Request for beta testers for Stella

[+stephena]

I've done a number of releases of Stella in the past where bugs were reported right away. In many cases, these bugs were very easy to fix; I just didn't know about them. As such, I'm sending a call out for people who want to see Stella improve, and are able to test alpha/beta versions.

 

I'm planning to do a 2.3.5 release in the next week or so, but there are a few reported bugs that I'm unable to reproduce. So anyone who would like to help with testing, please download a build and let me know. I'm especially looking for people to try the OSX port, since I only have a few testers, and I'm unable to reproduce their crashes. I'll update this thread as I create new builds.

 

OSX:

http://minbar.org:6666/StellaOSX.app.tar.gz

(uses all OpenGL extensions recommended by Apple for better performance)

 

http://minbar.org:6666/StellaOSX.app_tex-rect.tar.gz

(uses one of the OpenGL extensions recommended by Apple for better performance)

 

http://minbar.org:6666/StellaOSX.app_all-disabled.tar.gz

(uses no OpenGL extensions, should be the same as version 2.2)

 

Win32:

http://www.urchlay.com/stella_nightly/stel...atest-win32.zip

 

 

Linux:

http://minbar.org:6666/stella-2.3.03.tar.gz

(dynamic build, all features enabled)

 

Please let me know about any problems you find. I'm particularly interested in any differences between the three OSX versions (ie, this one works, that one doesn't), as I can then narrow down the problem. Include any pertinent info (version of OS, video hardware, etc).

 

Also, I'd like to hear if everything is working fine as well, not just if there are problems. Any feedback at all is better than nothing.

 

Thanks,

Steve

Edited January 11, 2007 by stephena

[SeaGtGruff]

I'm sending a call out for people who want to see Stella improve, and are able to test alpha/beta versions.

 

I'm planning to do a 2.3.5 release in the next week or so, but there are a few reported bugs that I'm unable to reproduce. So anyone who would like to help with testing, please download a build and let me know.

I'll certainly be trying the Win32 build, and will let you know of anything I find.

 

Michael

[Danno]

any chance of getting a better port of the PSP version of stella than what's currently available?

[decypher]

I will beta test aswell.

 

Jim

[+stephena]

any chance of getting a better port of the PSP version of stella than what's currently available?

Not unless someone wants to send me a PSP I don't have the hardware, so I can't work on it. And it's a shame, since the current PSP port is based on Stella 1.4, and we're at 2.3 (2.3.5 soon). The number of improvements between these versions is absolutely ridiculous. In many ways, it's almost a completely new codebase. And the new code works very well on these type of systems. Ask some GP2X owners

[SeaGtGruff]

any chance of getting a better port of the PSP version of stella than what's currently available?

Not unless someone wants to send me a PSP I don't have the hardware, so I can't work on it. And it's a shame, since the current PSP port is based on Stella 1.4, and we're at 2.3 (2.3.5 soon). The number of improvements between these versions is absolutely ridiculous. In many ways, it's almost a completely new codebase. And the new code works very well on these type of systems. Ask some GP2X owners

What about the Game Boy Advance? (I just got a Game Boy Advance for my birthday.) I've heard that there are Atari 2600 emulators for the GBA (unless I'm all mixed up, which I frequently am), but I haven't bothered to search for any yet-- mainly because I'm going to use my new phone instead, but also because I don't understand how the cartridge thingy would work (i.e., how to load a game into the emulator on the GBA).

 

Michael

[Buzbard]

Ok, here's a glitch in the Win32 version, when I select a rom image and then click the "Select" button, Stella exits. But if I double-click a rom image the game launches.

 

[edit]I tried a few more roms and noticed that some roms will start when "Select" is clicked.

Such as:

Acid Drop (the NTSC conversion by TJ)

Air Raid (Men-A-Vision)

Alien's Return (PAL)

Asterix (PAL)

...

[/edit]

Edited January 12, 2007 by Buzbard

[+remowilliams]

So anyone who would like to help with testing, please download a build and let me know. I'm especially looking for people to try the OSX port, since I only have a few testers, and I'm unable to reproduce their crashes. I'll update this thread as I create new builds.

I'm limited on time, but I'll give the OSX version a spin

 

If you have any specific suspected bugs that you want to try to verify under OSX, let me know and I'll check them out.

[+stephena]

any chance of getting a better port of the PSP version of stella than what's currently available?

Not unless someone wants to send me a PSP I don't have the hardware, so I can't work on it. And it's a shame, since the current PSP port is based on Stella 1.4, and we're at 2.3 (2.3.5 soon). The number of improvements between these versions is absolutely ridiculous. In many ways, it's almost a completely new codebase. And the new code works very well on these type of systems. Ask some GP2X owners

What about the Game Boy Advance? (I just got a Game Boy Advance for my birthday.) I've heard that there are Atari 2600 emulators for the GBA (unless I'm all mixed up, which I frequently am), but I haven't bothered to search for any yet-- mainly because I'm going to use my new phone instead, but also because I don't understand how the cartridge thingy would work (i.e., how to load a game into the emulator on the GBA).

 

Michael

Same problem as the PSP. I don't have the hardware, so I can't create a port. I believe you can get Atari Anthologies (or something) for the Advance??

[+stephena]

So anyone who would like to help with testing, please download a build and let me know. I'm especially looking for people to try the OSX port, since I only have a few testers, and I'm unable to reproduce their crashes. I'll update this thread as I create new builds.

I'm limited on time, but I'll give the OSX version a spin

 

If you have any specific suspected bugs that you want to try to verify under OSX, let me know and I'll check them out.

Main thing to test is it if works in OpenGL mode, or if it crashes Some users have reported problems, while others say it's working fine. So I need people with different types of hardware (PPC vs Intel, Intel vs ATI video) and OSX versions to test all three OSX builds and say which one works and which doesn't. Then I can narrow down what the problem is.

[+stephena]

Ok, here's a glitch in the Win32 version, when I select a rom image and then click the "Select" button, Stella exits. But if I double-click a rom image the game launches.

 

[edit]I tried a few more roms and noticed that some roms will start when "Select" is clicked.

Such as:

Acid Drop (the NTSC conversion by TJ)

Air Raid (Men-A-Vision)

Alien's Return (PAL)

Asterix (PAL)

...

[/edit]

Confirmed. I'll look into this right away.

 

OK, I know what the problem is, and have fixed it in CVS. Thanks for the bug report.

Edited January 12, 2007 by stephena

[SeaGtGruff]

What about the Game Boy Advance?

Same problem as the PSP. I don't have the hardware, so I can't create a port.

I searched for one shortly after I posted, and it looks like there *might* be one out there (but not Stella), with two or three others in development-- but maybe no longer being worked on. I found out that the GBA screen is only 320x160, or something like that, so an Atari 2600 emulator probably wouldn't look good, anyway. So I'm not going to worry about it; I've got my phone, and it works!

 

Michael

[atarimac]

Steve,

As you know I'm very limited on time, but I ran all three of the MacOSX versions, and didn't see a crash. I have a MDD Dual G4 1.25 GHz, with an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, running 10.4.8.

 

Mark

[+SpiceWare]

I'm one of the people that have reported about crashes to Steve. The crashes occur on both my iMac G5(GeForce FX 5200) and my Dual Core MacBook(GMA 950). Both are running OS X 10.4.8

 

To help others look for the problem, here's how I cause it to happen: - during a game hit \ then EXIT GAME and start up a different game.

 

Please note - the crash does not occur everytime. When it does, it seems to happen when the window size has to change such as when going from the NTSC to the PAL version of Medieval Mayhem.

 

I've attached the 2 versions of Medieval Mayhem:

mm20061213bNTSC.bin

mm20061213bPAL.bin

[Ze_ro]

And the new code works very well on these type of systems. Ask some GP2X owners

Indeed it does! Stella is easily one of the most mature and full-featured emulators the GP2X has. In fact, I barely use my computer for emulation anymore, since the GP2X does pretty much everything just as well (and portably!).

 

--Zero

[+stephena]

I'm one of the people that have reported about crashes to Steve. The crashes occur on both my iMac G5(GeForce FX 5200) and my Dual Core MacBook(GMA 950). Both are running OS X 10.4.8

 

To help others look for the problem, here's how I cause it to happen: - during a game hit \ then EXIT GAME and start up a different game.

 

Please note - the crash does not occur everytime. When it does, it seems to happen when the window size has to change such as when going from the NTSC to the PAL version of Medieval Mayhem.

 

I've attached the 2 versions of Medieval Mayhem:

But the crash isn't occuring any more, correct? Or at least that's what I understood from your last email, when you said the builds are 'working fine'??

[+SpiceWare]

But the crash isn't occuring any more, correct? Or at least that's what I understood from your last email, when you said the builds are 'working fine'??

That's correct - the new builds work fine on my systems.

Edited January 13, 2007 by SpiceWare