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

Used2BeRX

I wonder if this was actually not working a lot earlier in the process, but some time after I had tested Beamrider and didn't have any problems with it. I know for sure that left worked at the time I had tested it, for all 4 players (on two joysticks alternating). But it is one of the very first few games alphabetically in the 5200 library, and we did make a ton of alterations over many months.

What is version "3.1.0"? Is this before you touched it at all, or the last build you had made before moving to kat5200?

(I guess the good news to report is that a complete re-testing of all of the games I had originally tested didn't bring any other control issues to light. This is baffling though.)

future.child

@used2berx Version 3.1.0 is the version of the original Atari800 emulator upon which i added my modifications.
The following tests have been made:
Atari 3.1.0 (original) retropie 4.4 : Beamrider only moves right
Atari 3.1.0 (my ver.) retropie 4.4 : Beamrider only moves right
Atari 4.0.0 (original) retropie 4.4 : Beamrider only moves right
Atari 4.0.0 (my ver.) retropie 4.4 : not yet finished*

Atari 3.1.0 (original) retropie 4.3: works as intended
Atari 3.1.0 (my ver.) retropie 4.3: Beamrider only moves right (so somethin's off there i can't explain yet)
Atari 4.0.0 (original) retropie 4.4: testing
Atari 4.0.0 (my ver.) retropie 4.4 : not yet finished*

*This version has a lot of changes (like native HAT support, i'm looking if analog support can be added as the numerical buttons should pose no problems.

Used2BeRX

@future-child Wow! You've decided to kick around the tires on Atari800 a bit more? That's awesome. :)

Glad you seem to have been able to pin down the Beamrider issue. Hopefully you figure out a solution for it.

*This version has a lot of changes (like native HAT support, i'm looking if analog support can be added as the numerical buttons should pose no problems.

These changes your talking about... are they already in the version you updated to work on RP 4.4, or are these new things? I'm just wondering if you're going to need a re-test of all the games again or not when you have an update.

Also, do you think any of these changes you're planning might fix the strange bugs that occur, such as some games like Choplifter having problems using the trigger buttons if you move with the analog stick instead of the D-Pad, or only 1 trigger button working on 2 player games so you can't jump with the 2nd player in Moon Patrol?

future.child

@used2berx
The HAT support is new in the original 4.0 Atari emulator, this was added in my version (actually it was added by jfroco) because the original 3.1 did not have this, my release for RP-4.4 is still based on Atari800-3.1 .

I'm looking at the source of Atari-4.0 too see if the new code lends itself for adding real analog control's (the dreamcast built seems too support it so there is a starting point to investigate there).
The code is still not event driven though but just maybe analog is feasible.
When (if) it happens i will probably release it parallel to the existing one.

Used2BeRX

@future-child Cool man... let me know if you come up with anything and I'll test it out on my end.

I've put the breaks on my NES/FDS project for now while trying to wrap up this Pi Zero setup for my brother. I've got to give him a call and let him know that I'm going to take some extra time to set up the SNES and configure all of the emulators/roms for the best performance. I think I can get 95% of them working great on Pi Zero, but it's going to take a bit of tinkering and setting things up on the emulators.cfg file. I discovered that my set didn't have a lot of correct no-intro stuff, and unbelievably Prince of Persia was the German version!!!! I'm in the process of fixing all of that, so I should have this thing for a week or two more. Hope to maybe eek out a little better performance on the 5200 if it's at all possible. :)

Thanks again.

Used2BeRX

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

@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

Hey man. It turns out I'm going to have to revert to a 4.3 build for my Pi Zero. Do I use the same instructions above, but remove the _4.4 from the wget line?

Thanks. :)

future.child

@used2berx Yes, the original version is still there that way.

Used2BeRX

@future-child Thanks again man. Works perfect. :)

Well... except for that Beamrider issue. No worries. I'll probably figure out how to get it running in kat5200 someday whenever I put my focus on 5200/800 emulation for my own projects.

This was a lot easier setting up this time since I just did it. I was dreading having to put the 5200 again for the 4th time, but everything is up and running with very little pain.

hfgx1

Could someone kindly help.

All I want to do is in Moon Patrol, instead of pressing X to jump, I want to press B on the controller.

I have a classic NES controller (USB)
LR-Atari800 emulator
Retropie 4.4
Moon Patrol game atari 5200

My NES controller only has A and B button
You need X button or keyboard to jump in moon patrol.
How can I just change it so I can press B on the controller to jump?

Used2BeRX

@hfgx1 There's no easy fix to this, unfortunately. It took a lot of work to get all of the 5200 games working in the atari800 emulator, and you'd have to have special launch files for the various games and download @future-child's version to make games like robotron work right on top of it.

He's since abandoned atari800 and works with kat5200 now, but setting that up will take a bit of work as well and is a completely different process to set up correctly. That may be a better option for you though if you want to play Moon Patrol with 2 players. Although I feel that the work done on atari800 is amazing and it works pretty much perfect for 1 player once you take the time to properly set everything up, any 2 player games that had more than one button function like Moon Patrol won't play properly for the 2nd controller since every button on the controller besides the D Pad will perform one of the button presses and none of them will perform the 2nd button press. (In the case of Moon Patrol, I believe the 2nd player can only jump and cannot shoot).

I'd be willing to take some time to help you set atari800 up to properly run, but you'd have to realize going into it that you'd need to have properly headered roms and name them all the way that I've named them to work with the configurations that I have. It won't be a quick process.

hfgx1

@used2berx Can you please assist me. I have asked elsewhere, and received zero replies.

In the first question I asked how to get Moon Patrol to work with a controller missing an "X" Button. Your reply dove into 2nd player for some reason. I don't have a second player, no one I know would play these old games with me anyhow. So I don't care about a 2nd player.

Here is my setup:
lr-Atari800 and game MOON PATROL
I have edited /opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/retroarch.cfg
added the following lines:
input_player1_a_btn = 0
input_player1_x_btn = 1

Now my "B" button on the NES controller works. It Jumps. "A" shoots, "B" jumps
Problem Solved.

QUESTION....
How do I get lr-Atari800 to work without a keyboard.
Now I have to press F4 on the keyboard to start a game

What do I edit to make the "START" button on the NES Controller start a game, instead of F4 on keyboard?

As a side note, I find the retropie.org.uk forum very weird and frustrating. It only loads sections. Every other forum I visit can load pages. Is there anyway to load every reply within this topic?

Used2BeRX

@hfgx1 I don't know how you'd get the start button to work in this case because you are setting up your controller a completely different way than I do.

That's what I meant when there is no easy answer to your question. Setting up the Atari 5200/800 really sucks and takes a lot of work.

Since I got every game for the 5200 working except for some really strange ones like the realsports games and a few others that rely heavily on the keypad, I have around 30 different configuration files which get loaded by runcommand, so instead of saying it's launching with the "atari 800" emulator in the gray box, it will say something like it's loading with "Centipede", or "Pengo", or "Default".

I don't even have a "retroarch.cfg" file in opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/, but there are 38 other .cfg files in that folder, and the emulators.cfg file in that folder is 5kb.

So, I wish I could answer your question, but I have no clue how to do what you're doing. You've edited a file that doesn't even exist on my Pi. I'm assuming that you must be using the new libretro version of atari800 that I won't even use. It doesn't have all the controller upgrades that @future.child made to his version.

As for the forums, I agree. It took me a long time to get used to how this site works, and I still really don't care for it. Maybe it works great for people with new and flashy computers, but for somebody rocking a decade old relic like mine, I find this forum very difficult to navigate and I've all but given up trying to find an old post somewhere.

hfgx1

@used2berx Thanks for your reply and attempt at help.

I have downloaded KAT5200, got it to run, but I personally still prefer lr-atari800.
Strictly a matter of preference.

I really wish there was a way to show every reply in this post, that way I could just use Ctrl-F and find keywords I'm looking for. Oh well.

Regardless, thanks for the replies. I will continue to dabble trying to get the control to start a game, instead of F4 using lr-atari800.
If all else fails, I will keep KAT5200

Used2BeRX

@hfgx1 Yeah. Good luck man. Unfortunately, I can't really offer any help unless you were to download @future.child's old non-libretro atari800 build, and even then if you wanted to get any of the games working you'd need my collection of configuration files, you'd need to properly header all of the roms and you'd have to name them exactly as I have or none of it will work. I personally think I have the best Atari 5200 emulation experience on the RetroPie going on my setup, but nobody wants to take the time or effort to meet those requirements. :)

If you're looking for any assistance though, I'd recommend you play around with KAT5200 and just dump the lr-atari800 build. The general consensus around here is that nobody is really clear why atari800 was added under the libretro umbrella since unlike with other systems it seems to do very little for the end user when it comes to customizing controls, and it actually seems to do the opposite and it keeps you from doing things that we can do outside of Libretro.

@future.child might be able to give you some suggestions if you use KAT5200 whenever he's around, since he decided ultimately that it was the best choice for him. I don't think you're going to get any help around here about the lr-atari800 emulator because I don't think anybody is using it. :)

But hey... maybe if you dig deep enough you can prove everybody else wrong and show us that lr-atari800 is the best 5200 experience on the RP when it's set up right. I'm sure that if you did it would be a lot easier for me to use your Libretro configs than for me to try to provide you with mine and write a novel detailing every step you'd need to follow just to have working roms before we even started with the control stuff.

hfgx1

@used2berx I found my solution.

Using lr-Atari800 I can now start an Atari 5200 game with a 2 button original Nintnedo controller. No longer need any keyboard. This will not work for all Atari 5200 games, since some do require keypad entry.

My Setup
RPi 3B+, RetroPie 4.4, lr-atari800
Original 2 button NES USB controller I press START on controller to start a game
I press SELECT and START simultanously to exit a game
I remapped the "B" button to act as the JUMP button for MOON PATROL atari 5200 game.

Start an Atari 5200 game with lr-atari800
Once the game starts go to RetroArch
in RetroArch Quick Menu go to Controls
Change USER 1 DEVICE TYPE from RetroPad to ATARI JOYSTICK
SAVE CORE REMAP FILE
go back to Quick Menu
go up to RESUME or RESTART

Next optional - please note this may only apply to me since I am using a 2 button original NES controller.
In RetroArch CONTROLS menu, verify AUTO: 3 (N/A), (Key: enter) is set to START
Option 2 specifically for MOON PATROL (may only apply to me and those using 2 button NES Controller which doesn't have an "X" button):
go to X BUTTON (TOP) (KEY: S) and change from "X" to "B"

Finally:
Alot of people (myself included), could not get lr-atari800 to save and remember system settings. Every time I started an Atari 5200 game it would go to Atari Computer - Memo Pad, I had to press F1 and re-enter system settings as Atari 5200 etc...

Solution that worked for me:
Deleted all files from the following 2 directories:
"/opt/retropie/configs/atari5200"
and
"/opt/retropie/configs/atari5200"

Next I went to the RetroPie-Setup Script > Manage Packages > Manage Main Packages
Go down to "lr-atari800" and Update from binary.
Reboot

Next, Critical - before I played any game, I did the following.
Go to "/opt/retropie/configs/atari5200" directory and create a file "retroarch-core-options.cfg"
Copy and paste the following to newly created "retroarch-core-options.cfg" file

atari800_system = "5200"
atari800_ntscpal = "NTSC"
atari800_internalbasic = "disabled"
atari800_sioaccel = "disabled"
atari800_cassboot = "disabled"
atari800_artifacting = "disabled"
atari800_opt1 = "disabled"
atari800_opt2 = "disabled"
atari800_resolution = "336x240"
atari800_keyboard = "poll"

Save file. Then edit the file **"/opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/retroarch.cfg"

Add the following below # Settings made here will only......:

core_options_path = "/opt/retropie/configs/atari5200/retroarch-core-options.cfg"

Then Save, reboot the Raspberry Pi

After reboot, try to start an Atari 5200 game. It should automatically work. It will no longer take you to Atari Computer - Memo Pad

Possible problem that may arise:

You may need to tell lr-atari800 emulator where the BIOS roms are located.
Some games like Bounty Bob Strikes Back Atari 5200 will not work in lr-atari800. It appears several Bounty Bob Strikes Back Atari 800 images exist, and of those only 3 version (md5 checksum) load and appear playable in lr-atari800, but of those 3, only 1 appears to properly work in lr-atari800 with sound during game play. (side node: non-libretro version of atari800 emulator seems to have better success with BBSB)

I hope this helps someone.
But even if it does not. I hope this serves as an archive for my needs in the future, should I ever have to do a fresh reinstall of RetroPie 4.4

Used2BeRX

@hfgx1 Nice dude. I should probably save this post for posterity since a few months from now if I ever get back to 5200 emulation I'd never be able to find it again.

Now you've got controls working for 1 game that only uses 3 buttons including the start button. Lets' see if you can get some of the crazier ones that make use of the keypad working in libretro. :)

hfgx1

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

@hfgx1> Now you've got controls working for 1 game that only uses 3 buttons including the start button. Lets' see if you can get some of the crazier ones that make use of the keypad working in libretro. :)

LOL, I doubt I'll ever get that to work :)
But in all seriousness, this is all I wanted. I really wanted the Atari 5200 (and Atari 800) to work without a keyboard for a bunch of games like MOON PATROL etc.. No crazy multi-button games.
Due to where I'm playing the Raspberry Pi, a keyboard would be inconvenient.

I now have lr-Atari800 and KAT5200 installed, and am able to switch between the 2 flawlessly using a two button original NES controller.
I'm totally happy :)

Anyhow, its been great chatting with you. You seem like a cool dude. Take care.

Used2BeRX

@hfgx1 Glad you got what you were looking for man.

There are some really great games that aren't very complex overall, but they use the keypad though. First one that comes to mind is Miner 2049'er. The whole damn game can be played with just a single button except for the level with the elevators. You need to press the different numbers to move between them. There's a few of them that play just fine, but you need to use number presses to just start the amount of players or the difficulty.

I was kind of laughing when putting all of my configs together before. I couldn't figure out if the whole world was so new to game programming that nobody realized that instead of having all of these complex menus that you could have just used the joystick directions and buttons to make choices, or if they purposefully made things complex just to justify that stupid keypad.

Man those controllers sucked...

My brother actually gave me a 5200 he picked up about a decade ago off of ebay with about 10 games. If I can ever figure out how to get it working on my TV I guess I'll see if my controllers are broke just like everybody elses are.

Take it easy

darknior

@hfgx1 said in Atari 5200: New version of Atari800 (Beta): two triggers (Moon Patrol!!!), hat start and exit buttons:

But in all seriousness, this is all I wanted. I really wanted the Atari 5200 (and Atari 800) to work without a keyboard for a bunch of games like MOON PATROL etc.. No crazy multi-button games.
Due to where I'm playing the Raspberry Pi, a keyboard would be inconvenient.

I think exactly same :)

I now have lr-Atari800 and KAT5200 installed, and am able to switch between the 2 flawlessly using a two button original NES controller.
I'm totally happy :)

You write before a fantastic tuto to use lr-a800 for 5200 games, i love it and i will try it too :)
But why do you continue to use KAT5200 for some games ?

@used2berx I found my solution.

And i love it, thanks a lot :)
Can you give us same settings and options to use Atari 800 games better with default settings ?
Is there some trick too ?
And for games using analog stick, are they working fine now with your settings ?

Thanks a lot

Used2BeRX

@darknior Eventually I would like to work on Atari800 games as well, but I never even got around to doing the controller configs for them on the XBox, which is probably the first place that I would go to the trouble of doing it since Atari5200/800 emulation is a MUCH better experience overall on that platform.

I only really did the 5200 because I literally grew up with that system and I was the only one I knew growing up that had one. The Atari 800 library is HUGE and I wouldn't even really know where to start. I'd have to have a list of the "best" games on the system or something and go from there.

That would probably be a long while off though. You know how busy I am with other things, and configuring controllers is just about my least favorite thing to do when it comes to emulation. They actually say that when it comes to programming games for VR that the hardest part about porting the games is the human interaction and porting over the controls. It only takes a few days to get the game in a playable state in VR, but it can take 6 months to get the controls right.

Won't it be nice when we can all just do this stuff with our brains?