Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons

future.child

@Used2BeRX Disregard the remark about the two parameters, the sdl one is for keyboard joystick.

Both Asterix and Hash do nothing for me either in pole position (btw the numpad does not have a hash key).

Edit: Neither the original atari800 emulator nor kat5200 on both retropie and windows do anything with asterix and hash in pole position for me.

Used2BeRX

@future.child At least we got the same results. :)

That manual you're looking at... Is it the text document? I'm thinking somebody made a mistake on it. I'll have to look around and see if I can find a PDF or alternate instructions. Maybe whoever wrote that just guessed at those two since they often were the keys used for similar pre-game options.

EDIT: Nope. I found a manual I can post here. http://www.gamesdatabase.org/Media/SYSTEM/Atari_5200//Manual/formated/Pole_Position_-1983-_Atari.pdf

Those keys should be good. WTF, right?

EDIT2: You don't think it might have something to do with using True Analog and/or the fact this is one of the few games that default to Trackball, do you? I've got a couple of ideas for testing. I'll get back to you on them when I'm done.

EDIT3: Well... that didn't prove anything. I tried turning on True Analog for Pengo again and the Hash still works in Pengo with it turned on. I was wondering if possibly the Trackball was maybe fighting with the dual stick code for 1 player or something, but no... the hash does work on Pengo with True Analog turned on and only one joystick plugged in. I'm out of ideas.

EDIT4: What I noticed while playing Pengo though is that Pengo uses the "0" key to change players, so configured as-is you need to have the USB keyboard to change the number of players. I think what I'm going to do today is make a "Map" of functions for the joystick and start going through the Atari 5200 games 1 by 1 with the manuals so the same keys will do the same things on all of the games.

Could you tell me where the emulator saves the information when you select an alternate emulator to launch in the emulators.cfg file? I want to know how RetroPie knows to use a different emulator automatically after you've made that alternate choice in the game loading menu.

EDIT5: BTW... could you program it so you can map the "PAUSE" button on the controller? I forgot about that. I believe the 5200 was the first console system in history that had the ability to pause the game.

future.child

@Used2BeRX I'm starting to think it is a bug in the rom (or dump of it) or every emulator around has the same flaw.
I can not get the asterix nor hash input for pole position on any of the emulators i have tried.

Since pole position reacts to 7 and 1 for gear shift it would be in trackball mode, maybe trackball sends another value for asterix and hash than a keyboard would ?

For pengo, Digit_0 will be added in the next release, it is the only button not yet mapped from the a5200 joystick, may as well get that one too.

As for pause, it is an option to add it, it's just as easy as the digits, but since you can press start + shift to enter emulator menu it would be unnecessary as entering the menu also pauses the game.
I'll add it just for accuracy's sake.

Used2BeRX

@future.child I'll try something else with Pole Position. You gave me an idea to test out. I'll let you know more after I did it.

I didn't even realize that 0 wasn't added yet. Thanks for adding it. Thanks for adding the Start button too. For PS3/4 controllers I'm going to configure the Home Button to use it.

I'm starting a spreadsheet for the re-mapping and I'm going to use the manuals to get all of the buttons for games. I will send you a link to it when I get the ball rolling.

EDIT: What does "SDL_JOY_0_SELECT=" actually map to?

future.child

@Used2BeRX "SDL_JOY_0_SELECT=" maps to the select button found on the atari 400/800(xl)'s.
I assume you meant pause button, as start was already mapped ?

Used2BeRX

@future.child No... I was talking about the "SELECT". It's mapped to every one of my games in the 5200 but it dawned on me that there was no select button. I assumed it was an 800 thing, but just wanted to verify.

Could you try Bounty Bob Strikes Back! I've tried a few other games and the controls are good with the standard configuration but for some reason I can't move "left" or "up" with Bounty Bob on either the DPad or the Left Analog stick.

adriansos666

@Used2BeRX Thanks for working on it and also for hints on how to save carts with headers with Altirra. So I did play little with it and got few questions (some of them are in regards to XL so I understand if you don't care to answer them since your work is focused mainly on 5200):

Your example joypad key values are for PS3 pad -right? Why those values would be different than mine if I use same joypad?
I ran jstest and wrote down my PS3 pad key values. Used them in the config and I'm able to start game in 5200 with what I've mapped to the START button and exit emulator with SELECT + START. For some reason this doesn't work when I play 800XL games (I have separate atari.conf file which I use when starting XL games, but SDL_JOY_0 entries are same as in my config for 5200). I can exit emulator with L2+R2, but can't start game with neither. Also in XL mode, fire works when I press R3 which is not even mapped to anything in my XL config.
I saw somewhere in this post being mention that emulator menu can be accessed with on of the joypad buttons. How to do that?

If that control scheme could be used for XL games that would be wonderful. Games like Cave Lord, Spy Hunter and Druid use some of the functions of the 2nd Atari controller so it would be cool to map them to the 1st player joypad.

future.child

@Used2BeRX The SELECT button is native to the 400/800(xl) but was not present on the 5200.
The reason you should leave it mapped though is because it serves as hotkey:
SELECT + START to exit emulator
SELECT + * : Emulator Menu
SELECT + # : Reset

I have tested BBSB and directional did work with setting JOY_SPEED_ADJUST=11 (completely disabling adjustment) with Analog controls.
Probably the game was developed with digital input in mind.

future.child

@adriansos666

For questions 1 and 2:
Do you have my latest release ?
I updated it yesterday due to a bug not accepting the new mappings over hard-coded ones.

Further, do you have in your emulators.cfg specified where your config file is ?
If not the emulator may use the default path ($HOME/.atari800.conf).

For question 3:
SELECT + START to exit emulator
SELECT + * : Emulator Menu
SELECT + # : Reset

Used2BeRX

@future.child Thanks for reminding me about the hotkey on the Select. I forgot about that. Doh!

You were right about the digital input on BBSB as well. I changed the default cfg to 11 for joy speed and that did the trick. Not sure if there were other games affected by this as well.

I'm actually going to be making configurations for every game now, and the mappings will be on the spreadsheet. I'll post it now so you can peek in on the progress, but know that it's in the very early stages now and I have to "fix" all of the games I did so far for the SELECT button to work. I haven't actually made any configs yet. This is just a preliminary map for when I do.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VhS4f3RFCzkPeOpyVYaWno3-Ls0EjJnj_I9WjKfvnuI/edit?usp=sharing

mediamogul

This is long overdue, but I'm going to move this thread to 'Ideas and Development', which is better suited for this topic. On a personal note, I use this emulator a lot and it's great to see it getting so much attention here.

Used2BeRX

@adriansos666 Yes, the values are for a PS3/4 joystick. It is an off brand one though, so it's possible that the maps aren't perfect because of that. I haven't tested on a legitimate PS3/4 joystick to compare. You might be using one of the configs I had posted specifically for a game so they would be off from the default in that case.

I would follow future.child's advice about your questions. I don't want to confuse things by chiming in with wrong information.

Used2BeRX

@mediamogul Hey man. I'm happy to help. This was one of my consoles when I was a kid and it always gets overlooked. :)

Maybe you know the answer to this question. When you set a game to use an alternate emulator on launch, where does that information get saved that automatically launches it in the future? I'm going to be making separate configs for every game so there are going to be a lot of lines added to emulators.cfg for the 5200. I wanted to know more about this, and knowing where that info is saved is something I need to know.

mediamogul

@Used2BeRX

The individual launch commands are located in /opt/retropie/configs/atari800/emulators.cfg and /opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/emulators.cfg. However, the per-game preferences for those launch commands are located in /opt/retropie/configs/all/emulators.cfg.

Used2BeRX

@mediamogul Thanks man. I knew where the launch commands are set, but the per-game info is exactly what I was looking for :)

So it looks like that's based off of some sort of Hash value then? If that's the case I will definately have to make instructions for how to set up each game the first time for the special controls instead of using the standard Atari 5200 configruation. The good news though is that it doesn't matter where the rom is located. I'm assuming that I could move these to different folders now and they would still launch with the configuration I set for them.

adriansos666

@future.child & @Used2BeRX Sweet! Those key combinations work like they suppose to. Updated binary all good. Found typo in emulators.cfg for XL (missed one folder in the path where atari800.cfg sits). Got XL working fine with trigger, start and select mapped to the joypad and still using dedicated config file.

One more question, how use d-pad for directions if I want to? And what's the meaning of numbers next to SDL_JOY_0_LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN and TRIGGER? Is it analog value? Also on the slightly unrelated subject, do anyone of you guys have issues with audio being lagging and very choppy? I've tried different sound settings inside emulator but no matter what it is choppy. Increasing latency seems to work but only for a while before sound becomes choppy again. I have tested libretro with Atari800 core and audio plays nicely.

future.child

@adriansos666 to use the d-pad you would have to disable true analog (set TRUE_ANALOG_JOYSTICK=0 in your config).
This is because the analog joystick sends continous analog values, so when d-pad is used the emulator could receive two different values.

The numbers next to SDL_JOY_0_LEFT, RIGHT, UP, DOWN and TRIGGER are sdl keycodes, these are used to map keyboard keys to joystick input.

As for sound, i have not noticed stuttering (analog jack, overclocked pi3).
What setup do you have, maybe i can replicate the issue and find the cause, or better yet a solution.
Possibly because there have been added some new routines for joystick there is a timing issue.
~~Did you try lowering the sample rate or play with other sound setting in the emulator menu ?~~

Used2BeRX

@adriansos666 I am running a Pi Zero that I clocked to 1000mhz (not overclocked, but it comes at only 700mhz by default). I don't have any issues with sound or laggy behavior in Atari 5200.

Used2BeRX

@future.child * and # don't seem to be responsive to change the players or difficulty in Kangaroo. I won't mention that type of stuff in here anymore. I will put it in the Notes section of the spreadsheet and highlight it in red. There may be more that I've missed so far. I will be testing all of this thouroughly when the emu is ready and I start making the different game configs.

future.child

@Used2BeRX this makes two roms unresponsive to asterix and hash input.
I will dig up a servicemanual and see if i can find a clue (maybe the trackball uses a diferent codes for these than regular joystick does ?).

Anyway, it seems i already mapped digit 0, i just seem to have forgotten to update the readme and sample config.
I will add the pause button somewhere tomorrow and post an update.