it from the commandline manually to test? Please can you paste me terminal output including the exact commandline you use to launch it etc? (And you are certain you are launching the new stella and not the previously installed one etc? - just to be sure as I can't think why it would behave differently )

Cheers.

mediamogul

@BuZz said in Stella 4.1.1:

Are you able to send me perhaps your zipped working "binary" from Stella

Done and done.

Are you starting it from the commandline manually to test?

I added:

default = "stella-4.7.3"
stella-4.7.3 = "/opt/retropie/configs/atari2600/temp-release/stella-release-4.7.3/stella -maxres 320x240 %ROM%"

to my /opt/retropie/configs/atari2600/emulators.cfg file.

BuZz

@mediamogul Aha. mystery sold.

I wasn't using the maxres parameter with the new one (I didn't think it should be needed since we are on sdl2 now and I was going to launch with -fullscreen 1 -tia.fsfill 1). Without that it crashes - it's fine with maxres. Interesting.

Please can you try without the -maxres 320x240 to confirm it crashes on your system too ?

mediamogul

@BuZz

Please can you try without the -maxres 320x240to confirm it crashes on your system too ?

It's strange, but it seems to be holding strong without it as well. Could it have anything to do with the new version not playing nice with the older Stella config files?

BuZz

@mediamogul You could try removing the configs from /home/pi/.stella as I'm testing with a fresh install.

mediamogul

@BuZz

I removed the config files from /home/pi/.stella and tried launching it with and without -maxres 320x240 and the memory usage remained constant both times. It did however raise to 1.7% for a short time without the entry, only to return to 1.6% pretty quickly.