xulchris Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 (edited) I have been testing like crazy the past month or so and Wilbert has been fixing bugs as fast as I can test! I am very impressed with what Wilbert has been able to accomlish since the release of MESS 0.115. Anyway, the purpose of this post is to ask the community if there are any 2600 games that are particularly hard to emulate correctly and display graphics glitches. I have tested just about every game I own and reported all the graphics glitches I've been able to find, but there is only so much one person can do. Does anyone here know of any games that show glitches in other emulators which you would like to see fixed? If there is any game you know of that is not yet perfectly emulated by any 2600 emulator, please let me know. Just to let you know that from my testing, I have found several glitches in stella which are now working in MESS. It seems there is nothing Wilbert cannot fix with regards to the TIA emulation. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help out with testing. Edited May 27, 2007 by xulchris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 I think Meltdown is one that usually causes problems and maybe video pinball. I'm sure there are others. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 27, 2007 Author Share Posted May 27, 2007 Thanks Mitch! I checked out Meltdown and MESS is not keeping score or showing the right two columns of atoms! I also read at atariprotos.com that the emulators for this game squish the rightmost columns. I've reported this to Wilbert, let's see if he can figure out what is going on. I have already tested Video Pinball in MESS and it seems to function properly. The only issue that I have read about is that the ball does not bounce of the paddles, and I'm not sure if this is the particular issue you are referring to. However, from my tests, Video Pinball appears to be 100% correct in MESS. Please let me know of any others you can think of! Regards, Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robbbert Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 Hah, thought I'd find you here. Good luck with the testing and emulation! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rxd Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 (edited) I downloaded Mess .115 to give it a go. Well, my results from very little testing are dubious. I first tried Communist Mutants from Space and it doesn't seem to want to work at all, unless I have to do something special to get those Starpath games to work. Next I tried Cosmic Ark and I get a multicolored line scrolling back and forth that runs from the top to the bottom of the screen. The game runs but that line makes it kind of useless. So in my 15 minutes of testing I tried 2 games and both either didn't work or had rather obvious graphical issues. But I'd be happy to test some more if you want me to.... Edited May 27, 2007 by rxd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 27, 2007 Author Share Posted May 27, 2007 I downloaded Mess .115 to give it a go. Well, my results from very little testing are dubious. I first tried Communist Mutants from Space and it doesn't seem to want to work at all, unless I have to do something special to get those Starpath games to work. Next I tried Cosmic Ark and I get a multicolored line scrolling back and forth that runs from the top to the bottom of the screen. The game runs but that line makes it kind of useless. So in my 15 minutes of testing I tried 2 games and both either didn't work or had rather obvious graphical issues. But I'd be happy to test some more if you want me to.... All of the improvements have taken place after MESS .115. You have to either test the development version in SVN, or else wait for MESS 0.116. The starpath suppercharger games are not yet supported. We are simply looking for graphics glitches at the moment. The starfield in Cosmic Ark is perfect with the latest development version in MESS. The MESS emulation of the starfield is actually more accurate than Stella's version as compared to real hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 27, 2007 Author Share Posted May 27, 2007 BTW, I should add that we are not yet looking for testers. I will ask the community to test MESS when 0.116 is released. Right now I'm simply looking for any games that are not yet correctly emulated by any existing 2600 emulator such as Meltdown. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rxd Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 Sorry if I misunderstood.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rxd Posted May 27, 2007 Share Posted May 27, 2007 FWIW, I'm looking forward to the next MESS release with these 2600 fixes because MESS emulates the 2600 in full screen mode much better on my Mame cabinet than does Stella for some reason.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 29, 2007 Author Share Posted May 29, 2007 Some progress on Meltdown was made today! Still not perfect yet, but very close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted May 30, 2007 Share Posted May 30, 2007 Hey Chris, Going thru the multicolor warp in Solaris is currently screwed-up in Stella, as shown here: Although it would be great to see these bugs in Stella fixed in MESS, and I'm not trying to but a damper on things, but the sound changes introduced in MAME as of 0.112u3 have really caused problems respecting sound in both MAME and MESS. I have (and continue to use) MESS for my Atari 7800 and ColecoVision emulation; however, ever since those changes were introduced, the stuttering/skipping of sound is anywhere from occasional to frequent. Hopefully soon, changes or additional options will be provided to fix or work around the issue. Until then, users may find themselves fustrated with the sound output of MESS. You can read more of the topic here - quoted by MAME's current coordinator Aaron: http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showt...part=1&vc=1 Although the problem is usually worse for Arcade games running at refresh rates outside 60Hz with triplebuffering or vsync enabled, games and consoles running at 60Hz without the options enabled are affected as well. -Trebor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rxd Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 Sigh... That mame .112u3 thing is now rearing it's ugly head in Mess? The Mame guys can say whatever they want, I don't think these changes were well thought out at all. All they keep talking about is taking steps forward. What good is that if you step right off a cliff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S1500 Posted May 31, 2007 Share Posted May 31, 2007 My only complaints with MESS was not the core emulation, but the GUI around it. I was using it exclusively for the TI-99/4A emu. Looking through the docs, I found out it defaulted to a not-so-great working disk emulator. The help files are in desperate need of paragraph breaks, and it had problems with long filenames. Got frustrating to use after about 10 minutes. Then again, I work in software QA, so I see things a bit diffy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Solaris works 100% in MESS, Wilbert fix that space warp thing already. Meltdown score is also now working as of today. There is still a slight graphics problem with Meltdown (one alternating frame is off by two pixels). Does anyone know what TJ's 11 inv demo is supposed to look like on real hardware? Also Realsports Boxing looks 100% perfect in MESS as of today, I think this is the frist time any emulator runs this game without any graphics glitches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted May 31, 2007 Author Share Posted May 31, 2007 Oh, and I'm not sure about the sound thing. I run sdlmess here and it seems okay for me. I'm sure Aaron will eventually figure it out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted June 1, 2007 Author Share Posted June 1, 2007 Wilbert tried to post this screenshot himself, but I think he still needs to get approved by a moderator or something fisrt? Anyway, here is a pic of the supercharger loader screen in MESS: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogstar_robot Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Does anyone here know of any games that show glitches in other emulators which you would like to see fixed? If there is any game you know of that is not yet perfectly emulated by any 2600 emulator, please let me know. The Cobra head in GI Joe is notorious. Z26 does pretty well with it but the current stable release of Stella still looks screwy. The AA screenie for the game has what Stella and other emulators tend to do with it: http://www.atariage.com/2600/screenshots/s...braStrike_1.png Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted June 1, 2007 Author Share Posted June 1, 2007 Hi frogstar, I tested GI Joe and the Cobra head looks perfect in MESS Thanks for the input, any other games? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbanes Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Pitfall II makes use of a special coprocessor designed to allow polyphonic sound without sacrificing graphical performance. This coprocessor makes it difficult to emulate. I also recommend trying the M-Network games (Burgertime being a good choice) to make sure that the bankswitching and extra memory capabilities are working properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilbert Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Pitfall II makes use of a special coprocessor designed to allow polyphonic sound without sacrificing graphical performance. This coprocessor makes it difficult to emulate. I also recommend trying the M-Network games (Burgertime being a good choice) to make sure that the bankswitching and extra memory capabilities are working properly. Pitfall II is still on the todo list and that one does not work yet. The M-Network games (including the ram for burgertime) seem to be working nicely currently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted June 5, 2007 Author Share Posted June 5, 2007 I downloaded Mess .115 to give it a go. Well, my results from very little testing are dubious. I first tried Communist Mutants from Space and it doesn't seem to want to work at all, unless I have to do something special to get those Starpath games to work. Commie Mutants now works, but the spaceship doesn't show up. There are a few graphics glitches with support for the new supercharger games, which I'm sure will be looked into soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nathan Strum Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 Seems to me Kool-Aid Man is tough to get working, but I couldn't tell you the technical reasons why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted June 7, 2007 Author Share Posted June 7, 2007 Seems to me Kool-Aid Man is tough to get working, but I couldn't tell you the technical reasons why. Someone mentioned that kool-aid man works on an original machine, but does not work on an 2600jr machine. Can anyone verify this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mitch Posted June 7, 2007 Share Posted June 7, 2007 A late batch of TIA chips (both NTSC and PAL) had a bug that broke kool-aid man. This affects some 2600jrs and 7800s. It seems to be more common on PAL machine than NTSC ones. Mitch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xulchris Posted June 9, 2007 Author Share Posted June 9, 2007 MESS now supports MagiCard with new keypad controller support! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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