Old Computer Appreciation Thread

Folly

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@folly I read through the conversation and it's great that some of your contributions were implemented! However I was curious to know why you chose to close the pull request?

Well, everything seems so simple in github.
But really I was lost in how to keep the fork in sync with the master branche and how to implement the changes that are advised to make.
Basically, I was thinking I could do this, but I found it too difficult to do.
Damn, I still have to quite a lot to learn ;-)

There's a lot more we could implement, you've done absolute tons of work on the PC88.

I think I can do the suggestions now on the closed pull request.
This way I hope they can be implemented.
I think It's best to do just 1 at a time.

AdamBeGood

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

I've been looking into some systems that are readily available on RetroPie Setup but we haven't discussed yet.

Any suggestions of games for the Atari 8 bit computers, the Atari ST, the Dragon 32, the TI99 and TRS80?

Atari ST is the only one I am familiar with, and almost everything on that was available (and mostly better) on the Amiga.

Found this thread with exclusive games though: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=37111

and this one about ST versions that were better than their Amiga equivalents: http://forum.classicamiga.com/forum/showthread.php/1072-Atari-ST-games-that-outshone-the-Amiga

Zering

@AdamBeGood That's disappointing about the Atari ST! Thanks for the links.
Found out today you can seriously boost performance for FM Towns by increasing the CPU overclock in the RetroArch menu. I'm running Raiden Densetsu and Tatsujin Ou at full speed with almost no choppiness. Raiden Densetsu is incredibly addictive.

Folly

@zering

I had a look again at the PC8800 docs.
I couldn't find changes in the original docs.

So I looked at the pull requests, @mitu has the changes, he made, in his fork of the RetroPie-docs here :
https://github.com/cmitu/RetroPie-Docs/blob/master/docs/PC-8800.md

So we have to look at this doc.

I had a fast look, it looks quite good already.

AdamBeGood

@folly said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@zering

I had a look again at the PC8800 docs.
I couldn't find changes in the original docs.

So I looked at the pull requests, @mitu has the changes, he made, in his fork of the RetroPie-docs here :
https://github.com/cmitu/RetroPie-Docs/blob/master/docs/PC-8800.md

So we have to look at this doc.

I had a fast look, it looks quite good already.

That looks good to me! So much better than it used to be...

Folly

@adambegood

Well, I have to look at it a bit better.
And I have to install it all again, because I am working already a month on a new install.
So it can take a while.
But indeed looks pretty improved. :-)

Zering

@folly I've just seen this and it looks excellent! I'm glad we spent so much time trying to figure out this core now ^^

@mitu It should be noted in the docs that standalone quasi88 is not included with RetroPie-Setup on the RPi4 and that it requires manual compiling.

mitu

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@mitu It should be noted in the docs that standalone quasi88 is not included with RetroPie-Setup on the RPi4 and that it requires manual compiling.

Does it work on a Pi4 ? The reason is disabled is that it uses SDL1, which is not compatible with DRM/KMS.

Zering

@mitu I haven't tested myself but I seem to recall that @Folly and @AdamBeGood had managed to compile it to play some games (Refight) that did not run on the libretro core.
It's in this thread, I'll see if I can find it.

@mitu I think it was post 633.

mitu

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

@mitu I think it was post 633.

Thanks for the dig up.
I don't think Quasi88 will be enabled for the PI4, as far as I remember the issue was that it wasn't full screen due to using SDL1 and so lr-quasi88 is the best choice for the Pi4.

Zering

@mitu That's right, as I recall that was the issue. However given that quasi88 runs games that lr-quasi88 doesn't, wouldn't that qualify it to be reincluded?

mitu

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

However given that quasi88 runs games that lr-quasi88 doesn't, wouldn't that qualify it to be reincluded?

For 1 game, IMHO no.

Zering

@mitu Then perhaps we could compromise and detail in the docs a way to manually compile the standalone core? I'm sure there are more than one game ; we just haven't stumbled upon them yet.

mitu

@zering said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

Then perhaps we could compromise and detail in the docs a way to manually compile the standalone core?

The standalone emulator doesn't work properly (on the Pi4), so I don't see why I'd encourage its usage.

I'm sure there are more than one game ; we just haven't stumbled upon them yet.

Why not report it as a bug to the upstream Libretro core ? It seems to receive a few updates now and then, while the original emulator is long abandoned.

Zering

@mitu How would we go about doing that?

mitu

@zering File an issue on the Github's project page.

mitu

I've looked at the game and it looks like the option that's not correctly translated by the Libretro core is the 'ROM Version' configuration option. In standalone, it can be set from a range of values, though the default version works with Refight. The libretro core may not initialising this version correctly and the game doesn't properly detect something.

Folly

@mitu

I had a look at it too and had the same experience.

There is a setver (set_version) option (in ROM/MISC) in the standalone version.
When I set to another version I will get somewhat the same error as with lr-quasi88.
So it seems that lr-quasi88 doesn't use a good default version.
Also the setver option isn't included in the retroarch-core-options.
So indeed, a good idea to file an issue.

BTW: (not judging your decision to turn off QUASI88 for the pi4, I understand it's guite old )
If you add -double to the commandline of standalone QUASI88 it will be fullscreen on the pi4(when running from emulationstation from cli).
Running from the desktop needs -full instead.

mitu

@folly said in Old Computer Appreciation Thread:

When I set to another version I will get somewhat the same error as with lr-quasi88.
So it seems that lr-quasi88 doesn't use a good default version.

It might be more than that, I've tested a bit the libretro core with various settings and it still doesn't work. Will have to dig a bit more.

If you add -double to the commandline of standalone QUASI88 it will be fullscreen on the pi4(when running from emulationstation from cli).

In addition to that, you can use -width <x> -height <y> and it will fill-up the screen. -double only doubles the resolution, but it doesn't fill up the screen or centers the image. That might be useful if we're to enable it again.

mitu

I think I may have found the issue with the libretro core.
If anyone is willing to give it a try, replace the repository with my fork in the lr-quasi88.sh file (see here):

rp_module_repo="git https://github.com/cmitu/quasi88-libretro.git fixes"

and re-try a source install. Refight should boot correctly this time.

I only tested on another couple of games, since I don't have many, so I'd be interested to know if affects - negatively - other games.