Stella 4.1.1

BuZz

We have always used the Raspbian Stella over building from source. When on Wheezy we were unable to build the newer one due to having too old tools, but we could include an up to date standalone stella now if needed (if it still works with the changes / move to sdl2). I'll add it on the bugtracker.

mediamogul

@BuZz

Your consideration alone is much appreciated.

Thank you.

BuZz

Just a quick update - Stella 4.7.2 builds and runs on the RPI, but running a game (I tested with Combat) caused it to eat up all memory until killed :/ It will need to be looked into further when I have more time.

mediamogul

@BuZz

That's still very exciting news and is great to hear.

dudleydes

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.

I am using a Pi 2 starting with the version 4.0-rc2 image released in August 2016 running version 4.1.11 of the RetroPie setup script. I have installed additional emulators from binary and xboxdrv on top of the base image.

I built the latest version of Stella with the following commands:

git clone https://github.com/stella-emu/stella.git
cd stella
./configure 
make

I then added the following to /opt/retropie/configs/all/atari2600/emulators.cfg for testing.

stella-latest = "/home/pi/stella/stella -maxres 320x240 %ROM%"

I successfully loaded Kaboom! with the new binary but when I checked the CPU usage with the command top, Stella was running at 95-96% compared to 30-40% for Stella 4.1.1. The About option in the UI tells me this latest build is version 5.0.0-pre4.

I then decided to build version 4.7.3 using the following:

wget https://github.com/stella-emu/stella/archive/release-4.7.3.zip
unzip release-4.7.3.zip
cd stella-release-4.7.3/
./configure 
make

I added an entry for version 4.7.3 in emulators.cfg.and tested it with Kaboom! This time CPU usage was similar to that used by version 4.1.1.

It may worthwhile if others can test and confirm my findings so we could possibly update to version 4.7.3. If there's any further testing that may be useful, then let me know.

mediamogul

@dudleydes

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.