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

Used2BeRX

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

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

I wonder why it would stop working? @mediamogul says he uses atari800. I'd think he'd at least be using your build that has all of those sweet upgrades for the controls instead of the standard one.

Actually, I'm just using the plain vanilla Atari800. Every game and control scheme works very well, including those that need analog control and/or a second action button. Something important to note however, is that I have saved all my games through the Atari800 GUI with the appropriate headers, so they load automatically when launched from Emulation Station. Also, I make use of external key-mapping to take full advantage of Atari800's versatile control schemes.

I've been running multi-emulation setups for years and have always found it imperative to employ a key-mapping solution of some sort. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever tools are made available by individual software developers. For example, Atari800 emulates every possible control scheme you'll need to play any game in the Atari 8-bit family library, but the actual ability to map is somewhat lacking.

Yeah. I made headers for all of them using Alterra (at least I think that was the name). I wrote a guide on how to do it here in the forums somewhere.

Once I employed the joystick fixes that were done by the OP and @future.child, I made a few configs that most of the games point to, and then I had about 15 games that needed individual controller configs. This way I was able to get every game to more or less use the exact same buttons to do the exact same thing.

My spreadsheet for the control configs can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VhS4f3RFCzkPeOpyVYaWno3-Ls0EjJnj_I9WjKfvnuI/edit#gid=0

This was really a lot of work. I'm not very happy right now that it seems to be all for nothing.

Unfortunately, I have other things running that aren't going to be done for quite a while, so I can't go back in and see for sure if everything is set up right.

mediamogul

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

This was really a lot of work. I'm not very happy right now that it seems to be all for nothing.

I know that movie.

future.child

@used2berx i just loaded a fresh install of retropie-4.4 to see if my binary still works...... i can now confirm it does not.

A re-compile from source exits with message: Assertion `EGL_FALSE != result' failed.....
Presumably i am missing some dependency (sdl ?) , If i can get around to it i will see how to get this fixed.

mitu

@future-child Is the source the one available at https://github.com/jfroco/atari800-rpi ?
EDIT: nevermind, I assume it's actually your fork from https://github.com/futurechild/atari800-rpi/

future.child

@mitu It's the one at https://github.com/futurechild/atari800-rpi

mitu

@future-child said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Presumably i am missing some dependency (sdl ?) , If i can get around to it i will see how to get this fixed.

Sometime last year (October ?), the RPI GLES libraries have been renamed to accommodate both the open source Mesa EGL API and the Broadcom original libraries. In short, the libEGL and libGLESv2 libraries have been renamed to libbrcmEGL and libbrcmGLESv2.

In order to compile on Stretch (or a recent version or Jessie, since this update has also happened there), you just need to replace in configure.ac

[...]
       A8_NEED_LIB(GLESv2)
      A8_NEED_LIB(EGL)
[...]

with

       A8_NEED_LIB(brcmGLESv2)
       A8_NEED_LIB(brcmEGL)

and then run autoreconf -v and ./configure --target=rpi as normal.

Alternatively, you can patch the binary with patchelf (you need to install it on Stretch) and run something similar to https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/scriptmodules/helpers.sh#L1288 over your old binary.

future.child

@mitu Thanks for the info, i was not yet aware of the name changes, i'll have a look at it sometime tomorrow.

Used2BeRX

@future-child said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

@used2berx i just loaded a fresh install of retropie-4.4 to see if my binary still works...... i can now confirm it does not.

A re-compile from source exits with message: Assertion `EGL_FALSE != result' failed.....
Presumably i am missing some dependency (sdl ?) , If i can get around to it i will see how to get this fixed.

I do appreciate your time looking into this and letting me know about it man. The other code that's been tying me up the last day and a half should finish running sometime this evening. You just saved me a lot of hair pulling and gnashing of teeth. :)

Thanks for trying to get it working for me again. It won't keep me from looking into the kat5200 if you feel that's a better option in the future, but I'm on a clock here. My bro's out of town till the end of the week and I've got a lot of real world stuff going on this week too, so unfortunately after tonight my time with his new Pi build will be very limited. I will try having everything else running the best I can tonight in hopes you can come up with something.

future.child

@used2berx I updated the binary for retopie-4.4 (thanks to @mitu for saving me the time to investigate the cause).
I now have a binary for the older retropie versions as well as for the current 4.4 (i named it atari800_4.4) on github.

to install :

cd /opt/retropie/emulators/atari800/bin/
sudo cp atari800 atari800.original
sudo wget https://github.com/futurechild/atari800-rpi/blob/master/atari800_4.4?raw=true -O atari800
sudo chmod +x atari800

Used2BeRX

SWEET!!!!

My code won't be done running until sometime tonight, but when I get everything setup and re-install your new binary I'll let you know how it goes. Finger's crossed. :)

Thanks a lot for taking the time to do this.

Used2BeRX

@future-child

Thanks for doing that man. It's working now.

I'm going to have to re-configure a bunch of stuff, but it's actually not bad. The emulators.cfg file that stores the launch info no longer seems to use the number string indicating the CRC and path, which is great if anybody wants to use my setup on their own games. Much better shot at it working this way.

It completely ignores the original entries (example):

af3162bdecbe06ab968cd407f271622b7 = "Centipede"

And it makes a new entry (example): atari5200_Centipede = "Centipede"

It may have been doing this as early as 4.3, but when I originally did this work on the 5200/800 I was using either 4.1 or 4.2.

Man... I'm glad I made that spreadsheet. It will be super easy to pick which config to use for each game now. :)

My only concern is the dual joystick thing. I don't remember how everything worked, and I've only tried a few games so far, but the second player on Ballblazer just wanders around aimlessly. That might have been how it used to do it if you only used one controller. I don't have time to dive into it right now, but I just wanted to let you know it worked and that I'll be messing around with it when I get time this week.

Thanks again.

adriansos666

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

@used2berx said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

I wonder why it would stop working? @mediamogul says he uses atari800. I'd think he'd at least be using your build that has all of those sweet upgrades for the controls instead of the standard one.

Actually, I'm just using the plain vanilla Atari800. Every game and control scheme works very well, including those that need analog control and/or a second action button. Something important to note however, is that I have saved all my games through the Atari800 GUI with the appropriate headers, so they load automatically when launched from Emulation Station. Also, I make use of external key-mapping to take full advantage of Atari800's versatile control schemes.

I've been running multi-emulation setups for years and have always found it imperative to employ a key-mapping solution of some sort. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever tools are made available by individual software developers. For example, Atari800 emulates every possible control scheme you'll need to play any game in the Atari 8-bit family library, but the actual ability to map is somewhat lacking.

I'm curious. I play (quite frequently) few old games for Atari 800/XL/XE home computers, which were using 2nd joystick for additional control.
To name them:

Spy Hunter - 2nd joystick fire button deployed smoke or oil
Cave Lord - 2nd joystick directions controlled direction for the shooting
Druid - 2nd joystick allowed to control Golem.

I know most of you guys are talking Atari 5200 but since it shares same emulator as Atari 8-bit computers, I wonder if it is possible to map controls of the 2nd Atari joystick directions to the right analog stick and fire to one of other buttons using Atari800 emulator?

future.child

@adriansos666 Yes, one of the modifications was to allow the physical controller 1 second axis to control the virtual controller 2 axis.
I'm not sure if controlling virtual controller 2 button by physical controller 1 was implemented (i think it wasn't).
A5200 and A800 both use the same configuration options.

mediamogul

@adriansos666

Mapping the second player joystick and its action/keypad buttons to the player one joystick through external key-mapping is also possible.

@future-child

I'm very glad to see this modified version of Atari800 back on its feet again. Are there any plans to to continue development? Also, while I know a few of the mods are RetroPie-specific, do you plan to send any of the changes to the main project for consideration?

future.child

@mediamogul I was not planning on continuing active development for lack of time, mainly because i ran into a few snags which would require an almost complete redesign (i.e. changing to a event driven scheme instead of polling, analog axis sensitivity/linearity).
I anyone has specific issues (like the incompatibility with retropie-4.4) i'll try to find a fix for it though.

I welcome anyone to fork or use the modifications as inspiration to further improve the lr-atari800 port, of which i'm not sure if it's actively being maintained as the last commit was 2 months ago.

As kat5200 serves all my peek and poke needs, i am quite happy using it instead of atari800.

Used2BeRX

@future-child

Just an FYI bud...

2 Players works fine. I just started up Ballblazer with both controllers in there and there weren't any problems. I was thinking that was the case, but it's been so long since I did all of this that I couldn't remember how everything worked.

I'm going through alphabetically and setting up every game with the configs that I had made and testing out all the functions (for 2 players if the game was more than 1 player too).

Not sure if I'll get to Space Dungeon or Robotron to verify that the 1 controller fix you put in works, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Thanks again. :)

Used2BeRX

I only got a chance to try Robotron out with 2 joysticks, but it seems to work fine. As per the spreadsheet, you have to share the 1st player controller. The 2nd player joystick will only fire with the left stick and you can't move it. Still haven't tried out Space Shadow yet.

I might be asking a few questions about kat5200 while I'm setting this up. I noticed that we never got around to fixing those two bugs in the atari800 setup. Bug 1: using the D-Pad in some games interferes with firing, and Bug 2: only one button works for the 2nd controller in 2 player games, so any 2 player game with 2 different functions for buttons will not work for the 2nd player.

I won't have time to configure everything to kat5200 before I get this to my brother, but maybe I can figure out how to get all the games with bugs working on it. There's about a dozen of these.

Oh, and does Kaboom work in kat5200? We never got that one to control right in atari800.

EDIT: Tested all the US Lincensed, as well as all protoypes and homebrew I had on the spreadsheet from before, and everything works (good and bad) exactly as I had it in there now. I have yet to get around to all of the 800 to 5200 conversions I had done, as well as possibly add new game configurations for games I have in my collection but never got around to yet.

I will look into kat5200 for launching any games that have bugs/issues with Atari800. I've decided not to use kat5200 for any games that are working as designed with Atari800 since it would just be redundant at this point.

Thanks again for fixing this emu for us. :)

Used2BeRX

@hansolo77 said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

Wasn't 4.4 designed around the Stretch OS? Maybe hthat's where the compatibility lies. Regardless, I'm eager to set those systems up because it's what I grew up with. But I'll still delay going through all the troubles. I'm on vacation right now, and would really hate to have to go through all of the heartache and waste it.

Good luck though. I'll keep watching this thread to see if you make any positive progress!

Hey man,

I was wondering if after I get these configs up and running again if you'd like to test things out on your end?

It would be a little bit of work on your end, but really not all that much (assuming everything will work as good as I think it should). It turns out that at least since RetroPie 4.3, the emulators.cfg did a MUCH better job handling individual game configurations. Before, there was a super long random hash value that accounted for your exact rom and the location of it on your file structure. Now it just looks for the game system / game name match, so the fact that you likely wouldn't have the same roms I have will not be an issue, and you don't have to worry about having the exact same file structure as me to get these things to work.

Things you would need:

Atari 5200 roms with headers. These may or may not be available anywhere online. I made them all myself with a 5200/800 emulator I believe was called Alterria. I made a guide on these forums on how to do this. If you can't find that guide, I can dig it up for you.
You'd need to follow the latest instructions to install @future-child's latest atari800 beta that works with 4.4
You would need to make sure your rom names are the exact match to those I have in my setup.

I do believe that is all you'd need to start.

We could work together to make sure you have all the configs in the proper place after that, and everything should work for you at that point.

I'll still be working at some point to try to get everything configured for kat5200... at least any of the games that don't seem to work right with future.child's updates, such as Pole Position and Kaboom!, as well as about a dozen games that work great for 1 player but have buggy controls for the 2nd player.

Let me know if you're interested and we can start doing this whenever you're ready and I have the time to reply. I'd love to do this because I could write up a short and simple guide to help other people do this after verifying that everything works on your end as well. :)

Used2BeRX

This offer extends to anybody who does the above steps. For a limited time only. :)

hansolo77

I probably can't be much help in this case then, as I don't match any of your criteria. #1 would be the killer, as I only have whatever is available through No-Intro, which is probably headerless. #2 would probably also be a problem because I'm not running the new Pi hardware, and not that version of RetroPie. #3, again, would depend on if you're using a No-Intro romset. If you've renamed anything, they won't match. Unless you provided a dat that we could use against our romset to have them name up exactly (or maybe you could rename YOURS to match theirs?).

I would be happy to help though otherwise!