Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons
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@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 -
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.
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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.
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@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?
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@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. -
Mapping the second player joystick and its action/keypad buttons to the player one joystick through external key-mapping is also possible.
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?
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@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.
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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. :)
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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. :)
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@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:
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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.
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You'd need to follow the latest instructions to install @future-child's latest atari800 beta that works with 4.4
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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. :)
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This offer extends to anybody who does the above steps. For a limited time only. :)
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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!
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Well...
- You're going to need headerless roms at some point, one way or another. The headerless ones are garbage and would require you to re-configure every game, every time you launched them. Sadly, as far as I know, this is the state of Atari 5200 emulation. The system never got much love.
I had to put headers on every rom using an emulator on my PC. It took a few hours. Like I said, you might be able to find these somewhere, but short of that, you're going to have to pay the piper one day if you ever want Atari 5200 emulation. I'd give them to you myself, but that's against the rules here.
- I'm using a Pi Zero. No issues on the hardware you're using I'm sure. You're going to want to upgrade to 4.4, or at least 4.3 if you want Atari 5200 emulation on it (unless @future-child says the Kat5200 is easy to setup and doesn't require them). The reason being that this is the system I will be configuring games on going forward, and this will be useless to you or anybody using 4.2 or before. The emulators.cfg I had for 4.1/4.2 would have been useless to you as well unless you had the exact roms I had, as well as had them in the exact folders.
Again, you can do this yourself without upgrading to 4.3 or 4.4, but unless you want to re-setup every single game every time you launch them, you would need my configurations. And even then, you wouldn't have the controller configurations, so you probably still wouldn't be able to play the games properly without a lot more work on your end.
- You'd have to rename your own roms. I will not be renaming back to a no-intro format as their filenames are garbage. My names are the exact titles without any ugly characters in them, so they display properly on the XBox, the Pi, and PC emulators, with or without any XML renaming. They also match all extra artwork/video/other media I have for them. A datfile wouldn't help you anyhow though, since any of the roms you have wouldn't match if they don't have the proper headers.
It's really not that big a deal here since there is a very small library of 5200 games. If you can't handle this part of the equation, which is by far the easiest, then I'm sorry to say that you might not ever be able to play those Atari 5200 games you love.
I'm busy doing many other things, but I happen to be focusing on Atari 5200 at the moment. Once I'm done though, I'll be moving on to other things and chances are I won't be coming back to it for a very long time. I tend to forget about how to setup all of this stuff when I'm away from it a while. Even with my very detailed spreadsheet, it took me a while to dive back into it. I'm only offering this right now because it wouldn't be extra work for me if somebody were interested at this point in time.
I'd be saving you seriously about 100 hours of work if you do those things.
Up to you man.
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It's no biggie. I plan on tackling it some day. For the moment, I'm not feeling rushed to do so. I know the 5200 library is pretty small. It's actually the 800 computer I'm more interested in. I wan't aware, from an emulation standpoint how much work would actually involved. From my point of view, it was a matter of plugging in a cartridge, or a 5.25 floppy. I didn't really know how it all worked, being just a kid. I just figured if you could get the 800 emulated, a cartridge game should just work on the fly automatically.
I don't mind going through the process of rebuilding my romset with headers. It's all of love of passion. Only people who are willing to take extra steps deserve to have it working. My only concern with any of this was realization that a working process hasn't been fully matured yet, and I've been leery of devoting time to setting it up.
The new Atari VCS might solve all this anyway. I've already made my $360 "Day One All In" contribution to the project. I doubt they'll have EVERY game, especially 800 games that required a keyboard (Infocoms, etc).
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@hansolo77 said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:
The new Atari VCS might solve all this anyway. I've already made my $360 "Day One All In" contribution to the project.
I've been interested in hearing more about the new VCS. As a contributer, do you know anything about the hardware specs or the games that will be included?
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I don't know anything more than what they have on their webpage. Indiegogo has some updated content that lists the specs:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atari-vcs-game-stream-connect-like-never-before-computers-pc#/ -
Looks like it could be pretty versatile. It's arguably a bit pricey for the specs on paper, but I imagine the true value will depend on how nice the user experience is. Also, a unique, eye-catching design like that is rarely brought to market inexpensively. All in all, it kind of reminds me of something Apple would put together. I didn't see much in the way of games outside of 'Tempest 4000', but as it's running Ubuntu, I guess you could install just about any emulator or Linux-based game that the specs allow. Very interesting.
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Yeah I'll probably put RetroPie on it lol.
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Done in one! I like it.
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So far the VCS looks like trainwreck. Already overpriced but underpowered, with no system-selling software, vague promises and nothing real shown (instead lying about Tempest running on VCS). Above all, Atari SA is a company with an abysmal track record and no connection to the old Atari whatsoever.
Anybody who believes in it probably should avoid this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/266480-new-atari-console-that-ataribox/page-391
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